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Marie Antoinette Now a day there is a tendency to overlook small factors in history that may seem silly, trivial, or irrational. However, often these factors have great influences over people and need to be observed. Marie Antoinette and her involvement in the French revolution are a perfect example. The revolution was undoubtedly caused by the growing discontent of the French population towards the abuses of the upper class. However, no revolution could succeed without symbols or icons like Marie Antoinette. The queens image became a symbol of corrupt monarchy during the revolution and played a major role in uniting and inspiring revolutionaries.
The icon of Marie Antoinette was depersonalized and used for further political objectives. (Bernier 914) Born to the Austrian empress Maria Theresa, Marie Antoinette was obliged to marry Luis XVI of France to symbolize an alliance between Austria and France. Ironically, in the beginning of her marriage to the prince, Marie Antoinette was loved by the French people for her kindness to peasants and her willingness to interact with her subjects. However, these very qualities would soon damage her reputation giving her the nicknames Austrian whore and Madame Deficit uniting the revolutionaries, and bringing about her execution. (Asquith 131) Although the time itself was a difficult time for the French monarchy, it was mainly Antoinette's own attitude to her position that caused the most serious damage. In an age when monarchs were supposed to be servants of the state it was especially important to present an image of devoted self-sacrifice to their subjects. But it was precisely this rather grave demeanor that Marie Antoinette shrugged off when she arrived at Versailles. A bride at fifteen and a queen at nineteen, like all adolescent girls of her generation she was fascinated with sentimental literature.
A passion for flowers, a rather merry candor and a dislike of stolid formality were, after all, the virtues in fashion. But they were supposed to be hidden behind the mask of royalty. (Schuma 17) Almost from the outset, the Queen made no concessions to her public role. She giggled at the pecking wars of ladies-in-waiting, yawned or sighed at the monotonous ceremonies that left her stark naked in the cold of her Versailles apartment while they went through the business of selecting the royal ribbons. Worst of all, she began to rebel against wearing stays and corsets at all. Nature was the word in fashion by the 1780 s and she blithely assumed that by acting naturally she would be taken for the innocent she mostly was. But what seemed spontaneous to her appeared as shockingly licentious to many of her subjects. (Schuma 18) She abandoned the stiffness (both material and figurative) of formal court dress for the loose, simple gowns of white lawn, cotton and muslin.
The queen would openly complain of the dreariness of the Sunday court royal rituals. Most important is the directness with which the queen represented her own femininity. What had been permissible, even expected, in a mistress of the monarch was somehow intolerable in a queen. (Bernier 912) Contrary to popular behavior of the time, Marie Antoinette was extremely outgoing for a woman. She began going out with common people and acting as if she were a regular person. It became evident that she wanted the privileges and indulgences of monarchy while being free to pretend that she was really a private individual. This lead to her unpopularity, and even undermined her legitimacy.
It was from her constant outings to theatres with male friends that Antoinette earned the nickname Austrian Whore. It seems improbable that any of these men were anything more that companionable flatterers for the Queen. But the informal manner she promoted and visibility courted at all of Paris major theaters, were bound to play into the hands of the scandal-mongers and pornographers. Marie Antoinette though she could hardly have dreamed of it represented a threat to the settled system of gender relations.
If the King was supposed to be the emblematic head of a patriarchal order, by the same token his wife was supposed to show a face of especial obedience, humility and submission. (Bernier 26) In addition to being called the Austrian whore, Marie Antoinette became known as Madame Deficit. This nickname originated from her wild spending habits. The Queen used her authority to shower gifts, offices and money on her chosen favorites. Along with each of her favorites came a large clan of relatives and cronies who clung to the sides of the royal finances. There were impecunious aunts, profligate brothers, scapegrace grandpas, broken-down baronies and mortgaged plantations in the Antilles, all to be satisfied and made good. So that what to the Queen seemed innocent enough putting favors in the way of her friends to less partial judgement looked like a gigantic network of sinecure and graft; the empire of Madame Deficit, as many called it. (Loomis 114) Nothing could have been more detrimental to the Queens reputation that the Diamond Necklace affair that unraveled in the summer of 1785.
