Short History Of... - Marie Antoinette

Episode Date: August 3, 2025

The last Queen of France before the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette is best known today for her extravagant lifestyle and controversial legacy. Initially admired for her grace and charm, as revolutionary fervour gripped her adopted homeland, she became a symbol of royal excess, and a lightning rod for public resentment.   But did she truly deserve her reputation of vain indifference? To what extent did misogyny and xenophobia shape her downfall? And did she ever utter those infamous words, ‘Let them eat cake’?    This is a Short History Of Marie Antoinette.   A Nosier Production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Laura O’Brien, Associate Professor at Northumbria University, and author of The Republican Line: Caricature and French Republican Identity, 1830-52.    Written by Nicola Rayner | Produced by Kate Simants | Assistant Producer: Nicole Edmunds | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Oliver Sanders | Assembly edit by Dorry Macaulay, Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley | Fact check by Sean Coleman   Get every episode of Short History Of... a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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an impassioned speech to the Senate and meet Queen Zenobia, who decided she was no longer going to obey Roman rule. A short history of ancient Rome brings the ancient world to life, the perfect treat for yourself or a great gift to have up your sleeve for friends and family. Visit Noiser.com forward slash book to find out more. That's Noiser.com forward slash book. It is the afternoon of October 5th, 1789. Marie Antoinette, the 33-year-old Queen of France, watches the rain from a window of the Petit Triennon, a neo-classical palace in the gardens of Versailles.

Though it's quiet here, there is a restlessness among her ladies-in-waiting, a tension in the air. In the wider country, beyond her manicured lawns, there's not enough bread, and prices are rising. Just months ago, revolutionaries stormed the Bastille, a fortress symbolizing royal authority, stealing its gunpowder and releasing the few prisoners it held. Marie Antoinette's husband, Louis XVI, has been forced to recognize the new National Assembly, but his reluctance to collaborate has stoked their indignation.

And out here, despite the beautiful surroundings and the fact that they're miles from the capital, it is as if everyone is waiting for something bad to happen. Marie Antoinette suggests a card game, but none of them can settle into it. Finally, there is a knock at the door. A breathless messenger informs the Queen that she is being summoned by the King. As she hurries along beside him to the courtyard, he tells her why. A crowd is marching on Versailles from Paris. Many of them market women, furious about the scarcity of grain. She rushes down the steps, risking her fine hairstyle in the downpour

and is helped into a waiting carriage by her frightened attendants. Rain drums on the roof as they bounce along the short ride to the main palace of the sprawling royal complex. Soon she is hastening through the corridors towards the King's apartments, her skirts still damp from the rain. She finds her husband surrounded by advisors, their faces tense. A valet suggests decamping to the king's hunting lodge, but Louis is resolute. He will remain where he is. And Marie Antoinette insists that her place is by his side.

For now, they wait. Then, at four in the afternoon, there is the sound of voices outside. A few at first, but it grows. Peeking from a window, Marie Antoinette watches the market women and the men accompanying them, gathering outside the palace. Dressed in bonnets and aprons, their long dresses sodden with mud, many are clutching kitchen or garden implements as weapons. And there are thousands of them, demanding bread and grain. Their fury evident in the barrage of obscenities.

The shouting goes on for what feels like hours, until, after meeting the women's representative, Louis orders the grain to be released in the Versailles Granaries. The gift brings about an uneasy peace, but by nightfall the crowd is still out there. The royal family goes to bed, though Mary Antoinette sleeps alone. She knows that her unpopularity might endanger Louis and their children. She tosses and turns through the night, until four in the morning, when a dreadful noise breaks out downstairs.

