Marie Antoinette: Let Them Eat Cake?

Ah, Marie Antoinette. Last queen of France, gratuitous spender, fake shepherdess, scapegoat for the French Revolution, etc.

Born as the fifteenth child of Emperor Francis I (who enjoyed watching plays rather than ruling) and Empress Maria Theresa (who wore the pants in both her relationship and in her nation), Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna was born on November 2, 1755. She had a pretty chill childhood; she had nice tutors, a ton of siblings to play with, indulgent governesses, and a couple incredibly opulent palaces to call her own.

Bb Maria Antonia. The cutest
dang bobblehead.

As a child, Maria Antonia had many more freedoms than other royal children in Europe. She and her siblings were allowed to leave the palaces, spend time outside, dress in normal bourgeois attire (rather than the over-the-top outfits of other European nations *cough* France *cough*), and associate with non-royal children.

Maria Antonia (she didn't morph into Marie Antoinette until after she married the French dude) was educated, but she lacked a truly rounded education. She was educated in religion, moral principles, languages, and music. She never learned about the economy, politics, or foreign policy. In short, she had pretty handwriting and could play the harpsichord, but she had no clue how to rule a nation.

FUN FACT TIME! Certain historians claim that a 13-year-old Maria Antonia had the opportunity to meet and be an audience to the young Mozart. Pretty cool, ja?

Her mother, Maria Theresa (previously posted about here) had a habit in which she married off her children to strangers to solidify political alliances. Marie Antoinette was no exception; after the end of the Seven Years War, Maria Theresa needed a way to preserve the shaky peace between her nation (Austria/Holy Roman Empire) and France. Maria Antonia was her solution. At the tender age of 14, Maria Antonia married Louis-Auguste, the French dauphin (heir to the throne).

This portrait of Maria Antonia
was sent to France during
marriage negotiations.
(All 13-year-olds apparently look like this.)

MORE FUN FACTS! During marriage negotiations, French diplomats protested Maria Antonia's "crooked teeth," resulting in three months worth of oral surgery without anesthetic. The end result proved satisfactory, and marriage negotiations continued.

Maria Antonia said her final good-byes to her family, friends, and home on April 21, 1770. On May 7, she and her entourage reached the Rhine, the border between Austria and France. A strange and tragic tradition ensued. After reaching the border, Maria Antonia shed her Austrian clothes, her Austrian name, and her Austrian servants. She would never return to her homeland, and she had nothing to remind her of her home (the reasoning for which was that she had found a new home).

Maria Antonia became Marie Antoinette, and this new woman could only wear French fashions, only speak French, and only be accompanied by French maids.

Versailles. 

Before reaching her future home at Versailles, Marie Antoinette met Louis-Auguste for the first time. In short, she was way out of his league, and he was more interested in locksmithing than in her. They were technically already married (by proxy), but they had their ceremonial wedding- a gigantic, ornate ordeal that lasted several hours- on Mary 16th.

This is where things start to get uncomfortable for us all.

In the French court, it was customary and expected for the nobility to watch every part of the royal family's life- the king, the dauphin, and his new wife were quite literally never alone. Every moment of their life (from going to the bathroom to getting dressed in the morning) was watched by an actual audience of pompous, over-dressed snobs judging their every move. This custom included the wedding night. To say the least, the barely-more-than-tweens failed to consummate their marriage on the first night, much to the disappointment of the entire court. The poor kids could literally hear the sighs of disappointment from the crowd as they drifted off to sleep.

See that little fence thing? Yeah, that's to keep the crowd
from getting too close to the dauphin and dauphine.
Basically the 18th-century version of caution tape.

Luckily, this minor setback (well, actually it was a decidedly major setback), Marie Antoinette was received incredibly well by the people of France. Her first official appearance to the people three years after her arrival in France drew a crowd of over 50,000. I mean, she was young, spoke prettily, and was incredibly beautiful- she had smooth, porcelain skin, light blue eyes, and naturally straw-blonde hair. She had nice manners and was quite naive. However, the match was not quite as popular with the nobility, especially with those of the older generation. These courtiers had spent years hating Austria (because, ya know, they'd been fighting each other for decades) and obviously weren't all that crazy about having a spoiled Austrian archduchess as their future queen. Mesdames, the daughters of the current king, even called her Austrichienne, which essentially mashes together the French words for "Austrian" and "female dog." (So basically they called her the Austrian bitch. Pardon my French. GET IT? I am pun master today.)

