MsRepresented: Marie Antoinette's Tragically Misquoted Life
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VOICE OVER: Emily Brayton
WRITTEN BY: Shaina Higgins
Discover the real story behind France's most misunderstood queen. From her arranged marriage at 14 to her tragic end at the guillotine, we explore how Marie Antoinette became a convenient scapegoat for a nation's anger. Was she really just a frivolous party girl, or is there more to her story than cake and couture? Join us as we examine her journey from Austrian princess to French queen, her relationship with Louis XVI, her role in politics, and how history has unfairly painted her legacy. We'll separate fact from fiction and reveal the human being behind the infamous reputation.
MsRepresented: Marie-Antoinette
She was the sparkling centerpiece of the most extravagant royal court in European history. The ultimate party girl, famed for her bold fashion, and an appetite for luxury that turned out to be downright revolutionary. An entire country paid the price for her glib recklessness. Her head was in the clouds until it wound up on the execution block, and the world was never the same. But is there more to this doomed queen than just frosting? Today we’ll dig in and explore how Marie Antoinette has been Misrepresented.
Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa[a] never would have expected one of her children to eclipse her in historical immortality, let alone her youngest daughter, Maria Antonia. Maria Theresa was something of a maverick, after all. She held the throne as sovereign in her own right, but Imperial politics were still a family affair, with her large brood of children expected to do their part. She used many of them as pawns in strategic marriages, shoring up alliances, and expanding the reach of her power. And when she and King Louis 15th of France decided to put their differences aside and become friendly neighbors, Marie Theresa was ready with a bride as a peace offering.
Only fourteen at the time of her official engagement, the Archduchess Maria Antonia was a year younger than her future husband, the Dauphin, or heir to the throne, Louis Auguste. Though she was a pretty, and poised child with a talent for music, dancing, and dressing her dolls, she was considered mediocre as far as the rest of her education went. However, she sat a nice portrait, and had the right family, so affianced she was. Antonia received a crash course to prepare her to assume the role of Dauphine, and then off she went to start her new life in France. A new life that came with a new name.
When the freshly minted Marie Antoinette arrived at the royal palace of Versailles she was instantly out of her depth. The common people seemed to like her well enough, but after years of hostilities between France and Austria, she was an unpopular choice of future queen among the nobility. Though she was begrudgingly considered both beautiful and charming, nothing had prepared Marie Antoinette to navigate the political minefield of Versailles. Well, more like a political fishbowl, really. The princess was further unnerved to find herself constantly on display, and at odds with the highly ritualized social etiquette that governed the French court. Yes, the courtiers really did watch the royal family dress and eat. It was a very intrusive status symbol. Add in a much documented rivalry with the King’s mistress, Madame du Barry, and it made for a tense environment.
Unfortunately, her new husband, Louis, was no help. The Dauphin was painfully shy. Though he gradually warmed to his wife, a combination of emotional and physical factors made him unable to consummate their marriage. This rendered Marie Antoinette unable to produce an heir, which was pretty much the only job she had as a royal bride, making her even more unpopular at court. Because naturally as a foreigner and a woman, it was all her fault.
We wouldn’t really think of her as a full grown woman in the modern era, though. While the young Marie Antoinette is often played on screen by a twenty-something actress, she was still just a high-school aged girl as she was dealing with all this. The pressure only increased when she became Queen of France at eighteen. A long way from home, deeply lonely, and unable to fulfill the one purpose she was assigned, she began to look for outlets. And so the Marie Antoinette most thoroughly imprinted on popular culture began to emerge.
Our obsession with wealth, beauty, and youth is as old as our species. All three in one person has proven time and time again to be an irresistible fascination. Like so many It Girls of so many eras, the new Queen became known for her fashion, acquiring a sumptuous wardrobe and experimenting with ever-more outlandish hair styles. Not only have countless directors eagerly recreated Marie Antoinette’s distinct aesthetic, but she remains a relevant source of style inspiration to this day. To look at our screens, runways, and stages, it would seem the Queen’s reign never ended. However, it does help to ingrain the idea of Marie Antoinette as someone of high style and little substance. Unless, of course, that substance was cake.