Screams, a stampede of feet, and then a yell from a guard that confirms her worst fear. The women are coming to kill her. In frantic haste, Marie Antoinette's ladies dress her and bundle her into the secret staircase up to the King's apartments. The door closes not a moment too soon. Behind them, they hear the mob storm into her bedroom. Later, she will be told how her bed was torn apart with pikes. And though she escaped with her life that night,

time will eventually grant the revolutionaries what they sought, the head of Marie Antoinette. The last queen of France before the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette is best known today for her extravagant lifestyle and controversial legacy. Initially admired for her grace and charm, as revolutionary fervor gripped her adopted homeland, she became a symbol of royal excess and a lightning rod for public resentment. But did she truly deserve her reputation of vain indifference? To what extent did misogyny and xenophobia towards a foreign-born queen shape her downfall? And did she ever utter those infamous words,

let them eat cake? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiza Network. This is a short history of Marie Antoinette. At the start of November, 1755, at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Maria Theresa, the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, gives birth to her fifteenth child. Named by her parents Maria Antonia Josefa Ioanna, as a child she is simply Antoine. But while she is still an infant, changes are afoot in the alliances in Europe, which will dictate the course of her life.

In May 1756, Austria joins with its traditional enemy, France. Soon, along with Russia, these allies are fighting Prussia and Britain in the Seven Years' War, a complex conflict sparked by colonial rivalries, shifting power dynamics, and territorial disputes. To consolidate the alliance between Austria and France, the respective monarchs consider a marriage between their first descendants, though little Antoine's mother, the Empress, is for now undecided on which of her daughters to promise. Largely oblivious of these machinations, the young archduchess has a happy childhood.

Her father, the Holy Roman Emperor, is a cheerful and indulgent parent. With a passion for animals, his menagerie includes a camel, a rhinoceros, and a puma. Inheriting her father's nature, Antoine receives limited formal education, but her childhood is filled with music and dancing. In 1762, aged six, she meets the child prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is roughly the same age and has come to play for the royal family. One story of the meeting tells how the young musician flings himself at her, declaring he will marry her one day.

Though it's likely apocryphal, it has tempted historians to consider how different the lives of both might have been at such a match taken place. Though she appreciates music, Marie Antoinette's mother, the Empress Maria Theresa, is preoccupied with the more serious business of statecraft. She works diligently at her papers, while her husband spends his time hunting. Laura O'Brien is associate professor at Northumbria University and author of The Republican Line, Caricature and French Republican Identity, 1830-1852. Maria Treza, Marie Antoinette's mother, is the Empress of Austria and she's the only

woman to have ever ruled in that capacity. They call it solo jure, so entirely by herself. And her husband's titles came through marriage to her rather than the other way around. Maria Theresa is formidable. She is very powerful. Her husband died when Marie Antoinette was about nine. So after that point, she's even more the formidable figure

to the point where some people refer to her as King Maria Theresa. to the point where some people refer to her as King Maria Theresa. Devastated by the death of her husband, Maria Theresa cuts off her hair and wears black for the rest of her life. Her eldest son, Iosef II, is crowned Holy Roman Emperor, but though he rules alongside his mother, in truth she retains the real power. The royal family's misfortunes continue in 1767 when smallpox tears through the household, claiming Joseph's wife, nearly killing the Empress and snatching away one of Antoine's sisters who had been promised to the King of Naples. Another sister is sent in her place, but she had informally been earmarked to marry

the heir to the throne of France, the grandson of the current Louis XV. So the dynastic chessboard shifts and young Antoine is moved into position for the French match. There's this Austrian motto, so it says, let other nations wage war, you happy Austria achieve your ends through marriage. So marriage alliances are very, very important in terms of consolidating Austrian power. She offers her youngest daughter to France as a bride for the heir. And this is part of Marie Therese's diplomatic efforts and strategic alliance making to use her youngest daughter as a prize, essentially. strategic alliance making to use her youngest daughter as a prize essentially.