Marie Antoinette had other problems to deal with; her mother wrote her letters regularly to criticize how few nights her daughter spent with her new husband and her inability to "inspire passion" in Louis-Auguste, who was more interested in hunting than in his new wife. As if that wasn't awkward enough, her mother received regular reports from the Austrian diplomat, Mercy-d'Argenteau, about Marie Antoinette's every move- who she talked to, when she went to bed, what she ate, what she wore, if she slept with her husband, etc. With her mother playing the role of Big Brother in her life and the lack of interest from her husband, it isn't surprising that Marie began to spend more money on gambling and clothing.

King Louis XV got smallpox and died on May 10, 1774. Louis-Auguste and Marie Antoinette were crowned king and queen of France on June 11 of the following year.

The whole having-no-kids-because-we-still-haven't-done-it thing got old real fast to the rest of France. Rumors began to spread- the king being impotent, the queen's fictitious extramarital affairs with men and women. These personal attacks caused the new queen to spiral ever further into a life of gambling and excessive spending. One account claims that the queen gambled for three days straight.

The whole problem with Louis-Auguste and Marie Antoinette's marriage was simply that their personalities were completely different. He was introverted, shy, and liked to get to sleep before midnight. She was extroverted, vibrant, and loved nothing more than staying up until dawn gambling with scheming courtiers. In 1777, Marie Antoinette's mother found out that she and her husband- now married for seven years- had yet to consummate their marriage. She dispatched her oldest son and co-ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, Joseph II, to go work as a kind of marriage counselor. Whatever Joe did worked; a year later, Marie Antoinette gave birth to a daughter, Marie Therese Charlotte.

Marie Antoinette with her
children and half the feathers
of a full-grown ostrich
 sticking out of her hat.

Marie Antoinette also created a haven for herself in the Petit Trianon, a small compound on the grounds of Versailles. She modeled the small chateau after what she thought peasant life was like- cute houses, adorable baby lambs, frilly dresses, flowers, swings, and all the free time in the world to enjoy the fresh air and pretend to be a shepherdess. So yeah, her perception of life as a peasant was a little off; she forgot disease, rampant starvation, and the fact that the lives of the peasants sucked so much that they had a revolution. But hey, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Apparently the standard of living for all French peasants.

During the 1780s, the French harvest was particularly awful, leading to obnoxiously high food prices; this fact paired with the whole of the French government sliding into financial hell pretty much made life a living hell for the people of France. Not only were they starving to death, but their queen was seemingly turning a blind eye to their strife while wearing fourteen pounds of gold jewelry and a funny hat. This is where the phrase, "Let them eat cake" comes into play. Although it turned out just to be a rumor propagated by revolutionaries, certain sources claimed that in reaction to hearing that her people had no bread to eat, Marie Antoinette's only response was, "Let them eat cake." She never actually said it, but hey- who am I to ignore the orders of the queen? (*shoves face into a plate of cake*)

In 1785, the Diamond Necklace Scandal basically sealed the queen's fate. A thief posing as Marie Antoinette purchased a necklace containing 647 priceless diamonds and smuggled it off to England, leaving the bill to the people of France. Although the queen wasn't actually involved, she was still guilty in the eyes of the people.

On July 14, 1789, French workers and peasants stormed the Bastille, marking the beginning of the French Revolution. On October 6 of the same year, a mob of 10,000 gathered outside Versailles and demanded that the royal family be brought to Paris; the royal family obeyed. In their palace in Paris, the ever-mediocre Louis XVI was basically paralyzed with fear while Marie Antoinette took over, sending letters to everyone of importance in Europe, begging them for help to restore the monarchy in France.

The Storming of the Bastille

After several long and confusing years of revolution, Louis XVI was dragged to the guillotine and beheaded on January 21, 1793. On October 16, Marie Antoinette followed her husband, beheaded at the guillotine after being found guilty of treason, theft, and a rather disturbing (and incredibly false) allegation of sexual abuse against her own son. She was only 39. The night before her execution, she wrote to her sister-in-law, "I am calm, as people are whose consciences are clear."

