I'm Julie Andrews, and it is my great pleasure to bring you Jane Austen Stories,

the new show from the Noiser Podcast Network.

I'll be reading Pride and Prejudice.

We'll walk grand estates and take tea with well-dressed gentlewomen,

but in this tranquil corner of England, not everything is quite as it appears.

Listen to Jane Austen's stories wherever you get your podcasts.

It is the afternoon of October 5, 1789.

Marie Antoinette, the 33-year-old Queen of France, watches the rain from a window of the Petit

Triannan, a neo-classical palace in the gardens of Versailles.

Though it's quiet here, there is a restlessness among her ladies in waiting,

a tension in the air. In the wider country, beyond her manicured lawns, there's not enough bread,

and prices are rising. Just months ago, revolutionaries stormed the Bastille, a fortress symbolizing

royal authority, stealing its gunpowder and releasing the few prisoners it held.

Mary Antoinette's husband, Louis XVI, has been forced to recognize the new National Assembly,

but his reluctance to collaborate has stoked their indignation.

And out here, despite the beautiful surroundings and the fact that they're miles from the capital,

it is as if everyone is waiting for something bad to happen.

Marie Antoinette suggests a card game, but none of them could settle into it. Finally, there is a knock at the door.

A breathless messenger informs the queen that she is being summoned by the king.

As she hurries along beside him to the courtyard, he tells her why.

A crowd is marching on Versailles from Paris.

Many of them market women, furious about the scarcity of grain.

...