As the marriage approaches, the Empress casts a critical eye over her young daughter. Though she's reasonably good looking with blue-gray eyes and glowing skin, her crooked teeth are now corrected with a device known as the Pelican, a forerunner for braces. Then there's her education to consider. Efforts are made to improve her French, refine her manners and polish her appearance to meet the famously exacting standards of the Versailles court. A proxy marriage takes place on April the 19th, 1770, with her brother Archduke Ferdinand standing in for Louis. So now when she sets off from Austria to France she does so with the official rank of Dauphine and the new French version of her name Marie Antoinette.

On April the 21st she says goodbye to her family and leaves Vienna in a procession of 57 carriages filled with royal attendants, craning her neck out of the window to watch her childhood home disappear in the distance. Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Rogers Stadium with Go Transit. Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday, anywhere along the Go network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online GoPass ahead of the show at

GoTransit.com slash tickets. It is early afternoon on May the 7th 1770. In the pouring rain a gold carriage leads the way in a formal procession over a wooden bridge spanning the Rhine River near Strasbourg. This small island in the middle of the water is right on the border of French and Austrian territory. Inside the velvet-lined carriage, the 14-year-old Marie Antoinette sits peering out of the window, clutching her beloved pug, Mops. At last the carriage pulls up, and there is a firm knock at the door.

An aide from France, wearing a perfectly powdered wig, helps her from the carriage and leads her to a specially constructed symmetrical wooden building, where she will be formally handed over to the French. A clutch of attendants wait for her in the rain and what she learns is the Austrian entrance. Inside she finds herself in a room draped with crimson velvet and the double-headed eagle of the Habsburgs. Mops is whipped from her arms, and the French ladies take every item of clothing off the teenager, including her jewelry. She is then redressed in French clothing, theoped dress, Marie Antoinette is led into the central salon of the pavilion

for the handover. There, Marie Antoinette signs a document that renounces her claim on any Austrian titles. She is then formally handed over by the Austrian diplomat to his French counterpart, who in turn presents her to his wife, the Comtesse du Noyé, the young dauphine's mistress of the household. When the teenager flings her arms around the Comtesse, the older woman coolly untangles herself and dips into a deep, formal curtsy. Hugs aren't how they do things in Versailles, as the teenage dauphine will soon learn.

After she exits the pavilion from the French side, she once again picks up her dog and is permitted to embrace her Austrian attendance to say goodbye. But Mops, who is Austrian, is not allowed to accompany her as she moves on into her new life in France. As he is wrestled from her arms, Marie Antoinette's eyes fill with tears. It is her only protest as she leaves behind the last piece of home. The country into which Marie Antoinette arrives is rigidly hierarchical, governed by a system of privileges that benefit the nobility and clergy. The elite are largely exempt from the taxes that burden the poor, and at the apex of that society is the absolute monarch, Louis XV.

Marie Antoinette now meets the King, as well as her husband, the Dauphin, for the first time. A shy and introverted young man, the future King is not a natural leader. He's the grandson of Louis XV, so that tells us his father should have been king, but his father died. And then his elder brother should have been the king, and then his elder brother died. So he's quite far down, generationally. He is very interested in things like locksmithing and taking apart and putting back together locks. He does this with clocks as well. He likes to hunt as well. Marie Antoinette also now meets the Princess de L'Ambal, who becomes a lifelong friend, and the King's mistress, the Comtesse du Barry.

When the dauphine inquires about the identity of this glamorous woman, she is told du Barry is there to give pleasure to the King. glamorous woman, she is told Dubary is there to give pleasure to the king. Then I shall be her rival, she replies innocently, because I too wish to give pleasure to the king. Finally, almost a month after leaving home, Marie Antoinette arrives at Versailles, the royal palace about 12 miles southwest of Paris. the Royal Palace about 12 miles southwest of Paris. Just after lunch on May 16, 1770, dressed in an expansive white brocade dress, she walks with the dauphin through the palace's famous Hall of Mirrors,

on the way to the Royal Chapel for their official wedding. After the service, the Archbishop of Rhaym blesses the marital bed. Then at last, the young couple are left alone. But things don't go quite according to plan. There are quite a few challenges faced by the young couple in the early years of their marriage. The most significant of these is the fact that the marriage, as far as we are aware, is not properly consummated for probably about seven years. There are various debates about why this was the case. Some people suggest something that's physical on Louis' part,

