lifeofthedamned:

ancslove:

heavenshallremember:

cobblerofmessina:

heavenshallremember:

hornblower24601:

vivelareine:

Gareth Russell revisits “Let Them Eat Cake”:

If Marie-Antoinette didn’t make the “joke,” then how did it end up being associated with her for 200 years? Some historians think it’s because the story had been going around for years, getting attributed to different royal women, but because Marie-Antoinette was the last Queen of France, it stuck with her. After her, there was nobody else to pin the story to. Others think that because the French Revolution was able to dress itself up as the force that brought freedom and equality to Europe, it had to justify its many acts of violence and terror. Executing Marie-Antoinette at the age of thirty-seven and leaving her two children as shivering, heart-broken orphans in the terrifying Temple prison, suggested that the Revolution was a lot more complicated than its supporters like to claim. However, if Marie-Antoinette is painted as stupid, deluded, out-of-touch, spoiled and selfish, then we’re likely to feel a lot less pity when it comes to studying her death. If that was the republicans’ intention, then they did a very good job. Two hundred years later and the poor woman is still stuck with a terrible reputation, and a catchphrase, that she certainly doesn’t deserve.

I will weep for the children of kings with you, if you will weep with me for the little ones of the people.

…equally…and if the balance tips, let it be on the side of the people: They have suffered longer.

YES.
Though truly I do feel very sorry for Marie Antoinette. In a way, the life she was forced to lead because of her birth must have been utter torture. No one should be, from birth, condemned to live a life in the public eye, with zero privacy, and destined, almost inevitably, to be hated, thrown into a hugely powerful role with hardly any preparation. I think Marie Antoinette was not a genius, she was not divine, she was not a monster, she was not evil, nor she did not have superhuman virtues, she was, like all the rest of us, a normal human being. And, like every human being, deserved to live the life of a normal human being. And yet, from her birth to her death, both before and after 1789, she was not able to. 
Marie Antoinette did not make herself a tyrant, she was born into that position due to the system of tyranny. When any individual has to die it is a tragedy, and thus that Marie Antoinette had to die so the Republic could live and the system that condemned her to live the inhuman life she had to live could be destroyed was a tragedy, a tragically necessary one. I don’t blame Marie Antoinette, I don’t blame Robespierre, I blame the system of tyranny itself. 
It would have been wonderful if Marie Antoinette could have lived a long, happy, healthy life as a happy healthy person. It would have been wonderful if Sanson did not have to remove a single head on the guillotine. It would have been wonderful if there was no Bastille that had to be stormed. It would have been wonderful if the French Revolution did not have to happen. Since everyone’s quoting Les Mis,- ‘When there is no more Satan, there will be no more Michael…’ But as it was/is… 

Reblogging again for that.

I’m not entirely convinced that Marie Antoinette had to die so that the Republic could live.  She didn’t have any real influence over state policy or over her husband.  She was convicted and executed for treason, but I don’t really think that charge holds water.  

I think her death was a political convenience, more than anything else.  She could have remained imprisoned and faded into obscurity, but that was too expensive.  Theoretically, she could have been stripped of her royal French title and all of its trappings, and left to live as a French citizen, as best she could.  In a way, that might have been crueler than execution, since she was very sheltered and poorly educated.  Alternatively, she could have been sent to a convent, the traditional way to deal with unwanted royal wives.  She wasn’t actually French, and without her French title by marriage, she could have and should have been exiled back to Austria - but I absolutely understand why that couldn’t happen.  Back in Austria, she would have been a figurehead for European royalty, even if she herself did nothing.  So, her death was a political statement.

Marie Antoinette is not the only royal woman to be executed on a basically trumped-up charge for political convenience.  Henry VIII executed Margaret Pole for just that reason.  He also executed Anne Boleyn for the same reason.  (Catherine Howard’s execution was more out of personal humiliation and hate.)  Elizabeth I executed Mary Queen of Scots because it was politically safer, although I feel that she had more real cause.  And of course, there are the Romanov family at the end of the Russian Revolution.  However, Marie Antoinette is the one where history has general said that she deserved it.  Margaret Pole’s execution is generally seen as a horrendous example of Henry’s evil tyranny.  Mary of Scotland has legions of supporters who basically accuse Elizabeth of jealousy.  

I also don’t think that sympathizing with Marie Antoinette’s fate means that I’m dismissing all the hosts of people who died of poverty and neglect.  Unjust death is unjust death.

I think part of the argument that she had to die is that (like Mary Queen of Scots) as long as she was alive she would have supporters who wanted her and her family to return to power. This support was especially strong with her relatives in Austria and other countries, who had already said that they were going to come and burn Paris and kill everyone who sided with the revolution as soon as they got there. Although I do not think her death was a good thing at all, I think it was necessary to stop those who claimed to be fighting for her and the royal family, and who were a real threat, from continuing to do so.

(1) I think she did have influence. She sat on royal councils (she wasn’t actually as conservative as people think…she agreed with more powers for the 3rd E but rejected voting by head) Necker was originally her protegee, and the choice of Breteuil as Minister in the Ministry of a Hundred Hours illustrates the influence the Polignac and her political circle had concerning royal appointments.

(2) Theoretically, yes, but they’d already rejected such an idea with Louis’ trial. Marie’s ties to Austria and the ever looming fear of the emigres (whether real or unfounded) meant that she would have been a potential rallying point (see Morgan made the same point…an interesting avenue would be to explore what would have happened if the Dauphin had lived)

(3) Agree.

Also, generally agree that Marie didn’t deserve to die. But there was no way she wouldn’t have. The popular literature circulating around her pre-1789 was in some senses more influential on people’s perceptions of monarchy that any Rousseauist or Lockean tract. It was essentially a very misogynistic revolution post-1792 and I think we have to bring that into account as well.