The entire affair was a scheme on the part of Madame Jeanne de la Motte, who had her mind set on a diamond necklace of 647 brilliants and 2, 800 carats recently made for Louis XV. Frightened by the price, he refused to buy the necklace. Knowing of Antoinette's weakness for diamonds, the jewelers went to her next. Surprisingly she refused to make the purchase, at which point the jewelers were in a rut and Mme. Jeanne de la Motte devised a scheme.
She would trick Cardinal Louis de Rohan, a respectable prince of France, into believing that the queen wants him to buy her the necklace. Mme de la Motte wrote many detailed letters to the Cardinal and captured him completely when she dressed up a young prostitute as the queen and had her meet with the Cardinal. Soon afterwards the necklace was in her hands, and she had it taken apart to pay off her debts. Her success lasted only several months, when all involved were arrested and taken to the Bastille. (Loomis 290) The real casualty of the whole affair was its principal victim: Marie Antoinette. Mysteriously, it was the Queen who emerged from the business portrayed as a spendthrift and a vindictive slut who would stop at nothing to satisfy her appetites. Many say that Marie Antoinette designed her own downfall: it was precisely her reputation for unaffected girlish sentimentality that made Louis, the Cardinal de Rohan, believe that he could win her favor by buying her a necklace. (Schuma 22) Unavoidably, Marie Antoinette was in the center of the entire ordeal.
It was her transformation in public opinion from innocent victim to vindictive harpy, from Queen of France to the Austrian whore that damaged the legitimacy of the monarchy to an incalculable degree. The revolutionaries could use this corrupted queen as a scapegoat and propaganda for the French revolution. Through Marie Antoinette, they characterized the court as a playpen of spoiled and greedy children. Soon pamphlets discussing the Queens wild behavior flooded the streets.
Pornography was dominated by Marie Antoinette shown with random men and often partaking in orgies. The prototype for many of these productions was the Essai Historique sur la Vie de Marie-Antoinette, first published in 1781, again in 1783, and then with annual revisions to keep up with events right through to her execution in 1793. These publications were written in the form of autobiographical confessions and included the degrading words: Catherine de Medici, Cleopatra, Agrippina, Messalina, my deeds have surpassed yours, and if the memory of your infamies still provokes a shudder, if its frightful detail makes the hair stand on end and tears pour from the eyes, what sentiments will issue form knowledge of the cruel and lascivious life of Marie-Antoinette barbaric Queen, adulterous wife, woman without morals, soiled with crime and debauchery, these are the titles that are my decorations. (Schuma 224). In this quote, Marie Antoinette supposedly confesses to having been illegitimate, unfaithful, etc. Like many other publications of the time, its main purpose was to inspire the revolution. Although many of the accusations were completely false, they were quickly picked up.
This is because the monarchy had so long been revered. The attacks, when they came, were all the more violent and all the more believable: maddened crowds will always be quite sure that their enemies are plotting their extermination. Eventually, Marie Antoinette became a symbol of the corrupt monarchy and a source of propaganda for the French revolutionaries. The climax and worst point of the accusations against the queen was when she was accused of sexually harassing her own son.
Worn out and sick of arguing she turned to the courtroom and addressed all of the mothers present, asking if such a crime was really possible. The deconstruction of Marie Antoinette's image was a pathetic thing. She had stripped herself of the mask of royalty in the interest of Nature and Humanity only to end up represented as, of all women, unnatural and inhuman. Marie Antoinette was hopelessly unprepared for the kind of criticism to which she opened herself by redesigning the royal identity. The maligning of her and the French throne did not cease. As she made her way to the guillotine in 1793, the crowd cheered.
They cheered for the death of the Austrian Whore and Madame Deficit. These nicknames, however, were mere scapegoats. The people were cheering for the end of the monarchy.
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