Let's talk about Marie Antoinette

she was raised very strictly by her mother The Empress Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and Austria, and Holy Roman Empress. She could sew, was expected to be piously religious, play music, and was described by The Empress as obedient and “born to serve.”

Her bad reputation came from the French who didn’t like Austrians for whatever reason. Marie Antoinette was expected to be theatrically grand in Versailles, to the outsider it might look like she was a lazy and stuck up bitch but the way she behaved was all scripted out based on the strict court etiquette at Versailles. She couldn’t pick up her own towel if she dropped it, only a duchess of the highest family had the right to do that. To not let her ladies perform their functions would be an immense faux pas on the part of Marie.

History is typically rewritten to fit the new narrative as determined by those currently in power.

She got a bad rap. She wasn't the horrible person the French depicted. She was a prisoner in a gilded cage.

OP, have you read Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser? The book paints a very detailed portrait of her life. By the end I felt sorry for her. She was 14 when she entered into an arranged marriage with a stranger, the King of France, married off by her ambitious royal mother. When she crossed the border into France she was forced to strip naked of all her former clothing and was dressed in the clothing for her new position.

In the early days, still a teenager, yes, she was frivolous and looking for a good time. By the time of the revolution she was in her late 30s and had changed a lot. At one point the royal family was hunted down while trying to escape from being held and were caught and re-imprisoned. Saddest of all was the death of three of her four children. Two died in childhood from disease, the prince and heir to the throne was taken from her arms in prison and separated from her. He died not long after, she could hear his cries from where she was. Only one daughter survived and she did not have a happy life.

It's been a long time since I read that book and I'm sure my details might be off, but it was one of the most interesting accounts of her life that I read. Wikipedia's page about her has a lot of detail, too.

I think anyone whose last words were "I beg your pardon" (she stood on the executioner's foot while being led to the guillotine) couldn't have been all bad...

She did come in an unfortunate period when all the problems and current misrules and misjudgment (which they were indeed present) started to add up to past periods of bad governance (because Louis XV was not much better either) making the situation explosive.

[the prince and heir to the throne was taken from her arms in prison and separated from her. He died not long after, she could hear his cries from where she was. ]

He died after her. On 8 June 1795. She was executed on 16 October 1793. They took him away from her in July 1793.

The daughter was released in 18 December 1795 when she was 17. She departed from Paris accompanied by

Renée Suzanne de Soucy, one of former deputy governess of the Royal Children at Versailles. She was not apparently among Marie Therese's prefered choices. She wanted the Marquise de Tourzel (last governess of royal children) or Mme de Serent (former lady in waiting for her aunt). But the French authorities wouldn't allow them to be part of the journey. Her third choice was the Baroness of Mackau, former deputy governess of the Royal Children at Versailles. She was too old and declined. She suggested her daughter, Mme de Saucy who got the ok of the authorities. Mme de Soucy took her teenage son and a femme de chambre with her .

François Hüe, former usher of chamber of Louis XVI

Jean-Baptiste Gomin, a guard at the Temple prison. If she was to be accompanied by one of the guards, he was her favorite choice

Meunier and Baron who both worked at the Temple prison. Baron was the keys' holder. Meunier was the cook.

a soldier called Méchin

I hope the guillotine takes our own Marie A: Ivanka

They didn't exactly have a reason to kill her, they just wanted a new rule.

It always amazes me how those royals turn their backs on relatives in trouble. No one made a lot of effort to save the Bourbons, just as no one made much effort to save the Tsar. It was like "bye, girl, talk to the hand".