Yup, that's her head up there on that stick.

Only one of her children survived the Revolution; Marie Therese, her eldest, was released from prison at the age of 17. She married a duke, but her marriage was miserable. She was extremely unhappy, and their marriage was never consummated. She lived a life of bitterness and regret, and she led most of her life away from her home in exile. However, in 1830, she technically achieved the title of Queen of France for about 20 minutes while her husband signed the abdication papers. She died in exile in 1851 at the age of 72;  in her last minutes, she forgave those who were responsible for the murder of her parents and siblings.

Marie Antoinette's legacy is incredibly mixed; most accounts view her as a villain who took advantage of her situation in life, creating the downfall of her nation. However, many modern historians view her as a victim of her situation, as a woman who truly did not know the repercussions of her actions. However you choose to look at her, it is undeniable that- in the words of Thomas Jefferson- "If there had been no queen, there would have been no revolution."

Maria Theresa: Tank

I believe this is about as accurate as any portrait of Her
Majesty.

Maria Theresa was born on May 13, 1717 as the eldest daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI and Empress Elizabeth. Her birth followed the death of their eldest, a beloved son who had died as a young child.

I can't decide if she was adorable or terrifying
as a baby. Maybe it's just the angle.

Fun fact: she was one of the few members of the European ruling class that were not hideously inbred because neither her parents nor her grandparents were closely related. Holla! Unfortunately, her birth was kind of a downer for her father because of her gender; all the guy wanted was a son (and Spain, but that's neither here nor there).

Maria Theresa was a cute, smart,
and relatively non-inbred girl.
Her contemporaries described her
as being physically fit,
strong of mind, and pretty
of visage. 

Her education was strange; schooled by Jesuits, she was a crackerjack Latin speaker/writer/reader, but her punctuation and formal speech were found lacking by her contemporaries. She loved singing and acting in plays and operas conducted by her father. She was also an excellent archer, which had little practical applicability but made her look pretty hardcore. Of course, she was also schooled in girly things like etiquette, drawing, and dancing.

From the age of 14 onwards, her father allowed her to sit in on meetings of the council; she apparently enjoyed this privilege, but her father refused to speak to her about matters of state.

After Maria Theresa, Empress Elizabeth gave birth to two more girls; by this point, the emperor had reached a full-blown panic. He needed a son to secure the line of succession; however, fate had other plans.

Once it became evident that the empress wasn't going to pop out a son anytime soon, Emperor Charles VI started making plans, beginning with the Pragmatic Sanction. This royal act overruled the Salic Law (which prohibited a woman from inheriting her kingdom from her father) and would allow Maria Theresa to take the throne after her father's death.

And then there was the whole marriage conundrum. This woman was set to inherit one of (if not the) largest and most profitable empires in the world. Who would be her husband? Even more importantly,  who had enough connections to take this fab lady's hand in marriage and few enough to warrant a power shift in Europe? If Europe hates one thing, it's an imbalance of power. A myriad of negotiations ensued, and eventually the courts and salons of Europe decided on a guy named Francis Stephen, the duke of Lorraine.

The happy couple.

Maria Theresa was lucky in this aspect- she got to marry for love. Their marriage is considered a a success (mostly because Francis backed off and let Maria Theresa do her thang); together, they had  SIXTEEN children- 5 sons and 11 daughters (one of whom being the infamous Marie Antoinette). Three of these children died in infancy. Despite the fact that Francis was unfaithful for much of their marriage, it is remembered as a happy one.

Yes, the veritable crowd in the background
consists only of her children.

Anyways, back to politics. Her father died in 1740, leaving 23-year-old Maria Theresa the throne. The subjects of her crown lands (Austrian duchies, Hungary, Bohemia, etc.) quickly accepted her as their ruler. The rest of Europe basically had a gigantic temper tantrum.

Under Frederick II (King of Prussia), the rest of Europe formed a coalition against the new empress of the Holy Roman Empire. Prussia invaded Silesia (an Austrian province) and claimed it for their own. Bavaria and France jumped in and attacked other Habsburg territories, resulting in a huge 8-year European conflict known as the War of Austrian Succession. Considering that the war began when Maria Theresa had only been queen for a month and a half (with little political experience), the Holy Roman Empire escaped the war relatively unscathed, although they did lose Silesia to Prussia and a couple Italian territories to France.

