Why is Marie Antoinette so controversial? - Carolyn Harris
Order! Order! Who’s the defendant today?
Looks pretty fancy.
Indeed, Your Honor.
This is Marie Antoinette,
the Queen of France
who was notorious for living in opulence
while the peasants starved.
That is sensationalist slander.
Marie Antoinette had little power
over her circumstances
and spent her brief life trying to survive
in a turbulent, foreign country.
You mean she wasn't French?
That’s right, Your Honor.
She was born in 1755 as the
Hapsburg Archduchess Maria Antonia.
After two of her older sisters
passed away,
she became the only choice for a political
marriage to Louis-August,
heir to the French throne.
Essentially, she was sacrificed to secure
peace between Austria and France,
all at the age of 14.
She seemed to have had adjusted
to this “sacrifice” by 1774
when her husband was crowned king.
She lived a life of luxury,
wearing elaborate headdresses,
importing foreign fabrics—
she even had her own private chateau
near Versailles!
Meanwhile, France was
in an economic tailspin.
Bad harvests resulted
in mass food shortages,
wages were falling,
and the cost of living had skyrocketed.
Marie Antoinette’s expensive tastes
were completely insensitive
to the plight of her subjects.
She was the Queen!
If she hadn’t looked glamorous,
she would have been criticized.
Besides, she sometimes used
her image for good.
After convincing the King to be
vaccinated against smallpox,
she commissioned a special headdress
to make the treatment fashionable for all.
She also used her influence to appoint
unqualified friends and admirers
to important posts.
Even more disastrous, she encouraged
the King to get involved
in the American Revolution,
a conflict that cost France
1.5 billion francs.
Objection!
The Queen had very little influence over
her husband’s political decisions
at that time.
Besides, France’s financial crisis was
much more related to the country’s
outdated tax system and lack
of an effective central bank.
How so?
While France's nobility and clergy
had numerous tax exemptions,
peasants often paid more than half
their income in taxes.
This system buried France in debt
long before the Queen's arrival.
Her personal expenses were
merely a scapegoat
for decades of financial negligence.
That doesn’t change that Marie Antoinette
spent tax money on luxuries
while the masses starved!
She was so oblivious that when she heard
people couldn’t afford bread,
she recommended they eat cake instead.
This is almost certainly a fabrication
attributed to the Queen by her enemies.
In fact, Marie Antoinette frequently
engaged in charity work
focused on addressing poverty.
Her reputation as a heartless queen
was based on rumors and slander.
Even the most famous case against her
was a complete fraud.
Pardon?
In 1784, a thief forged fake letters
from the Queen
to purchase an outrageously expensive
diamond necklace.
The truth came out eventually,
but the public already saw
her as a wasteful spendthrift.
Meanwhile, it's really her husband
who ruined France's finances.
On that, we agree.
Louis XVI was an incompetent king.
Even after the revolution began
and he lost much of his power
to the newly formed National Assembly,
he refused to yield control.
Louis vetoed numerous pieces
of legislation—
and he was supported
by his conservative Queen.
To a point.
Marie Antoinette believed
in the divine right of kings,
but despite personal reservations,
she tried to work with reformers.
Though all she got in return were false
reports that she was sleeping with them.
No amount of charity work could counter
this avalanche of slander.
The revolutionaries also prevented
the King’s family from leaving Paris—
how could she negotiate with people
keeping her prisoner?
Well, they were right to do so!
In 1791, the royal couple tried
fleeing to Austria
to gather support and regain power.
Even after they were caught,
the King and Queen continued
to pass military secrets
to their Austrian contacts.
Isn't that treason?
Certainly, and Louis was executed for it,
alongside 32 other charges.
Even if you believe the King's
execution was just,
there's no excuse for how the new
government treated Marie Antoinette.
She was separated from her son
and kept in a cell with no privacy.
The tribunal in charge of prosecuting
the Queen had no proof of her treason,
so they denigrated her with baseless
accusations of incest and orgies.
Yet she maintained composure
until the very end.
The Queen’s final words were an apology
to her executioner
for stepping on his foot.
However refined she may have been,
Marie Antoinette was willing to betray
her country to stay in power.
In life and death, she remains a symbol
of everything wrong
with the decadent monarchy.
A convenient symbol—
and an example of the public’s appetite
for smearing prominent women
with their own fantasies and frustrations.
So what you’re saying is she
was guilty of being Queen?
Should monarchs be judged
by their personal qualities
or the historical role they occupied?
And can even the powerful be
victims of circumstance?
These are the questions that arise
when we put history on trial.
