Eleanor impresses Suger with her scarlet dress and gray eyes and fine features.
Abbot Suger is Louis’s advisor and confidante, and together they travel to Aquitaine to meet Eleanor. Her father, the rich and landed William, Duke of Aquitaine, has arranged for Eleanor to marry Prince Louis, the son of King Louis VI of France. The Abbot meets Eleanor in 1137 when she is fifteen years old. The perspective changes to the first-person narrative of Abbot Suger. After each character shares his or her tale, the narrative returns briefly back to Heaven before moving to the next character’s story.
Konigsburg uses Eleanor’s conversations with her companions in Heaven as a frame story for the rest of the novel during which the others take turns remembering Eleanor’s life history. Eleanor misses life-she thinks, “Heaven is often a pale substitute”-and impatience makes her feel alive again. Henry has been in hell for eight centuries, and today, his lawyers are pleading his case to move Up. Eleanor herself spent two centuries in Hell atoning for some of the acts she committed during her lifetime. Eleanor is impatient to see if her second husband, Henry II, will, at last, be allowed into Heaven. Eleanor is “Up” in Heaven, with her mother-in-law, Matilda-Empress her protector, William the Marshal and her old friend Abbot Sugar. A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver opens in the late twentieth century. The novel’s title reflects Eleanor’s personal love of “color and luxury.” During her lifetime, members of the royalty wore robes that had been expensively dyed a deep scarlet and trimmed with white fur, or “miniver.” A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver was a finalist in the National Book Award Children’s category in 1974. Konigsburg explores Eleanor’s influence on the literature, politics, social mores, and the roles of women during the High Middle Ages. The book tells the story of the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, a wealthy and powerful woman who became the wife of two kings and the mother of two kings. Published in 1973, A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver is a historical novel for children and young adults written by the two-time Newbery Medal-winning author, E.L.
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