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outdated tax system and lack of an effective central bank.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.