Recently, I read a biography of Marie Antoinette. This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time, especially after I saw the 2006 film starring Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman. I am not sure what draws me to the last queen of France. I have never studied the French language, let alone the culture; I am in no way related to her (at least as far as I know -- if anyone wants to prove me wrong on that, I'm all for it); and honestly, beyond Marie Antoinette, nothing about France really interests me. (Like anyone else, I suppose I'd like to see the Eiffel Tower one day, but I think that doesn't really count as an interest in France.)
Evelyne Lever wrote the biography I just finished, titled Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France. I considered writing a review of sorts on the text, but I'm not all that good at reviews and I think there are more important discussions you can have regarding a book than whether or not it was "good." (Though I will take the time to note that I was frustrated with how frequently Lever went out of chronological order for no perceivable reason.)
Marie Antoinette, even as Lever's biography depicts her, is an interestingly conflicted character of history. Because of her extravagant living style and the circumstances of her death (including her personal circumstances and the political climate of France at the time), she's complex and complicated. Even today, she is frequently misquoted with "Let them eat cake!" (This is something Lever opted to leave out entirely; the way I see it, anytime you have an opportunity to correct people when it comes to an important historical figure, you should -- they are no longer here to defend themselves, so why shouldn't you do it for them?)
The 2006 film, titled after it's heroine, depicts Marie Antoinette in a similarly complicated way. From what I understand, the film was based on a biography by Antonia Fraser titled Marie Antoinette: The Journey. The film begins portraying Marie Antoinette as a scared, fifteen-year-old pawn in her mother's political games. She is more or less alone as she enters France after leaving her home country of Austria. After she appears to adjust some, the extreme spending begins. She redesigns the garden, she orders a hamlet of several small cottages be built for her own sake, and she hosts lavish parties which include gambling, drinking, and rich foods.
But before you start judging her for being financially irresponsible and selfish, take into consideration that a) she was relatively young at the time (she died before she turned forty), b) her mother and others were pressuring her to produce an heir even when her husband, Louis XVI and she had trouble consummating their marriage (it took several years before they even had sex), and c) she had been taken from her home at fifteen to marry a boy of the same age she had never met. I'll leave it to you to come up with more reasons. In any case, who hasn't heard of some retail therapy? Marie Antoinette went overboard, no question -- but who can blame her?
Conflicted character aside, I learned some interesting things about Marie Antoinette's life while reading this biography. First, that she was incredibly smart. Throughout her trial (which ended poorly for her, but that's besides the point), her main defense was she was only doing her duty as a wife in supporting her husband and her king. Now, if trying to convince a bunch of misogynistic 18th-century male jury members that she was just trying to be a submissive and subservient wife in order to save her skin wasn't smart, I don't know what is. Unfortunately, it didn't work and if that didn't I can't imagine what would have.
During the trial, people spoke to her son, the Dauphin. He claimed that both his mother and his aunt (his father's sister, Madam Elisabeth) encouraged him/trained him to masturbate in the morning while he lied between them on a bed. Marie Antoinette, Madam Elisabeth, and Marie Therese (Marie Antoinette's daughter) all denied this, but the accusation did not help her situation. It seems, if Marie Antoinette did not sexually abuse her son (which is unclear -- Lever does not offer an opinion, nor do the facts indicate strongly one way or the other, unless we take Marie Antoinette's letter to her sister-in-law at face value), the Dauphin's tutor did. Of course, it was at a point when the Dauphin was caught playing with himself by the tutor when the Dauphin told about his mother and aunt.
After the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette was eventually viewed as the courageous woman she was. Aside from her apparent reveal of military action prior to its occurrence to other countries (which falls under high treason), Marie Antoinette was an admirable queen and person. What makes her such an interesting historical figure and, more importantly, monarch, for me, is that she was not infallible. She made many mistakes and was human. This is not to say that other leaders are perfect. Certainly they have made mistakes. The differences this, those mistakes and faults were covered up by themselves and PR people for at least the duration of their reign for the most part. (Before you get all excited, shouting names like Bill Clinton and Henry VIII, I recognize that this is a generalization.) But perhaps what makes her even more interesting to me was that she was a woman who went from being pushed around to being an eloquent and intelligent queen -- both of herself and her people.
This song, the source of the blog post title (like all my others thus far), is featured in the 2006 film.
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