From the 1788 edition of the Almanach Royal

The Queen Household

Superintendent: the Pricess of Lamballe (who was brutally killed in 1792 during the September massacres in Parisian prisons and her head carried under the windows of the temple prison to show MA

Dame d'honneur: the Princess de Chimay (emigrated in 1791)

Dame d'atours: the Princess de Ossun (replaced the Princesse de Chimay as dame d'honneur in 1791. She was guillotined a couple of days before Robespierre's fall)

Dames du palais:

Marquise of Talleyrand (she succeeded her stepmother. She survived the Revolution)

Comtesse de Gramont (emigrated in 1791)

Comtesse d'Adhémar (arrested during Revolution, she survived)

Duchesse de Duras (She resigned in 1791. Arrestedm she was one of the few Noailles to survive)

Vicomtesse de Choiseul (she resigned in 1789)

Duchesse de Luxembourg (she emigrated during the Revolution)

Duchness de Luynes (survived the Revolution)

Marquise de la La Roche-Aymon (was one of those present at the Tuileries when stormed by the crowd. She survived the Revolution)

Princess d'Henin (survived the Revolution)

Duchesse de Bergues

Duchesse de Fitz Hames (she married the brother of the Comtesse of Chimey. She emigrated in 1791)

Comtesse de Polastron (emigrated in 1789. She was the sister in low of Madame de Polignac and the mistress of the King's Brother)

Comtesse de Juigné (surnumeraire) She died in 1792

Princesse de Tarente (was at Tuileries when it was stormed. She was arrested but she survived the September massacres. She then emigrated)

Viscountess de Castellane (she succeeded her mother, the Duchesse de Saulx Tavannes. She stayed in France and survived the revolution)

Duchesse de Saulx Tavannes (honorary) She died in 1793

Grand chaplain: the Bishop Duke of Laon (Louis Hector Honoré Maxime de Sabran...he emigrated in 1791)

First chaplain: the Bishop de Meaux (Camille-Louis-Apollinaire de Polignac. Emigrated during the Revolution)

Ordinary chaplains: the Abbots Duchatel (honorary), de Coucy, de Vichy, de Cambise, de Grimaldi, Poupart, Aftoin, le Moine, de Meranzac

Knight of honor: Duke of Saulx Tavannes

First squire (première écuyer): Comte de Tessé and Duke of Polignac

Squire cavalcadour: Monsieur de Salvert

Ordinary squire: Monsieur Petit de Vievigne, Monsieur Fournier de la Chateigneraye

Squires: four other chaps

Grand meitre d'hotel: Marquis of Talaru

Ordinary maitre d'hotel: Monsieur Cosson de Guimps

General controller of the household: Monsieur Mercier de la Source

Master of the wardrobe: Monsieur Poujaud and the Comte de la Morliere

Reader: Abbott de Vermond

Readers: the Marquise de Neuilly and Madame la Borde (adjoint)

Librarians: Monsieur Moreau and Monsieur Campan (secretary of the cabinet)

Ok she was spoilt and out if touch with reality. But besides that I see nothing interesting about this woman but fir her circumstance.

There's an old urban legend that, when MA realized she was in danger, still made an unnecessary detour for refills of perfume from Houbigant (which is still in business).

[quote]Of his most famous clients, Houbigant had become the official supplier to Marie-Antoinette, wife of King Louis XVI, and her court. They provided these clients with powders, scented gloves, and toilet waters. It was said that Marie Antoinette who reportedly hurried to Houbigant to get her perfume bottles refilled with Eau de Mousseline and Eau de Millefleurs before fleeing from Paris. A Houbigant legend, not verified, has it that when Marie Antoinette was fleeing to Varennes to escape the French revolutionaries she was recognized as royalty because of her Houbigant perfume, which only royalty could afford.

The Podcast "Noble Blood" has a great episode on the last days of Marie Antoinette. It explains all the weird stuff that happened to her just before she was guillotined --Including the guillotining of her best friend in the courtyard of Antoinette's prison, parading that head around town, having a hairdresser fix up the dead women's hair and makeup, and putting it on the end of a stake and hoisting up to the prison window so Antoinette could see...

vapid, vain, shopaholic

she didn't say the famous phrase attributed to her, but that it was even attributed to "madame deficit" shows how unliked she was

R14 I think the french court created the vapid and vain shopaholic.

Best take on Marie Antoinette: Caroline Weber's "Queen of Fashion"

It's a good read.

The Palace at Versailles with its opulence of art, furniture and hall of mirrors is one thing, but being truly rich Marie Antionette had them build a functioning small town and working farm for her and the children to visit as part of their own leisure and see how the poor folk lived. That is true wealth and exploitation.