where they're just not into each other, but then they kind of what we think is a fairly loving relationship. In any case, that is a major problem because her role is to have an heir. The role of the royal female body is to produce the bloodline. And this causes concern both within Versailles, because the ultimate decision would be, well clearly it's her fault automatically. And then also there's concern back home in Vienna because Maria Torei is sort of sitting there going, where is my grandchild? Where is this baby that's going to consolidate the line and the alliance?

Despite these challenges, Marie Antoinette proves herself a natural fit for Versailles. Charming and graceful, she embraces the ornate court fashions, from the gowns with the hoops and trains, to towering powdered hairstyles, to the rouge worn in circular patches on the cheeks. Adeptly navigating the elaborate and often bewildering etiquette, she even excels at the graceful Versailles Glide, a movement so smooth it makes noble women appear to hover just above the ground. The young dauphine wins a reputation for compassion, too. When a peasant is gored by a stag during a royal hunt, she conveys the injured man in her own coach and makes arrangements for his family.

But such efforts can't make up for the underlying concern about the lack of heirs. This matter becomes more urgent when Louis XV dies from smallpox in 1774. Marie Antoinette and her 19-year-old husband waiting in her apartments are said to drop to their knees when they hear the news. Dear God, guide us and protect us, they say. We are too young to reign. By the spring of the following year, preparations are underway for the coronation of Louis XVI. A new crown is made for him, glittering with rubies,

emeralds, and sapphires, and the famed regent diamond, while Marie Antoinette commissions a magnificent new gown. But questions are already being asked about the spending. Since the Seven Years' War, which ended in defeat for the French a little over a decade earlier, the economy has floundered and a disastrous harvest has sent prices skyrocketing. The weeks before the coronation see the eruption of violent protests known as the Flower Wars, during which time Marie Antoinette is alleged to have said, let them eat cake. Originally the quote is, why don't they eat brioche, which I think is even better.

And it has nothing to do with her. I mean, the first identified instance of it turns up in the writings by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Swiss-French enlightenment writer and philosopher, written before she even got to France, I think it was written in the 1760s. He's referring to this story of this out of touch princess, and she was so out of touch when the people were starving and they said they had no bread,

she said, what of the ypryot? It's only the 1840s where we get the first case of that story being told in print, as, oh, that was Mary Antoinette. It's one of these things about historical figures that just recurs, but unfortunately no truth whatsoever. historical figures that just recur as unfortunately no true whatsoever. But now, though the coronation goes smoothly despite the unrest, the problem of childlessness in the royal marriage remains unresolved.

The new Queen's desperation rising when a four-year-old orphan is injured by her horses, she secures his grandmother's permission to raise him herself at Versailles. There she has him washed and dressed in lace, only returning him to his family when he howls with homesickness. Her husband distracts himself from the problem with his support for the American colonists in their American war of independence from Britain, which adds hundreds of millions of libra to the national debt. Meanwhile, Marie Antoinette finds solace in pleasure. She essentially takes what one of her biographers has referred to this as a kind of displacement

activity. So she flings herself into having a nice time, into fashion, into gambling, into parties, into champagne. She takes refuge at a place called the Petit Triennon, a mini palace that's built away from the main palace of Versailles. And Louis gives this to her just shortly after they take the throne and she takes a lot of refuge there. it's Rome and she takes a lot of refuge there. Eventually, her family see fit to intervene in the delicate issue of an heir. Marie Antoinette's brother, the Emperor Joseph, comes on a mission to sort the problem. Every time I read about this, I feel visceral cringe thinking about your brother coming to

have a chat with your husband about why you're not knocked up yet. And he writes back to friends of his and he's like, I don't think there's anything physically wrong. I think he just doesn't know what he's doing. But despite the awkwardness, it's possible her brother's mediation works because the following spring, after eight years of marriage, Marie Antoinette is pregnant with her first child. On December 19, 1778, a baby daughter arrives named Marie Therese after the Queen's mother. And three years later, a longed-for son is finally born to a euphoric Marie Antoinette, whose popularity soars for a while. whose popularity soars for a while. But the royal couple's joy will prove fleeting.