Yes, if there’s one other thing we all know about Marie Antoinette, it’s her fondness for sweet treats. When she heard her people were starving from bread shortages, she was famously baffled that they wouldn’t just enjoy dessert instead. Except there’s not actually any record of Marie Antoinette saying any such thing. The phrase originates with an unnamed princess in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s autobiographical writing, “Confessions,” and it’s possible he made up the anecdote entirely. However, the fact that it was so strongly attached to Marie Antoinette shows us how far back the smear campaign against her goes.
Inside the gilded world of the French court, Marie Antoinette filled her days with fashion and home redecoration, court entertainments, and gambling. You might be aware that these are all things that cost money. She did not appear to be, at least at first. Meanwhile, the common people of France were struggling. The country was deep in debt, agricultural hardships and poor policy decisions had resulted in skyrocketing bread prices, and the poorest citizens had to contend with a bitterly unfair tax policy on top of everything else. Be that as it may, the image of Marie Antoinette blithely spending down the royal treasury while the populace tightened their belts again and again turned what goodwill they had once held for their Queen into simmering resentment.
It’s interesting that Thomas Jefferson should stick his nose in here, because he arguably had more to do with France’s situation than Marie Antoinette did. True, her profligate spending in a time of need was a bad look, and it certainly couldn’t have helped the financial situation. However, by the time she was supposedly suggesting cake to fix a famine, the largest chunk of France’s debt was due to its choice to support the American Colonies in their Revolution against Great Britain. Though she was not responsible for the decision to get involved, it’s worth noting that Marie Antoinette had been in favor of French intervention in the conflict, and had tugged some of her own strings to secure Austrian and Russian aid as well.
Despite the fact that most depictions of Queen Marie Antoinette paint her as generally frivolous, she did gradually become more politically engaged throughout her husband's reign. Unfortunately, it only hurt her reputation further. Many people never stopped seeing her as a foreigner, and inherently untrustworthy. Her efforts to balance her duties as a bridge between her adopted country and her homeland, as well as any reminder of her ties to Austria often resulted in implications that she was working to weaken France from the inside. When she attempted to manage the relationship between her husband, a truly inept monarch, and the French parliament, the vitriol aimed at her only increased. Her growing unpopularity proved detrimental to the policy reforms she tried to support.
Meanwhile, numerous rumors circulated about extra marital affairs with members of her inner circle, further impugning her character. Two of the best known Marie Antoinette movies haven’t been able to resist exploring a romantic liaison with Swedish diplomat Axel von Fersen[b]. The pair were close enough to prompt much speculation, but there is no hard evidence to prove a physical relationship existed between them. While Sofia Coppola depicted a dalliance provoked by Marie Antoinette’s listlessness in her life at Court, the 1938 version shows her ready to throw her entire life away to be with Fersen, and quietly implies he might be the father of one of her children. This all mirrors malicious gossip spread about Marie Antoinette by her contemporaries. Interestingly, the much more nuanced 2012 film, “Farewell, My Queen,” does the same, if more thoughtfully. The rumored same sex relationship between Marie Antoinette, and her friend and favorite the Duchess of Polignac[c] was supposedly one more “German vice” Marie Antoinette had brought with her to inflict upon the French court.
Of course this all fits with the image we have of Marie Antoinette wiling away her life in a hedonistic whirl. However, the truth is that her most indulgent tendencies were mostly confined to her youth, as they are with most people. Given maturity and time, she grew out of it, and turned her attention to other things. Politics, yes, but also extensive charity work, and raising her children. Despite their rough start in married life, Louis was eventually able to get over his issues in the bedroom, and the couple would have four children, though only two survived their parents. Marie Antoinette took a leaf from her own mother, mobilizing her family to try and improve the affairs of state. In this case, trying to rehab her public image and stabilize the popular mood. In truth, she reportedly was a very loving and involved parent to her children. Sadly, it’s a side of the Queen that is frequently sidelined, or completely eliminated in popular depictions. When Marie Antoinette’s relationship with her children is used, it’s usually to add emotional stakes to a scene rather than to lend dimension to Marie Antoinette as a human being.
