If you ask the average person on the street what they know about Queen Marie Antoinette, it’s very likely they’ll utter that well-worn cliché ‘Let them eat cake’. And yet she never said it. Not once. Not ever. Many women were accused of saying it by various misogynists long before Marie was even born. She wasn’t perfect but the scandals and rumours that dogged her reign successfully painted an enduring picture of a degenerate, unfeeling spendthrift. Her courage, philanthropy and maternal skills have gone by largely unnoticed.
It didn’t help that Marie had been woefully unprepared for court and its intimidating, intellectually snobby courtiers. One of many children, she was never expected to marry a future king and consequently her education had been neglected. She was nearly illiterate by the time she became the most viable daughter to marry French royalty, leaving her insecure around the intellectual elite at Versailles.
Her husband King Louis XVI was a chubby, bookish teenager who was suddenly crowned king after his much-lauded brother died. He and Marie were thrust unprepared onto a glittering, gilded and opulent Versailles throne and court. Just slightly intimidating, it’s no wonder the lad couldn’t perform on his wedding night. It actually took seven years to do the deed.
It’s true that Ms Antoinette loved her retail therapy but the Versailles court had embraced an excessive culture of extravagance long before she became Dauphine. And lest we forget, she was only 14 years old when she married Louis. She was literally a teenage girl let loose with an unimaginable income in a candy land of extravagant dresses, lavish parties and big hair that would put the 1980s to shame.
Far costlier to France were the battles Marie endorsed, in particular the American Revolution, which emptied the royal coffers faster than you could say Madame Deficit (the not so affectionate nickname hurled her way). And yet there are several anecdotes that show her to be empathetic and generous, including the time she stopped her carriage to help an injured peasant, refusing to leave until the doctor she called arrived. Nonetheless, the starving, beleaguered population of France needed a scapegoat, amply promoted by thousands of illegal pamphlets printed by her enemies. These accused the queen of various scandals from sexual deviance to blaming her for a famous diamond fraud. In the French imagination she was transformed from a sweet and inexperienced teen queen to a dissolute monster bleeding the country dry.
She was a contradiction, supporting the American Revolution yet raised to mix with all social classes. She believed passionately in the Divine Right of Kings – a deadly conviction to cling to in the French Revolution. She refused to accede to the new government, plotted to run away and encouraged war with Austria in a bid to regain the throne. Robespierre must have rubbed his hands in glee at the woeful mismanagement of the situation.
Daughter of an Austrian emperor, Marie Antoinette was already on shaky ground as the French and Austrians had a chequered relationship. The royal court questioned whether her loyalties were to France or Austria. From there, it was but a hop, skip and a mob-fuelled jump to being convicted of treason, with some incest thrown in too from her young son’s forced testimony (kangaroo anyone).
Her final days showed the strength of her character. Gone was the frivolous, spendthrift teenager and in its stead stood a courageous and resolute mother, protecting her brood and standing by her man. Her final sob-stained letter to her sister asked that her children not take revenge. And she approached the guillotine with her hair shorn wearing a shabby shift and with her head held high, until it was chopped off of course.
Marie was painted into history as the symbol of all that was wrong with noble rule. As we unravel the lies from the truth and discover a human being replete with foibles, faults and amazing strengths too, let those propagandists eat humble pie.