R13 that's the Princess of Lambelle, the Superintendent of the Queen Household. Her appointment to that position (which was vacant by decades) created jealousies among the court's Ladies.

She was much hated by the people. Indeed, she was the only one among the queen's ladies to be killed by the mob during the September massacres. The others who were in prison (Marquise de Tourzel and her daughter, Madame de Soucy, the Princess of Tarente, the femmes de chambre Mesdames Thibault and Bazile, Madame de St Brice who was the femme de chambre of the Dauphin, Madame Navarre) all got acquitted.

Princesse de Tarente chronicled in her Memoirs those days of early September. I got the impression money were paid to save certain people incluiding the ladies of the court but Lambelle was too high rank and too hated to be saved. The appearance of the Princesse of Tarente before the court was delayed several times before finding the "right" moment.

I learned from the Norma Shearer movie that Marie Antoinette was a post-menopausal teenager.

We are nothing alike!

NOTHING!!!

R13, the dressing of the Princess' hair is in dispute - it may be a myth. The severed head was held up to Antoinette's window, but the Queen had been removed to another chamber. Evidently the jailer's wife did see the head and screamed in horror - the crowd, hearing a lady's voice, thought it was the Queen.

I don't know if Lambelle deserved her reputation or was simply hated for being the queen's closest confidante. I suppose it could have been both. Her end was brutal, though.

Supposedly the person who dressed the severed head's hair was none other than Madame Toussad when she was young.

OP she was a product of her time and the court. Not especially bitchy, she was actually quite sweet. She loved kids and one story had it she paid for one street urchin's upkeep and education.

R12 Get your facts right. Lamballe wasnt guillotined in the yard that would have been kinder. she was hacked to death and ripped apart by a large group of rampaging peasant women.

Cosign for the Fraser book. It's quite a read.

History is typically rewritten to fit the new narrative as determined by those currently in power.

R2 = Bill Barr (sweating profusely)

One of the scandals of the time was the bankruptcy of the Princes de Guéméné in 1782. The prince was the Grand Chamberlain of Louis XVI. The princess was governess of the Royal children, a charge previously held by Madame de Marsan (who resigned because she wasn't a fan of MA). Mme de Guéméné was her niece. That family held this charge for decades. So when Mme de Guéméné was forced to resign because of the bankruptcy and MA gave the position to Mme de Polignac it created even further animonisities by certain quarters

Ah, they were all related to the Cardianal of Rohan, the one of the Necklace affair. The Guéménès, Mme de Marsan and the Cardinal of Rohan all emigrated during the Revolution.

Anyway, the Prince of Guémené had a lover who died fairly young and this situation was so open and nonchalant that when she died

(from the marquis de Bombelles' memoirs)

"M. le Prince de Guéménée had lived publicly with Mme Dillon for several years, and as soon as Mme de Guéménée learned of Mme Dillon's death and the excessive pain it was causing M. de Guéménée, she left Trianon for to go and console him. That's not all: Prince Charles, his daughter, and the Princess of Montbazon also went to Touraine, following their father and stepfather, to dry up the tears of this sorry lover. The only thing missing is seeing M. Dillon return from the island of Saint-Christophe, where he is in command, to console his wife's lover."

[quote]It always amazes me how those royals turn their backs on relatives in trouble. No one made a lot of effort to save the Bourbons, just as no one made much effort to save the Tsar. It was like "bye, girl, talk to the hand".

Marie Antoinette's brothers, the Holy Roman Emperors Joseph II and Leopold II actually tried to assist Marie and Louis in fleeing France, but at first Louis refused to be a fugitive king, another time required Marie to leave her children behind, which she refused to do. Leopold appealed to the sovereigns of Europe to demand Louis and Marie release (Padua Circular), but it was met with little enthusiasm.

Marie Antoinette's sister Marie Carolina, Queen of Naples and Sicily nearly brought her country to war with the French Republic, however, her forces weren't really equipped to mount an offensive, or defensive, for that matter.

The Princess de Lamballe, née Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy, used her status as the Queen's favorite to obtain high ranking positions for her brothers and family members, which alarmed many courtiers as they thought it was giving Savoy/Piedmont too much influence on the court.

