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Last week, @hontrapoints posted this really interesting thread. It got some really cool responses and @WitchKitty responded with this:
Might seem like a weird choice... but I would pick Marie Antoinette. I have no proof but I don't think everything people believe and says about her was ever true, and I would like to hear her true story and give her a chance to clear her name a bit. She was only 17 when they sent her to the palace and practically everyone hated her there, that couldn't have been easy...
Which I really liked. As a kid I remembered reading a book about her (I don’t remember what it was) and I liked her and found her sympathetic. So to refresh my memory I searched to see if a channel I like on YouTube that does historic profiles had done a video on her so I could learn more. They had! You can find it here, it’s a little over an hour of her life story and history, presented much more fair and sympathetic.
A couple of thoughts I had:
Oddly, I think she had ADHD. The descriptions of her impulsiveness with certain things (gambling, spending) and her struggles in school despite being described as very intelligent and a fast learner sounds like the stuff I deal with with ADHD tbh.
Like @WitchKitty pointed out, she was a child when she was sent from Austria to France to be married to someone she had never met and didn’t seem interested in her in the slightest. There was historic record that she was unhappy. Being depressed and having ADHD would make some impulsive shopping pretty understandable. I’m not saying that she didn’t make costly errors in her role as Queen consort, she did, but she was also a child.
She was also Queen consort. Not queen. She wasn’t born into the role. As the video points out, killing her husband made sense to end the monarchy. You could even make the case that killing her son was important for the revolution (I wouldn’t, that’s disgusting), but killing her was unnecessary and based entirely on rage. Rage at the situation was completely understandable and I’m anti-monarchy myself, but killing someone effectively for the entertainment of the public is grotesque.
ETA: The video doesn’t get into her children very much, but she did have one surviving daughter, Mary Therese. I am not certain but I can’t find anything about her ever having children of her own. You can read about Marie’s children here but if she has any surviving descendants, they seem to be lost to history.
Anyway, thanks @WitchKitty and @hontrapoints for sending me down a rabbit hole. I hope other people enjoy the video and the info.
I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you took away my children. My blood alone remains, take it, but do not make me suffer long.
I wanted to reply after I had time to watch the video but I haven't yet. History of that time was written by men. Why Marie Antionette is so well known, but not her husband who was actually King of France, Louis XVI is likely due to misogyny. The French didn't like the alliance between France and Austria and this brought them into the seven year war. Louis XVI was nineteen when he became King and France was already in a lot of debt. He really didn't manage the country well. But yeah, blame Marie Antionette for this.
Absolutely. It was also just generally much more complicated. It’s not like Marie Antoinette spent so lavishly that the whole of France was plunged into debt. There were several poor harvests that depleted supplies. The French defended the revolution in the United States, which was costly and also stoked desire for revolution in several European countries, including France.
Added to this, Louis was a slightly poor king (all things considered I don’t exactly blame him and this is why monarchies are stupid). He fell into depressive bouts several times and Marie was actually sort of forced into decision making that didn’t suit her and she wasn’t trained for. Since France didn’t want the alliance with Austria she was routinely accused of spying for her royal family in Austria and sending them secrets. I believe she did actually do this in later years, but not when she was being accused of it.
She also wanted to leave when there was rumblings of revolution and urged Louis to abdicate and run with her, he refused. She tried to save them both and their children, he wouldn’t listen.
Louis had his own issues in my opinion as well. There are different theories but maybe depression. They didn’t consummate their marriage for many years after they married, and there were a lot of jabs and rumors about his inability, either physically or psychologically. Unlike most kings of his time, he also never had a mistress. Depressive episodes were pretty common for him as well, and him and Marie, while they did go on to have children and seemed fond of each other, didn’t seem to have any physical or romantic attachment. I personally wonder if he wasn’t homosexual and suffered depression because of his “failure” in this area, given public sentiment at the time. I have no proof, it’s just what I was thinking while watching the video. It makes sense that they were both deeply unhappy, insecure, and ill-suited for the responsibilities forced on them. I honestly have sympathy for both of them.