Once the war ended, Maria Theresa could finally focus on internal affairs. She centralized power from her territories, thus beefing up her army AND her pocketbook. She also steamrolled over several corrupt and defunct government functions, combining them into the centralized General Directory.

With newly increased revenue from her domestic reforms, Maria Theresa was able to strengthen defense efforts; despite the fact that it was peacetime, she knew that she needed to prepare for the inevitable war with Frederick II (you know, because he was kind of a warmongering jerk). She also managed to secure an alliance with her old enemy, France, by marrying off her young daughter, Maria Antonia (later known as Marie Antoinette) to the dauphin (the heir) of France. This keen move ticked off Frederick II, who had planned on counting France as an ally for his upcoming war. He fumed as Maria Theresa laughed from her sumptuous palace.

Frederick II decided to continue his warmongering ways and again waged war against the great empress. To her dying breath, Maria Theresa claimed that she would have gone into battle herself had she not been continuously pregnant. Becoming known as the Seven Years War, this conflict ended at the death of Empress Elisabeth of Russia (another kick-butt female monarch), one of Maria Theresa's greatest allies. When Elisabeth died, Russia withdrew. The war ended in a peace treaty in 1763.

Unfortunately, in 1765, tragedy struck. Maria Theresa's beloved husband, Francis, died. His death hit her so hard that she wore only black for the rest of her life as a sign of her mourning.

Two years later, Maria Theresa contracted smallpox from her daughter-in-law, Maria Josepha of Bavaria. She survived, but her daughter-in-law did not. Maria Theresa took one of her daughters (who also happened to be named Maria Josepha) to pray at the Imperial Crypt near the unsealed tomb of the deceased Maria Josepha. Maria Theresa's daughter contracted smallpox (most assume from the dead body of her sister-in-law) two days after and died; Maria Theresa believed it to be her fault and never forgave herself.

Maria Theresa is remembered as being an...interesting mother. Basically, if you were one of her favorite children, she allowed you to marry for love (i.e. Maria Cristina). If you weren't, you were a political pawn to be married to whomever best served Maria Theresa's interests at the time, even if you were miserable (i.e. all of her other children). She was a devoted yet highly critical mother; she wrote to her each of her children at least once a week. To some of the more disappointing children, she wrote even more often (i.e. Marie Antoinette, who she criticized for being "lazy," "frivolous," and seemingly "unable to conceive of a child."). This criticism wasn't exclusively given to Marie Antoinette; she reprimanded every single one of her daughters (even her favorite, Maria Cristina) for not being fertile enough.

After the death of her husband, her eldest son, Joseph II, became her co-regent. Unfortunately, the two clashed on nearly everything. She was highly conservative; he flirted with the ideals of the Enlightenment. They bickered and fought; both threatened to abdicate on numerous occasions. However, the rule of these two served as a transition period between the "old ways" of Maria Theresa and the "Enlightened" despotism of Joseph II after her death.

She died on November 28, 1780 at the age of 63. With her died the House of Habsburg, to be replaced by her son's House of Habsburg-Lorraine. Maria Theresa left behind a revitalized and stabilized empire that influenced Europe for the whole of the next century.

At her death, her full title was: (*deep breath*)

The burial crypt shared by Maria Theresa and
her beloved husband.

Maria Theresa, by the Grace of God, Dowager Empress of the Romans, Queen of Hungary, of Bohemia, of Dalmatia, of Croatia, of Slavonia, of Galicia, of Lodomeria, etc.; Archduchess of Austria; Duchess of Burgundy, of Styria, of Carinthia and of Carniola; Grand Princess of Transylvania; Margravine of Moravia; Duchess of Brabant, of Limburg, of Luxemburg, of Guelders, of Württemberg, of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Milan, of Mantua, of Parma, of Piacenza, of Guastalla, of Auschwitz and of Zator; Princess of Swabia; Princely Countess of Habsburg, of Flanders, of Tyrol, of Hainault, of Kyburg, of Gorizia and of Gradisca; Margravine of Burgau, of Upper and Lower Lusatia; Countess of Namur; Lady of the Wendish Mark and of Mechlin; Dowager Duchess of Lorraine and Bar, Dowager Grand Duchess of Tuscany.