Despite lascivious portrayals of the Princess in anti-monarchist pamphlets as the Queen's lesbian lover, she was actually quite reserved and prudish. She lost her status as the Queen's favorite to Yolande de Polastron, the Duchesse de Polignac, who was outgoing, sociable, beautiful, and extravagant. The Princess immediately disliked the Duchess and her bad influence on the Queen and the two could never get along, which left the Princess on the outs.

R17 If you visit Versaille take your time and go and see Petit Trianon. Houses are closed but it is lovely place. MA escaped there the rules of the court.

Before MA was sentenced to death people thought she would be forced to move from France with her children but her trial was theatre. The decision had made before the trial began.

R23 and other in here are right. She was like we all are product if the time we live. She had next to contact to the life of ”real people”. She moved from one huge court to another. She was a teenager and center of the attention. Thanks to Louis XIV all of her moves were staged and watched.

OT, Alix the last Empress of Russia had MA’s portrait at her private room and when she visited Versailles she slept at MA’s bedroom. When Alix’s sister Ella came from Moscow to Tsarkoje Selo to warn Alix of revolution she told MA’s faith could very much be Alix’s. Alix sent Ella away and they never met again. Ella was right but also a victim of the revolution like her sister.

I don’t care how factually accurate it was, I loved Sofia Coppola’s version.

Hong Kong Garden playing during the masquerade ball was brilliant R31. As with I Want Candy during the other scene with hairdressers and dressmakers. There is a reason that music was chosen.

Marie Antoinette never said "Let them eat cake". The phrase was written by Rousseau when she was 9 years old. The chauvinist French saw themselves as the hereditary enemies of the Habsburgs since Charles V/Francois I. The loved calling her "L'Autrichienne", which means The Austrian Woman but also includes "Chienne = Bitch". Poor girl never had a chance.

Her nicknames included the above mentioned L'Autrichienne and Madame Deficit. But also Madame Veto

Louis sister Marie Clotilde was called Gros Madame because she was, well, fat

Poor girl never stood a chance. She was married off when she was 14 and went from her mother's court to living in Versailles, where she didn't have a clue about how the rest of her country was living. She had been described as pleasant and pretty, but not terribly smart nor interested in anything intellectual.

From the appendix of Mme Campan's memoirs...sorry for some parts of the translation

The Queen had 4 first femmes de chambre

- Madame de Misery, titular, daughter of M. le Comte de Chemant, and, through her mother who was descended from a Montmorency, cousin of M. le Prince de Tingry who gave her this title in the very presence of the queen;

- Madame Campan, en survivance

- Madame Thibaut, titular, former chambermaid of Queen Marie Leckzinska;

- Madame Regnier de Jarjaye, en survivance; her husband an army staff officer with the rank of colonel.

(*en survivance: In France, under the Ancien Régime, right granted by the king, for a fee, to the holder of a non-cash and non-transferable office to designate his successor)

The queen had twelve femmes de chambre

- Madame de Malherbe, wife of a former war commissioner, butler of the queen; dead since the revolution;

- Madame de Frégals, daughter of M. Émengard de Beauval, major of the city of Compiègne, lieutenant of the hunts, and wife of a cavalry captain; she lives on her land in Picardy, and has a fortune;

- Madame Regnier de Jarjaye, at the same time the first surviving wife. Her husband is withdrawn from service. They live in Paris with honest ease;

- Madame Campan, at the same time the first femme de chambre and reader of the princesses daughters of Louis XV, had for a long time only fulfilled the functions of the first femme de chambre as Madame de Misery, its holder, was retired to her land in Biache, near Péronne;

- Madame Auguié, who died a victim of the revolution for having loaned twenty-five louis to the queen during the two days she spent at the Feuillans. M. Auguié was then Receiver General of Finances of the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar, and Administrator of Subsistence;

- Madame Térasse des Mareilles. Her husband is placed in the administration. Her daughter married the brother of Mr. Miot, councilor of state;

- Mademoiselle de Marolles. Demoiselle de Saint-Cyr, remained poor, retired in her province, around Tours.