Eventually the Queen's world collapsed out from under her with the ignition of the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette was not unaware of the dire circumstances leading up to it, as media often suggests, and in fact had to be the one to get Louis to take it seriously. But the situation was too far gone to be salvaged by the weak solutions the King and his ministers offered. As tensions rose to a fever pitch, the royal family was urged to flee, but Marie Antoinette refused to leave her husband behind in a show of courage and fidelity that directly contradicted her reputation. Nevertheless, it sealed her fate.
Stripped of their titles, Marie Antoinette and her family were imprisoned for a time before she was executed via guillotine at the age of 37. At her trial she had been found guilty of depleting the treasury, conspiracy against the security of the state, and treason for her intelligence actions on behalf of an enemy. And so the petty, unfounded whispers that had followed her since she was little more than a child became etched in the public record as truths. Her final words, spoken to her executioner after stepping on his foot, hold a kind of tragic irony.
Perhaps it’s understandable why Marie Antoinette’s reputation suffered the way it did during her lifetime. Not that much of it was true, but because angry, oppressed people needed a target for their rage and she was a very visible and very convenient one. But with the benefit of distance, why haven’t we done better to clear some of the tarnish from Marie Antoinette’s name?
To be fair, more recent film and TV projects have tried to tell her story with greater nuance, but it’s a tricky balancing act. Sophia Coppola’s 2006 film has become the best known screen re-telling of the Queen’s story, and as a piece of visual art it’s above reproach. It does give a sense of Marie Antoinette’s deeper interiority, however, it doesn’t do much to plumb those depths or to show her personal growth. Some have critiqued the movie, saying that its reliance on the aesthetics and visual aspects of storytelling have weighted it more heavily towards style than substance. This makes it a perfect representation of Marie Antoinette the pop culture figure, but not so much of Marie Antoinette the person.
The latest effort at telling the Queen’s story comes in the form of a 2022 TV series written by Deborah Davis, who previously gave us “The Favourite,” a dark comedy set in the court of Great Britain’s Queen Anne. This outing introduces us to the very young Marie Antoinette at the beginning of her journey towards infamy. The show benefits from having more time to flesh out a narrative, as well as from a strong cast and high production values, and gives us one of the more developed versions of Marie Antoinette. However, it also eschews strict historical accuracy in favor of a very modern feminist spin for her as a character. It’s not an unwelcome take, especially in contrast to the traditional air-head read. But a lot of what makes her interesting are things that would conflict with an easy girl-power narrative.
That’s the crux of the issue when it comes to this woman: She was human. But her status and privilege created a separation that made it easy to treat her more as a symbol on a pedestal than a person. So she became a glamorous mannequin that we could dress up in our own meanings. To the French revolutionaries, she was the living embodiment of excess and corruption. As time has passed and we’ve evolved through eras of different political and social philosophies, she has been a cautionary tale of careless vanity run amok. She has been a silly spoiled girl, doing silly girl things. And once consumer culture got a hold of her, she was frequently translated into a tragic icon of luxurious indulgence. ‘Sure, she lost her head, but she looked fabulous right up until then, and that’s what matters. You too could be fabulous if you embraced her good taste and opened your wallet for us.’
As bizarre as it is to see Marie Antoinette rebranded as an aspirational avatar for the sweet life, it’s in keeping with the long legacy that has seen her continuously forced into the boxes society has constructed around her. The real tragedy is that throughout her life, Marie Antoinette earnestly tried to satisfy the people around her, be they her family, her courtiers, or her subjects. Each effort to serve was met with dismissal, derision, or downright fury. As a victim of xenophobia, and misogyny, constantly blamed for the shortcomings of the men around her, Marie Antoinette, for all the material comforts of her life, remains a depressingly relevant figure in the modern era. Her status suggested power, yet she was ultimately powerless against prejudice and circumstance. Any potential she had to develop as a leader was discouraged at every turn. And she would live to see all of her complexity flattened down to the worst things ever said about her, perhaps already understanding that that was the version history would remember.