A malicious engraving emerges, questioning the baby Delfan's paternity, by depicting Marie Antoinette cradling the baby, accompanied by Louis XVI wearing a cookhold's horns. One of the key things to bear in mind is that because Louis the 16th doesn't take a royal mistress or mistresses, as his grandfather had done, it's just her. So before this, these kind of things would have been normally targeted at royal mistresses. They're the kind of thing that you sort of write about Madame Du Barry or du Pompadour. These are kind of safe female targets and it is misogynistic because it allows people to attack the king

without running the risk of being accused of treason or of the crime of Les Magistres, which is an attack on the dignity of the person of the king, which could still result in very, very serious convictions. And this is why people end up in the pages like the Bastille for writing these things, these what they call libelles, these libelous pamphlets. So when it's just her, that means that the focus is wholly on her as this target for frustration, for ire, for anger, with the situation, with the economic crisis, with the processions of the monarchy and so on.

As France's economic woes deepen, Marie Antoinette's targeting by the Libelles will get progressively worse. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFrails.ca. On October 19, 1781, a long way from France, a victory takes place in Yorktown, Virginia, where George Washington's forces, supported by the French fleet, defeat the British in the American War of Independence. One French hero of the conflict, the Marquis de Lafayette, is graciously received by the King and Queen on his return, though he notes that the cost of just one of their lavish

court balls could have equipped a whole regiment in America. Even so, the profligacy of Versailles continues apace. In the early 1780s, Marie Antoinette develops a model village where she plays at being a shepherd and dairymaid, and her husband gifts her with the Palace of Saint-Claude. Before long, her spending wins her the unflattering nickname Madame Déficit. Even the birth of a second son fails to move the needle on her approval, with the libelles again questioning the child's paternity, and painting his mother as an extravagant and lecherous queen. There are very stories of her affairs.

There are stories of her having affairs with men, with women. Nonsense stories, both in terms of King's brother, no. Her friends being her lesbian lovers, no. But there was at least one, even if we can't prove definitively that there was a physical affair, I think it's pretty clearly that it was an emotional romantic affair, which is a relationship with Swedish soldier and aristocrat called Axel von Fersen, Count von Fersen. Part of the problem is that a lot of their letters went missing or were destroyed or redacted. Work that has been done to kind of scan the redacted letters and see the information that's underneath, it does now kind of suggest there was an emotional relationship, an emotional affair of some kind there.

Though many of the rumors are groundless, the scene is set for a scandal in the 1780s that is known as the Diamond Necklace Affair. Cardinal Louis de Rohin, who is keen to win the Queen's favour, is tricked by a con woman called Jeanne de la Motte, who persuades him to help buy a diamond necklace, apparently on behalf of Marie Antoinette. But the crook and her accomplices steal it and sell off the diamonds. In the meantime, Marie Antoinette is billed by the jeweller for 1.5 million francs for a necklace she doesn't own and didn't agree to buy.

Even though Countess de la Marte was discovered and convicted as a thief, by. image of her in the public imagination as a spendthrift, but also as a scammer, as someone who is willing to manipulate and to control other people to do her bidding. She has a common theme in the way that she was seen in some of the pamphlets written about her. After the fallout from the Diamond-Netless affair and the birth of a fourth child, Sophie, who dies in infancy, Marie Antoinette becomes Stélia. Now in her thirties, and an adoring mother, she has much to protect. Things only get worse for her when the Dauphin falls ill with tuberculosis of the spine. Meanwhile, her husband, overwhelmed by his failure to resolve France's debt, falls into a depression.