- Madame Cardon, widow of Major in Arras, left with a fortune, living on her land;

- Madame Arcambal. Her husband and brother-in-law are placed in the war department;

- Madame de Gougenot. Her husband, a very wealthy landowner, receiver-general of the government, butler of the king, died a victim of the revolution. She lives in retirement in Paris and in ease. She would have been very rich if she had had children;

- Madame de Beauvert, wife of a war commissioner, former musketeer, knight of Saint-Louis. Remained very poor;

- Madame Le Vacher, dead. Her husband is currently the recipient of grants in Marseille.

- Madame Henri. Her husband is currently in the war offices. His father was in charge of the liquidation of the civil list. They have a lot of children.

The eight oldest femmes of the queen collected 3600 livres in salary.

The last four had 2400 livres.

They had 300 livres less in their salaries, when they obtained lodgings in the Palace of Versailles . When the king went to Compiegne in July, and to Fontainebleau in October, three hundred livres were added per trip to the women's salaries, to compensate them for travel expenses. It should be noted that these trips cost a thousand or twelve hundred pounds economically. But the husbands of these ladies all had honorable and lucrative estates, and the salaries of these kinds of places were not considered at all; the support and protection of the queen were the only reasons that made them run. I saw a time when the less fortunate enjoyed 15 to 20000 livres in income, while some of them had, by the condition of their husbands, from 60 to 80000 livres a year. year; but these fortunes came from finance, places granted or patrimonial property, and were in no way drawn from the royal treasury, the pensions granted being rare and not very considerable.

The first femmes de chambre were not granted retirement; they retained all the emolumens of their place. The "survivancières" replaced them at court, and had 6000 extra pounds.

Ordinary chambermaids got 4000 livres as pension after thirty completed years of service, 3000 after twenty-five years, 2000 after twenty years of service.

The twelve women served four a week, two a day; thus the four women who had served a week had fifteen days off, unless a replacement was needed, and within the week of service they still had two or three days apart. The first femmes de chambres had their own kitchen and their cook. The others had dinner brought to their apartment.

R37 That was interesting

Let them eat Beans! Goya Beans!

Ivanka on her way out

Ivanka for firsties to the guillotine!

R28 I think the Queen of Naples had a funny end and showed why it was I hard to even accept deposed kings into friendly kingdoms. The King’s Aunts, daughters of Louis XV fled to Italy. First staying at the Papal States then off to Naples. MA’s sister felt obligated as a devout Catholic, monarchist, and family (via marriage) to let them into their court. Problem is that these Aunts brought en entourage of 70 people that had to be fed, houses, and tolerated. They palace of Naples is gigantic. Larger than Versailles and possible the palace in Madrid. Even so the queen felt couldn’t wait to get rid of the aunts but refused to push them out.

Even in exile they continued on with their old routines from Versailles. With the dressing and formality. They had to sell their jewelry and wore nice but dated clothing, but they stilled lived like princesses.

Housing royals was so expensive that most of the aunts were sent away to a convent when younger because Louis XV’s court was so financially strapped they they couldn’t afford the cost of raising additional princesses at court. So you can see that the money problems were a long-term issue in France.

Louis XVIII (Louis XVI’s brother spent years going for one friendly house to another. He had a modest entourage and some very lean years where they literally only had soup to eat. For man born as a prince of Versailles that’s quite a change. Most royals family’s loaned them a house far from their own court and left them to figure out how to pay for survival. Plus, no one wanted some former king, prince, or princess to further agitate the French government or Napoleon.

Being a foreign royal run was never easy for the host or hostess. I always wonder how bad things got for the staff that served them, knowing they’d be the last to eat or get paid.

🎂 Cake For Everyone ........

I 💕 Her !

I listened to a lecture on La Princesse de Clèves, one of the first "great" novels, and the context of its time (1678) was fascinating.

The novel was written by a noblewoman in France and it reflects French values of its time, according to the lecturer. In a nutshell, a young woman marries a nobleman whom she doesn't have any affection for, but out of duty--which was expected and normal at the time. People did not marry for love. In the story, another man falls in love with her and she falls in love with him. You can see where this is going. Her husband dies and the man she loves proposes to her. She declines because it would be improper for her to marry a man she loves. Didn't see where that was going, eh?