We can’t change the fact that Marie Antoinette will always be somewhat of a cipher to project our own interpretations upon. But whether you think she’s a feminist icon, or a wasteful one percenter who probably had it coming, is beside the point. Under the gossip, and the lies, and the beautiful clothes, it’s important to remember her as a person. And that she was trying her best.
https://forvo.com/search/Theresa/de/
[b]almost Fashion, FESH-uhn:
https://forvo.com/search/Axel%20von%20Fersen/
[c]PAWL-een-YACK:
https://forvo.com/search/Polignac/
She was the sparkling centerpiece of the most extravagant royal court in European history. The ultimate party girl, famed for her bold fashion, and an appetite for luxury that turned out to be downright revolutionary. An entire country paid the price for her glib recklessness. Her head was in the clouds until it wound up on the execution block, and the world was never the same. But is there more to this doomed queen than just frosting? Today we’ll dig in and explore how Marie Antoinette has been Misrepresented.
Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa[a] never would have expected one of her children to eclipse her in historical immortality, let alone her youngest daughter, Maria Antonia. Maria Theresa was something of a maverick, after all. She held the throne as sovereign in her own right, but Imperial politics were still a family affair, with her large brood of children expected to do their part. She used many of them as pawns in strategic marriages, shoring up alliances, and expanding the reach of her power. And when she and King Louis 15th of France decided to put their differences aside and become friendly neighbors, Marie Theresa was ready with a bride as a peace offering.
Only fourteen at the time of her official engagement, the Archduchess Maria Antonia was a year younger than her future husband, the Dauphin, or heir to the throne, Louis Auguste. Though she was a pretty, and poised child with a talent for music, dancing, and dressing her dolls, she was considered mediocre as far as the rest of her education went. However, she sat a nice portrait, and had the right family, so affianced she was. Antonia received a crash course to prepare her to assume the role of Dauphine, and then off she went to start her new life in France. A new life that came with a new name.
When the freshly minted Marie Antoinette arrived at the royal palace of Versailles she was instantly out of her depth. The common people seemed to like her well enough, but after years of hostilities between France and Austria, she was an unpopular choice of future queen among the nobility. Though she was begrudgingly considered both beautiful and charming, nothing had prepared Marie Antoinette to navigate the political minefield of Versailles. Well, more like a political fishbowl, really. The princess was further unnerved to find herself constantly on display, and at odds with the highly ritualized social etiquette that governed the French court. Yes, the courtiers really did watch the royal family dress and eat. It was a very intrusive status symbol. Add in a much documented rivalry with the King’s mistress, Madame du Barry, and it made for a tense environment.
Unfortunately, her new husband, Louis, was no help. The Dauphin was painfully shy. Though he gradually warmed to his wife, a combination of emotional and physical factors made him unable to consummate their marriage. This rendered Marie Antoinette unable to produce an heir, which was pretty much the only job she had as a royal bride, making her even more unpopular at court. Because naturally as a foreigner and a woman, it was all her fault.
We wouldn’t really think of her as a full grown woman in the modern era, though. While the young Marie Antoinette is often played on screen by a twenty-something actress, she was still just a high-school aged girl as she was dealing with all this. The pressure only increased when she became Queen of France at eighteen. A long way from home, deeply lonely, and unable to fulfill the one purpose she was assigned, she began to look for outlets. And so the Marie Antoinette most thoroughly imprinted on popular culture began to emerge.
Our obsession with wealth, beauty, and youth is as old as our species. All three in one person has proven time and time again to be an irresistible fascination. Like so many It Girls of so many eras, the new Queen became known for her fashion, acquiring a sumptuous wardrobe and experimenting with ever-more outlandish hair styles. Not only have countless directors eagerly recreated Marie Antoinette’s distinct aesthetic, but she remains a relevant source of style inspiration to this day. To look at our screens, runways, and stages, it would seem the Queen’s reign never ended. However, it does help to ingrain the idea of Marie Antoinette as someone of high style and little substance. Unless, of course, that substance was cake.
Yes, if there’s one other thing we all know about Marie Antoinette, it’s her fondness for sweet treats. When she heard her people were starving from bread shortages, she was famously baffled that they wouldn’t just enjoy dessert instead. Except there’s not actually any record of Marie Antoinette saying any such thing. The phrase originates with an unnamed princess in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s autobiographical writing, “Confessions,” and it’s possible he made up the anecdote entirely. However, the fact that it was so strongly attached to Marie Antoinette shows us how far back the smear campaign against her goes.