The pressures of the financial crisis, the efforts at reform, and the calls for reform coming from different sections of French society, including some members of the aristocracy, that pushes Louis into what has been described by some historians as a kind of breakdown in the 1780s. And at this point, she really steps into politics, which doesn't make her popular at court and also seems to be transgressing female or gendered expectations as well. She's the first queen consort in France to ever attend a meeting of the Council of State, for example, that's before the revolution. She opposes reform, she dismisses popular ministers before the revolution who are looking at introducing reforms as well.

To manage France's financial crisis, Louis summons the Estates General, a gathering of representatives from the clergy, the nobility and the common people. the common people. But during the meeting, the first of its kind since 1614, the royal couple are distracted by the deteriorating health of their eldest son. Then, aged just seven, he dies, leaving his parents devastated. In the world beyond their private grief, the challenges faced by the estates general intensify. Bread prices continue to rise and public order is on the verge of collapse. Taking matters into their own hands, the deputies of the third estate, that of the common people, create what they call the National Assembly. When they are locked out of their meeting hall at Versailles,

they gather in a nearby tennis court where they take what becomes known as the tennis court oath. They will not disband until they have written a constitution. At first, Louis XVI vacillates in his response, but eventually orders the deputies of the first and second estates, the clergy and nobility, to join the assembly, turning it into a unified body. An uneasy peace settles between monarch and assembly, but rumors swirl that the king is preparing to dissolve the assembly by force. The fear of a royal crackdown grows, and Parisians begin arming themselves, until on July 14,

1789, a crowd storms the Bastille, a medieval fortress holding weapons and gunpowder as well as a small number of prisoners. At Versailles, Louis is oblivious to the chaos in the capital, until he receives word in bed of what has happened from a duke. Is it a revolt, he asks, to which the nobleman replies, no, sire, it is a revolution. With the opening shots of the French Revolution now fired, members of the aristocracy begin to decide

that staying in France is too dangerous. After the summer of 1789, a lot of French aristocrats and some members of the monarchy, or the extended French royal family, have gone to other parts of Europe where in some cases they have rallied with armies and military from other countries to start sort of planning a kind of attacks and to try to put the monarchy back where it was. Back in Paris, the revolutionary leaders work on establishing a sort of planning a kind of attacks and tried to put the monarchy back where it was. Back in Paris, the revolutionary leaders work on establishing a constitutional monarchy in which the sovereign has reduced powers, limited by France's first written constitution,

which they're in the process of drawing up. But first, they set out a statement of intent, known as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a foundational text of the revolution that proclaims liberty, equality, and the rights of all citizens before the law. But the King is in no rush to sign it. Now the Assembly makes the laws. He only has the power of a suspensive Vito over them. His use of the power earns him and the Queen new nicknames, Monsieur and Madame Vito. Aware of her own unpopularity, Marie Antoinette attempts to keep a low profile, but she can

barely take a walk in her own gardens without being insulted through the gates. In part for her protection, the King summons a new regiment to Versailles and welcomes them with a banquet. Except in the Paris press, the event is portrayed as a decadent royal orgy. The bread shortages continue, as does Louis' failure to fully cooperate with the assembly. Every day, breaking point seems nearer. In early October, thousands of Parisian market women march to Versailles. Temporarily calmed by the grain and bread Louis offers, as well as his eventual signing

of the declaration, the crowd erupts again at night. The women break into the palace and storm into the chamber of the Queen, where they tear her bed apart. The next day, the royal family are forcefully accompanied to Paris by the market women, where they are installed in the Tuileries Palace, prisoners in all but name. With the help of the Queen's confidant, Count von Fersen, they considered their options. So in the summer of 1791, they eventually agree that they're going to try to get out and they will go to the East. The assumption is that they will try to get

