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Hi, this is Dana Schwartz.

I'm so thrilled to be here for a very special episode of Noble Blood for a conversation with

the author Veronica Buckley, who's written a new book, Seven Sisters, Captives and Rebels

in Revolutionary Europe's First Family, which tells the stories of the daughters of Maria

Teresa, the Habsburg Empress of Austria, the Holy Roman Empire.

Of course, her most famous daughter is Marie Antoinette, I would say, to most people.

But all seven of the daughters that survived to adulthood lived fascinating lives,

fascinating, tragic, interesting, all of the above. Ms. Buckley, thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you very much for having me. It's lovely to be here, Dana. So one thing that struck me,

right when we start this book, we get the famous Habsburg catchphrase that sort of summed up

their dynasty. Others make war. You, Happy Austria, Mary. Can you sort of summed up their dynasty. Others make war.

You, happy Austria, Mary.

Can you sort of explain what this perspective was, what that catchphrase meant?

Yes.

Well, I mean, in those days, we're talking about the 18th century.

Warfare was a sort of normal aspect of noble people's lives, the noble men, of course, and also a normal

aspect for many of the other classes in society, though not automatically so. There were a lot

of people, of course, involved in agriculture and so on. So huge numbers of people in Europe

were involved in fighting, basically.

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