Inside the gilded world of the French court, Marie Antoinette filled her days with fashion and home redecoration, court entertainments, and gambling. You might be aware that these are all things that cost money. She did not appear to be, at least at first. Meanwhile, the common people of France were struggling. The country was deep in debt, agricultural hardships and poor policy decisions had resulted in skyrocketing bread prices, and the poorest citizens had to contend with a bitterly unfair tax policy on top of everything else. Be that as it may, the image of Marie Antoinette blithely spending down the royal treasury while the populace tightened their belts again and again turned what goodwill they had once held for their Queen into simmering resentment.
It’s interesting that Thomas Jefferson should stick his nose in here, because he arguably had more to do with France’s situation than Marie Antoinette did. True, her profligate spending in a time of need was a bad look, and it certainly couldn’t have helped the financial situation. However, by the time she was supposedly suggesting cake to fix a famine, the largest chunk of France’s debt was due to its choice to support the American Colonies in their Revolution against Great Britain. Though she was not responsible for the decision to get involved, it’s worth noting that Marie Antoinette had been in favor of French intervention in the conflict, and had tugged some of her own strings to secure Austrian and Russian aid as well.
Despite the fact that most depictions of Queen Marie Antoinette paint her as generally frivolous, she did gradually become more politically engaged throughout her husband's reign. Unfortunately, it only hurt her reputation further. Many people never stopped seeing her as a foreigner, and inherently untrustworthy. Her efforts to balance her duties as a bridge between her adopted country and her homeland, as well as any reminder of her ties to Austria often resulted in implications that she was working to weaken France from the inside. When she attempted to manage the relationship between her husband, a truly inept monarch, and the French parliament, the vitriol aimed at her only increased. Her growing unpopularity proved detrimental to the policy reforms she tried to support.
Meanwhile, numerous rumors circulated about extra marital affairs with members of her inner circle, further impugning her character. Two of the best known Marie Antoinette movies haven’t been able to resist exploring a romantic liaison with Swedish diplomat Axel von Fersen[b]. The pair were close enough to prompt much speculation, but there is no hard evidence to prove a physical relationship existed between them. While Sofia Coppola depicted a dalliance provoked by Marie Antoinette’s listlessness in her life at Court, the 1938 version shows her ready to throw her entire life away to be with Fersen, and quietly implies he might be the father of one of her children. This all mirrors malicious gossip spread about Marie Antoinette by her contemporaries. Interestingly, the much more nuanced 2012 film, “Farewell, My Queen,” does the same, if more thoughtfully. The rumored same sex relationship between Marie Antoinette, and her friend and favorite the Duchess of Polignac[c] was supposedly one more “German vice” Marie Antoinette had brought with her to inflict upon the French court.
Of course this all fits with the image we have of Marie Antoinette wiling away her life in a hedonistic whirl. However, the truth is that her most indulgent tendencies were mostly confined to her youth, as they are with most people. Given maturity and time, she grew out of it, and turned her attention to other things. Politics, yes, but also extensive charity work, and raising her children. Despite their rough start in married life, Louis was eventually able to get over his issues in the bedroom, and the couple would have four children, though only two survived their parents. Marie Antoinette took a leaf from her own mother, mobilizing her family to try and improve the affairs of state. In this case, trying to rehab her public image and stabilize the popular mood. In truth, she reportedly was a very loving and involved parent to her children. Sadly, it’s a side of the Queen that is frequently sidelined, or completely eliminated in popular depictions. When Marie Antoinette’s relationship with her children is used, it’s usually to add emotional stakes to a scene rather than to lend dimension to Marie Antoinette as a human being.
Eventually the Queen's world collapsed out from under her with the ignition of the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette was not unaware of the dire circumstances leading up to it, as media often suggests, and in fact had to be the one to get Louis to take it seriously. But the situation was too far gone to be salvaged by the weak solutions the King and his ministers offered. As tensions rose to a fever pitch, the royal family was urged to flee, but Marie Antoinette refused to leave her husband behind in a show of courage and fidelity that directly contradicted her reputation. Nevertheless, it sealed her fate.