to Vienna. We have to remember, of course, at this point that there is saber-rattling in various parts of Europe about the French Revolution and there's a risk to them getting out, and the fear is that they would encourage an uprising to come back in and undo the revolution. In the middle of one night in June 1791, the royal family, along with Louis's sister and the children's governess, leave Paris in disguise. But before the carriage can rendezvous with the royalists waiting for them at the border, they are stopped in Varennes, a small town in the northeast. Louis

is recognized as the face on the Asinia, the new paper currency, and the family is escorted back to the capital. But when they come back in 1791, the people of Paris who line the streets to watch them coming back don't do anything. They just stare at them in silence. Some people just turn their backs. And that's somehow worse than hurling abuse, because they actually care to hurl abuse, but just staring at them in total silence says something very, very powerful about the way they were now seen. The flight to Varennes is a turning point because it really marked the no going back in terms of the monarchy as something that can coexist with the revolution.

Austria and Prussia now officially declare their backing of the king and thousands of army officers join the émigrés and gather at the frontier. In April 1792, France declares war on Austria because there has been some threats from Austria and from Prussia about, if you do anything to the royal family, we're going to come in and we're going to destroy you. We want the monarchy back the way it was. The rest of Europe is very afraid of the French Revolution

and its impact because it shows what can happen. And it makes them think, oh, actually they might come for our monarchy next. We don't like this. So there's real fear about the old order falling apart. For the Austrian-born queen, war with Austria makes her position in France ever more precarious. But by now she is far from an innocent victim. Even her sympathetic biographers agree that Marie Antoinette did give military information to the Austrians. She did share information about French plans she was privy to. This did directly

lead to the defeat of the French Revolutionary armies in some engagements. So there is that direct intervention. She liaised with Axel von Fersen, her lover, to essentially reimburse Prussian military costs out of French coffers. So there's definitely truth to the idea that she was the real power behind the throne is her. Not wholly, not singly, it's not all her doing, but equally she does play a role. She's not the sort of mute, hapless figure that I think some kind of people want her to be.

In August 1792, revolutionary fury escalated by the war with Austria and suspicions of the Queen's treachery boils over. A Parisian mob storms the Tuileries Palace. This time the guards of the royal family are butchered, though the King, Queen and their children flee in time to the guards of the royal family are butchered, though the king, queen, and their children flee in time to the assembly. The family, including the thirteen-year-old Marie Thérèse and Louis, who was just seven, are now imprisoned in the Tower of the Temple, a medieval fortress. The summer ends with darker horrors. The prisons of Paris become abattoirs in the bloody September massacres as enraged citizens slaughter hundreds of suspected royalists. The head

of Princess de Lamballe, the close friend of Marie Antoinette, is placed on a pike and paraded past the Queen's window. Soon after, France declares itself a republic, formally abolishing the monarchy. One of its first decisions is to put its former king on trial for treason. In January, stripped of his titles and now addressed by the court simply as Louis Capet, the former Louis XVI is found guilty and sentenced to death. It is seven o'clock in the evening on January the 20th, 1793, inside the Tower of the Temple in Paris. Marie Thérèse, the teenage daughter of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, follows her mother up the cold stone steps,

making their way to the king's quarters. Close behind are her younger brother, eight-year-old Louis Schaal, and Madame Elisabeth, the king's devoted sister. When the guards leading them reach the king's apartments, they knock firmly. The door creaks open, and Marie Therese stumbles in shock at the sight of her father. Louis has been imprisoned apart from them for six weeks, but he appears to have aged years in that short time.

His face is drawn, his skin pale with worry and exhaustion. He rises from the desk where he has been writing farewell letters and the family rushes into his arms. Marie Antoinette presses herself against her husband, holding little Louis Charles tightly as he sobs. Madame Elizabeth clings to her brother, weeping quietly. Soon the guard gruffly intervenes. It is time to say goodbye.

