What is the main conflict in To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette by Carolly Erickson?

To the Scaffold is Carolly Erickson's biography of Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France who was executed at the end of the eighteenth century. Born the daughter of Queen Maria Theresa of Austria, the pretty Antoinette was promised at a young age to the young Louis, the Dauphin of France, who would later ascend to the throne as King Louis XVI.

Erickson depicts Antoinette as a charming woman who was ill-prepared for the plotting and intrigue she encountered among the courtiers at the palace of Versailles, the main seat of the French court. Her lack of pretense and kindly disposition won her many friends, but also enemies, including Madame du Barry, the powerful mistress of her husband's grandfather, King Louis XV. Erickson documents Antoinette's lavish spending on clothing, furnishings, decorations and entertainments for the hundreds of courtiers who inhabited Versailles and followed the French court