Chantal Thomas

Chantal Thomas is a French historian, essayist, and literary author. Her fiction often examines court life through people constrained by ceremony and power. The Exchange of Princesses recreates the 1721 diplomatic plan to marry the young Louis XV to the Spanish infanta Mariana Victoria while sending Louise Élisabeth d’Orléans to marry Spain’s heir. Thomas places the two girls at the center rather than treating them as footnotes to statecraft. The French original, L’Échange des princesses, was published in 2013, and John Cullen translated the novel for Other Press. Court ritual, illness, childhood, and political calculation shape a narrative grounded in documented events but animated through intimate viewpoints. Thomas previously won the Prix Femina for Farewell, My Queen, another novel about Versailles and the lives surrounding monarchy. Her historical training supports the period detail, while her fiction focuses on how official arrangements enter private bodies and relationships. The Exchange of Princesses was later adapted for film, extending the novel’s interpretation of this unusual Bourbon alliance.