Friday, October 16, 2009

Today In History, Marie Antoinette

In 1793 Marie Antoinette took the long walk to the guillotine today. As many of you know her history I did not feel it was necessary to do a bio on her life. I would rather focus on the fact that she passed away today and my thoughts are on her today. Sadly she was buried after her traumatic execution in an unmarked grave of no importance. Only after the restoration was her and her husbands bodies given a proper burial and respect they so deserved.

Regardless of what people have previously though of Marie, mostly her being frivolous. She came from a family who never expected her to become a queen. I do have to give her credit for the fact that in the face of danger she stood her ground. In the end she died Marie Antoinette a woman with a back bone who did love her family.

She is not the woman who said "Let Them Eat Cake"

Vive La Reine


  1. Thanks for clarifying that Lizzy- it's unbelievable how she was blamed for absolutely everything. Even today when I read about the guillotine- I satill get all choked up.

  2. Me too Lucy, I think mostly because I respect her. She was a product of her environment just like Catherine Howard and what happened to both of them was terrible.

  3. Viva La Reine indeed. Marie was a product of her environment - and was, I think, much better than a person that she is commonly thought to be.

  4. I too think she was a good person she had a good heart. I believe that she was just sheltered and really just did not comprehend the suffering that was going on in France at the time.

  5. I agree with you completely, Lizzy. Marie Antoinette had several opportunities to flee France without her husband, but she resolutely chose to stay by his side, come what may. I think she welcomed her death as a release from all of the emotional pain she had suffered.

    I'm glad to see that her reputation is being reassessed to reflect the complex woman she was, vs. the unfeeling harridan history has traditionally portrayed her as.

  6. Christine,

    I read Carolly Erickson's novel about her and even though it was wayyy far fetched that is how she spun Marie's end.

    Her never leaving her family by choice is a corner stone for me of reasoning. If she was as terrible as they tried to make her seem she would have ditched the family on first chance but she did not. Another big one for me is when they took her son, she refused to part with him, she would have rather died.

    I do wonder what the French public opinion of her today is. With all the modernizations that we have today especially knowledge, could they still hate her? I mean really was she that bad, I think not. She just followed what she was brought up to think and do.

  7. Vive la reine, indeed. No wonder I was feeling weird on the 16th. I've been writing a novel focusing on Marie Antoinette's early years, and from the start of her arrival in France she was thrown into a situation that was not of her making and was scapegoated for everything that was wrong with the country.

    My sense, from visiting both Versailles and the Conciergerie last month, is that the French revere her ... at least as a commercial money-maker. They treated her like crap, but you can buy all sorts of Marie Antoinette souvenirs. In fact, at the Conciergerie gift shop you can buy a rather expensive bust of her head (a recreation of the marble original at Versailles). After all, it was the last place she had it on her shoulders. They didn't seem to get the irony.

  8. I kind of had that feeling, defiantly iconic.

    I know I can not wait for your book I have her on my mind as soon as I am finished with "The Boleyn Wife" I am onto Christine Trent's novel.

  9. I also feel bad for her. She and her husband were doomed before they even ascended the throne.
    Her excesses did not bankrupt that country, and helping the Americans didn't help either.
    The citizens were so blood thirsty anyway at that time, nothing would have changed their fate. How anyone survivied is a miracle. Mob mentality.

  10. Jenny so painfully true the whole family never had a chance.


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