Anyway, according to the lecturer, in renaissance France, "passion" was a word with highly negetive connotation. To be carried away by one's passions was weak and lowly, and it was frowned upon. They accepted that people did have passions, which is probably why the French cared little about extramarital affairs, etc., because it was a way to get that nagging annoyance of romance out of their systems, but service to duty was expected and respected, and anyone who prioritized love was seen as practically insane, choosing a shameful part of human nature above noble social status.

This really gave me a different idea of French social history and culture. We think of the French today as impassioned, but it seems like the British royal family are living a renaissance French lifestyle today--service above all, and any naughty thing on the side is perfectly fine as long as it doesn't interfere too much or embarrass anyone.

Since marrying for love usually meant marrying out of one's social or financial class, that was deeply frowned upon. It would embarrass one's family and connections, and was seen as a failing to do one's duty by one's family. A wealthy family gave so much, you paid them back by marrying who you were told to marry, and keeping up whatever alliance the marriage was supposed to advance.

Marie Antoinette developed feelings for a Swedish diplomat, and nobody knows how far the feelings led, and I've heard that at one point Louis told her to go ahead and marry him after he was gone, and use him to get herself and the children the hell out of France. Louis wasn't completely stupid, but Marie wouldn't leave him.

[quote]I think her head would have ended chopped even if she would have been a good queen (which she wasn't.)

Oh, dear 3 times.

R45 Versailles was full of spies and gossips. Society lived for it. Every moment was a opportunity to get better position in court. If MA and Swedish diplomat had a full romance the entire court would have known it the same day. I doubt she was never alone. From L XIV the Royal Family always had entourage around them. And even before him.

I do think that the real Marie Antoinette was a lot more innocent than the pamphleteers made her out to be (they wanted to slander her). She herself was just born into royalty and wealth, didn't know much different, and almost nobody would voluntarily give that up.

Les Adieux a la Reine is one of my favourite films but of course, it's mostly fiction.

Many, many commoners who had only the most tenuous connection to royalty/aristocrats were guillotined. The servant of Madame Roland showed up to complain that she had been imprisoned and HE was executed. I don't feel M.A.'s execution was as tragic (she had all the perks and burdens of royalty for decades) as were those of people who could have enjoyed their lives and freedom were it not for the extreme war between the 1% and the 99%. Funny thing is, M.A., Louis and the rest of the Aristos have a special chapel in Paris, but the bones interred there almost certainly are all mixed up with those of the revolutionaries who were also guillotined.

The Palace of Versailles was filthy and unsanitary, even by the standards of the day. People from other countries who visited the Palace often remarked on how bad it stank. People pissed and shit all over the place because there weren't enough water closets.

[quote]Her bad reputation came from the French who didn’t like Austrians for whatever reason.

The Austrians were invading France to overthrow the revolution. Marie was conspiring with them. She got what was coming to her.

Can someone give a Cliff's Notes version of what the Holy Roman Empire was?

R50 The French are often stereotyped as unwashed. You know what they say about stereotypes, there's some truth to it!

During the Terreur last months ending up on the guillotine was pretty easy regardless of the social class. Especially if you lived in some Departments.

Marie got a lot of shit she didn't deserve, because she was foreign and female and it was okay to criticize her, when it wasn't okay to criticize the king.

She an easy target.

R47 Hans Axel von Fersen was well known as her lover. Played by sexy Jamie Dornon in Sophie Coppola’s MA movie. Hans Axel von Fersen was a very wealthy count from an influential Swedish family with close ties to the Swedish crown. He helped work on the royal’s failed escape. Given his wealth, military experience, dashing looks, and ease with women, he was a perfect play thing for a queen that had fulfilled her duty to produce an heir.

He spent nights alone with her at the Petit Trianon when she started retreating from Versailles’ exhausting social scene. He was one of the only men she held a long-term affair with.

If Louis had followed French tradition of having a mistress it would have taken some heat off of MA. Usually the king always had a mistress that the press and court could demonize. Sort of like the heat taken off of Kate when Meghan arrived. Royal courts always need a female scapegoat. So without a mistress the French placed their anger on that foreigner, MA.

