It really riles me up when someone writes an entire tome about a historical figure and focuses it solely on her fashion sense. While researching my favorite misunderstood tragedienne this afternoon, a fashion book is precisely what I landed upon. It is absolutely true that Antoinette’s 18th century dress sense was enviable, yet it is just a nominal part of this woman’s charmed, opulent and later most unfortunate life. I am sure that I am not as vigorous a feminist as I should be. The extent of my pro-girl vocalizations are probably limited to telling the second graders I teach how awesome it is that they like math, science, sports and art rather than cookie cutter blasphemous stuff like one miley cyrus. Yet there is so much of me utterly aggrieved and dismayed not only by the way that people of her century viewed Antoinette but also with the way that we the people of the modern century do.
Do you really think that she is responsible for the “let them eat cake” line? Nono. The “let them eat cake” line was physically recorded by Rousseau in 1766 – when Marie was ten years old and still 4 years away from becoming a princess, let alone a queen. During her reign, as the people in France grew (rightfully) disenchanted with their treatment, hostility was hurled in her direction. Tracts were published featuring Antoinette as a lesbian. (Which would be FINE, were it TRUE.) Rather than having lesbian relationships with women, Marie cultivated close friendships with females due to the culture of her Austrian court upbringing. She had a slew of sisters close in age who slowly got pawned off to various dukes and counts across Europe. Marie, at 14, was the last to be married and sent to France. While in France, withstanding the loneliness of foreign court life and the bizarre behavior of her most unfortunate husband Louis XVI, Marie slowly gained friendships of loyal princesses and ladies of the court. These women were the sisters she’d lost to smallpox and the unfortunate tradition of archduchesses marrying a new country.
Absolutely her spending was excessive. At Versailles, she updated this amazing structure and dubbed it the Petit Trianon. It was modeled after the summer home she had as a child in Austria. Her fashions WERE fabulous, there I said it. I do believe that she was unable to reign her dollars in during a time when people were starving in the streets. But I also believe that she felt honest pity for this situation. Was she sort’ve clueless, probably, yes. But haughty and uncaring? No way.
She came under house arrest in Paris after a mob of people stormed Versailles and forced the royal family back to the city. They lived this way in the aging Tuileries for quite some time. After waiting way too long to attempt an escape, the family finally managed one, only to be captured and returned to the city after about 24 hours. Then, the Jacobins were really able to work their misogyny and hatred of the crown against Marie and her family. Louis was jailed separately and finally given his day in court. He was represented and given time to prepare his case. Obviously he was found guilty, yet the court was nearly split over whether to give him death or exile to somewhere like America. He met the guillotine with relative calm and respect from the crowd.
Marie fared much worse. At 38, separated from her children and likely suffering from TB and uterine cancer, she was imprisoned in a dingy cell, forced into rags, and given about a day’s notice about her trial. It was a sham trial, as her death sentence had already been proclaimed by an outside council. Marie was publicly humiliated and it was insinuated that she had molested her youngest son, Louis Charles. When she passionately argued this point, even the famed Market Women who loathed her came to her defense. At the end of the day, her hair was shorn, she was placed in the back of a tumbrel and paraded through the streets of Paris to her death.
Jacques Louis David watched the scene from a window above the street she was wheeled upon. Having disdain for her, he drew this crude (and amazing) sketch to show that Marie was “haughty” until the end:
That’s not haughty to me, it’s not. That is astounding poise and dignity for yourself in the face of utter terror and hostility. That is choosing to transcend the fate you’re facing. It is simply amazing to me.
I’m a sometime-fan of revisionist history, specifically when it applies to a figure who is tragically misunderstood and always has been. The delightful Antonia Fraser has written an amazing book on Antoinette that attempts to reclaim her honor. I don’t think it’s too late. I think this woman deserves to be remembered as a better person than the malicious harpy that society has always made her out to be. If you enjoy historical nonfiction, you should absolutely read it.