Stripped of their titles, Marie Antoinette and her family were imprisoned for a time before she was executed via guillotine at the age of 37. At her trial she had been found guilty of depleting the treasury, conspiracy against the security of the state, and treason for her intelligence actions on behalf of an enemy. And so the petty, unfounded whispers that had followed her since she was little more than a child became etched in the public record as truths. Her final words, spoken to her executioner after stepping on his foot, hold a kind of tragic irony.
Perhaps it’s understandable why Marie Antoinette’s reputation suffered the way it did during her lifetime. Not that much of it was true, but because angry, oppressed people needed a target for their rage and she was a very visible and very convenient one. But with the benefit of distance, why haven’t we done better to clear some of the tarnish from Marie Antoinette’s name?
To be fair, more recent film and TV projects have tried to tell her story with greater nuance, but it’s a tricky balancing act. Sophia Coppola’s 2006 film has become the best known screen re-telling of the Queen’s story, and as a piece of visual art it’s above reproach. It does give a sense of Marie Antoinette’s deeper interiority, however, it doesn’t do much to plumb those depths or to show her personal growth. Some have critiqued the movie, saying that its reliance on the aesthetics and visual aspects of storytelling have weighted it more heavily towards style than substance. This makes it a perfect representation of Marie Antoinette the pop culture figure, but not so much of Marie Antoinette the person.
The latest effort at telling the Queen’s story comes in the form of a 2022 TV series written by Deborah Davis, who previously gave us “The Favourite,” a dark comedy set in the court of Great Britain’s Queen Anne. This outing introduces us to the very young Marie Antoinette at the beginning of her journey towards infamy. The show benefits from having more time to flesh out a narrative, as well as from a strong cast and high production values, and gives us one of the more developed versions of Marie Antoinette. However, it also eschews strict historical accuracy in favor of a very modern feminist spin for her as a character. It’s not an unwelcome take, especially in contrast to the traditional air-head read. But a lot of what makes her interesting are things that would conflict with an easy girl-power narrative.
That’s the crux of the issue when it comes to this woman: She was human. But her status and privilege created a separation that made it easy to treat her more as a symbol on a pedestal than a person. So she became a glamorous mannequin that we could dress up in our own meanings. To the French revolutionaries, she was the living embodiment of excess and corruption. As time has passed and we’ve evolved through eras of different political and social philosophies, she has been a cautionary tale of careless vanity run amok. She has been a silly spoiled girl, doing silly girl things. And once consumer culture got a hold of her, she was frequently translated into a tragic icon of luxurious indulgence. ‘Sure, she lost her head, but she looked fabulous right up until then, and that’s what matters. You too could be fabulous if you embraced her good taste and opened your wallet for us.’
As bizarre as it is to see Marie Antoinette rebranded as an aspirational avatar for the sweet life, it’s in keeping with the long legacy that has seen her continuously forced into the boxes society has constructed around her. The real tragedy is that throughout her life, Marie Antoinette earnestly tried to satisfy the people around her, be they her family, her courtiers, or her subjects. Each effort to serve was met with dismissal, derision, or downright fury. As a victim of xenophobia, and misogyny, constantly blamed for the shortcomings of the men around her, Marie Antoinette, for all the material comforts of her life, remains a depressingly relevant figure in the modern era. Her status suggested power, yet she was ultimately powerless against prejudice and circumstance. Any potential she had to develop as a leader was discouraged at every turn. And she would live to see all of her complexity flattened down to the worst things ever said about her, perhaps already understanding that that was the version history would remember.
We can’t change the fact that Marie Antoinette will always be somewhat of a cipher to project our own interpretations upon. But whether you think she’s a feminist icon, or a wasteful one percenter who probably had it coming, is beside the point. Under the gossip, and the lies, and the beautiful clothes, it’s important to remember her as a person. And that she was trying her best.
Which other historical figure do you think got an unfair cut in the pop culture edit? Let us know in the comments.
[a]tair-RAISE-uh:https://forvo.com/search/Theresa/de/
[b]almost Fashion, FESH-uhn:
https://forvo.com/search/Axel%20von%20Fersen/
[c]PAWL-een-YACK:
https://forvo.com/search/Polignac/