Mistress to the king was an official court position, and had much more influence than the queen. Anyway, MA was not the brightest and was ill-equipped to play the vicious social games at Versailles, which was basically all the nobles had to do all day. She also had two strikes against her - she was Austrian and it took her and Louis many years to produce an heir, which greatly weakened her at court and to the general populace.

She was lovely.

You just know that in that day and age, her pussy stank.

[quote]R58 She was lovely.

Though cross eyed.

The tapestry of Marie Antoinette and her children was a copy of the famous portrait by Vigee-Lebrun and a gift from the French President to Alexandra in 1902. Yes, it is a surprise that Alexandra collected things that had belonged to the French Queen. I remember she had a lace veil that she kept in her bedroom. The French thought it spooky that Nicholas and Alexandra stayed in the Queen's rooms when they visited France. Just before the revolution the Imperial family watched a silent film of the French Revolution in the Alexander Palace with scenes of the Guillotine and heads being chopped off. The tapestry survived WWII because it was considered on the the most valuable treasures in the palace and already had it's original packing crate waiting for it. Alexandra's ghost used to haunt the Alexander Palace, one of my friends - the former curator - saw her walking though her rooms just before they were forced to abandon the palace to the advancing German army.

Reply 16 - I loved that book and think that 'Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution' is by far the best portrait of her.

MA was not interested in politics (beyond her position as Queen to an absolute ruler, recalling Alexandra); she loved and was obsessed with fashion. MA introduced many innovations we attribute to the Napoleonic/Regency era, including discarding the cumbersome, pannier bracketed court dress for simpler fashions similar to well-to-gentry. Yes, MA dressed down.

She didn't care about anything else with the same fervor. Although she loved her children, it was a maternal role, more than anything.

For her execution, MA saved a white shift dress with a simple bonnet, hoping to look innocent, a martyr at the guillotine. And, this she was to many French royalists and Catholics for a long time. (She had been reduced to rags, so saving this outfit said a great deal about her.)

She was a true fashionista in that her real interests were clothes, make-up, and hairstyles, apart from some idea of saving herself during the Revolution. Even then, she communicated mostly through her clothes.

[quote]It was like "bye, girl, talk to the hand".

Tell me about it!

Let’s talk about the [italic]Chemise a la Reine.[/italic]

Scandalous!

I read The Journey, too r4. Do you remember the section where they’re imprisoned and the guards would get the dauphin drunk and they got him to testify that his mother had molested him?

In 1797 there were 3 members of the Bourbon family who didn't emigrate and weren't guillotined:

Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, Duchess of Orléans

Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d'Orléans

Louis François Joseph de Bourbon, Prince of Conti

The 2 Orleans women were in some Paris prison when Robespierre fell. The Prince de Conti managed to get acquitted in June 1793 when arrested but he lived outside Paris.

The Directoire decided to exil them. They went to live in Spain.

Here was her erstwhile best friend, La Princesse Lamballe after she was "Tried" and refused to say she hated the Queen.

They let her go, having already arranged that in the streets there would be a crowd to, on orders, rip her limb from limb.

They did their 'duty' to the republic, and most of the 'rippers' worked under Robespierre and their children became very rich.

R61 before Russian revolution Romanovs who felt it was coming asked Alexandra’s sister Ella to travel from Moscow and meet her. They met at Alexander Palace and it went fine until Ella said Rasputin. Alix became cold silent and sent Ella away. Before leaving Ella warned Alix might have the same fate Marie had had. She was right. It was the final time those once close sister met. Ella was also killed around same time as IF.

I wonder why Americans are so obsessed with Marie Antoinette when it's not even their History. Same thing with the guillotine. I wonder why the US is still so obsessed with France when the majority of the people don't come from France but from the UK.

For the September days in the Paris prisons, read the diary of the Princess of Tarente, one of the Queen's ladies in waiting. It describes those days when she was in prison. She took her maid to prison with her. She was in the Abbey prison while Lamballe was at La Force prison.

She said they escorted her out of the cell a few times in order to appear in front of the tribunal (in court yard) but then brought up back because it wasn't "the right time". She was instructed on how to reply to the questions. There was a sign for the mob waiting outside to let know if they had to let the prisoners to go out safely or not. IIRC she mentioned some of the servants of her mothers and other nobles detained mixed up with the mob outsides, possibly to try and influence the mood.

Theories suggested that some money exchanges took place in order to "protect" some of the prisoners. Apart from Lamballe, all other Queen's ladies managed to get acquitted in Septembers 1792.

Élisabeth of France, Louis XVI's youngest sibling, was respected by the people for her high moral character, and was given many chances to flee France to save herself. But she remained loyal to the King and stayed with the his family throughout the Terror. She met the same fate as Louis and Marie in May 1794, just 30 years old.

R4 interesting, thanks.

OT, but Antonia Fraser wrote one of the worst and most poor adaptations of the Arthurian legends I have ever read. She Christianised everything, and took out everything else that made those stories seem human and hot-blooded.

I love the book about her queeny hairdresser:

R69, her reign was during the American Revolution, and her husband helped fund it. The US's birth owes a debt of gratitude to her.

Plus, she was fascinating.

r69 - what r74 said. Plus, several Americans were in France at the time -- Jefferson (I think)--and sent dispatches back about what they saw. In the Americans' opinion, Louis XVI was the mildest king of France and least deserving of a death sentence. They even considered offering asylum to the FRF in America, but the French feared them loose anywhere in the world.

Furthermore, Americans felt - mostly incorrectly - that THEY inspired the French Revolution, which may have been correct in cosmetic terms. Louis's inability to raise taxes on the nobility and bourgeoisie to fund the Crown debt and government caused the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette was unjustly blamed for the deficit. It was a structural deficit where the upper classes reduced their share, passed it on to the peasants, and allowed the Crown to borrow the rest. Such an impasse would never have happened to Louis XIV; historians have made the case that a weak King precipitated the crisis with unwise, hesitant moves.

The crowd was paid to intimate the General Assembly by forces behind the scenes, including the Duc de Orléans, Louis' cousin. As a young officer, Napoleon took the task of protecting the assembly. He studied city plans, placed cannons on all access streets to govt buildings. When the crowd showed up, he fired indiscriminately. The crowd dispersed.

This book explains the causes of the French Revolution clearly.

Louis XV was a weak and inept king too. The court was viciously split for years between the Pompadour's entourage and the "parti des dévots".

r75 -that is an excellent book, I reread it every few years. It isn't too long for someone who is just learning about the French Revolution. I also reread Simon Schama's book Citizens, a massive book, my copy has fallen apart in pieces. Also, I strongly recommend the film the French Government did on the revolution in the 1990's you can see it on YouTube in a version translated into English. The actors who play the King and Queen are especially good. The reasons for the revolution are clearly explained along with Louis's role. His trial is really like being in the assembly - sad and pathetic for the King. Marie's trial is shorter.

What's wrong with cake?

Of course Marie Antoinette never said "let them eat cake" or anything like that.

[quote]R76 Louis XV was a weak and inept king too.

Don’t forget, similarly [bold]fat

R80 wasn’t over weight and pale skin ways to show person was wealthy, had enough food and didn’t work outside. RF ate the best of everything. Fashion is weird.

r77

[quote]I reread it every few years.

#MeToo

Will check out the YT series - thanks.

Merci for the book recommends, Marie, cheri(e).

This is a very interesting discussion about the impact of her portraits.

Thank you so much R75 and R77! I so look forward to the books and video!

A few years ago I took a private tour through Wales, England, Ireland. My tour guide was a monarchist. I mentioned that the year before I went to Versailles and “totally got” the slaughter of Louis, MA, and Nicholas II and his entire family. She didn’t like what I said as we chatted. But as an American, it is difficult to relate to monarchies….

Is it true this greedy batch had a village where she'd live like she did in Hungary and had actors pretend to be peasants will people in France starved?

R86 It was worse then that, she and her handmaid’s would dress up and pretend to be farm girls milking cows. Anyone who is rich can have halls of mirrors, but only the obscenely wealthy can dress up and play poor in their own fabricated village. When I went to Versailles it was the number one thing I wanted to see more then anything else.