Gently Louis extricates himself from his family, promising they will see him again in the morning. He kisses them one final time and retreats to his small bedroom as they are led away. That night Marie Therese lies rigid in her narrow bed, dreading what the morning will bring. Outside the thick stone walls of the temple tower, the bells of Paris toll through the long cold hours. At last, just after six o'clock in the morning, there is a sharp knock at the door. Marie Thérèse scrambles up, hoping a guard has come to escort them to her father. But the expressionless man at the threshold asks only for a prayer book, which the former king has requested for his final devotions.

The realization settles with a sickening wait. She will not see him again. Peering through the narrow window, she notices that the great gates of the temple have been locked, the surrounding streets empty of the usual bustle. An eerie hush has settled over the city. Maritares strains for a final glimpse of her father being led away, but to no avail. Then just before half past ten, the rhythmic beat of drums carries through the air from the Place de la Révolution. Moments later, a cannon isette, sitting pale and silent in her

grief. But Aunt Elizabeth can't hold back her anguish. The monsters, she cries, her voice breaking. They are satisfied now. After the death of Louis, his wedding ring finds its way back through friendly hands to Marie Antoinette, along with a message telling her he only parted with it with his life. The former queen is felled by grief, and her health, fragile for some time, begins to deteriorate.

She suffers from hemorrhages that have since been attributed to early menopause, fibroids, or the early signs of cancer of the womb. But there is a flicker of hope. In the wake of Louis' execution, Britain, Spain and others join forces against revolutionary France, while royalists stage uprisings elsewhere in the country, determined to avenge the king they regard as a martyr. In Paris, the mood darkens. The so-called Convention has replaced the Assembly and forms the Revolutionary Tribunal, a special court for the trial of political offenders accused of counter-revolutionary activities. The new nine-member Committee of Public Safety also

promises to root out enemies in a period known as the Reign of Terror. Then, in one of the greatest tragedies for Marie Antoinette, in July, she is separated from her young son, Louis Charles. He is placed in the care of a cobbler who indoctrinates him with lies about his mother that later lead to shocking allegations. Austrian victories that summer mean Marie Antoinette comes to the forefront of discussions at the convention and the Committee of Public Safety. She is moved from the rooms she shares with her daughter and sister-in-law and taken to the much grimmer surrounds of the conciergerie prison where suspected enemies of the state are held. She is denied writing materials much of the time and privacy always, with two gendarmes

watching her day and night. A rescue plot only makes things worse for her, and after two months she is officially charged with immorality and treason. Elsewhere, at an all-night meeting of the Committee of Public Safety, radical journalist and politician Jacques-René Hebert is keen to make good on a public pledge he made to the French people. I have promised the head of Antoinette, he says. I will go and cut it off myself if there is any delay in giving it to me. Her trial begins on October 14th, 1793.

Had they concentrated on who you think you've been involved in giving information to our enemies, I think it probably wouldn't have backfired in terms of the revolution's legacy and revolution's image in the way that it did. But they pushed it a little bit further and one of the things that's levelled at her, she's not on trial for this but it's used to sort of smear her reputation, is an accusation of sexual abuse and incest involving her son, who she would have seen as the heir to the French crown. This is for her the absolute worst thing you can say. I mean, I think for anyone it would be the worst thing you could imagine to be said about you.

That's the accusation that really provokes a reaction from her. She says, I call upon all mothers present to save whether such a thing is possible. And that's the point where even in the courtroom, there's a sort of a rumbling of, oh, this has gone a little bit too far. After her eloquent defense of herself, Marie Antoinette hopes the trial might still go her way,

ignorant of the promise of her head that has been made. When she returns to the court, she is handed the verdict of the jury. Guilty on all counts, she is given the death penalty. That night, she writes to her sister-in-law to extend her pardon to her son, whom she understands was manipulated into making the allegations. On the day of her execution, she is denied the carriage that was afforded to her husband and is taken instead to the scaffold in an open cart.

Her hair has been shorn and her hands tied roughly behind her back. As she approaches the guillotine, she steps on the foot of the executioner. Her apology to him, "'Excuse me, Monsieur, I did not mean to do it,' will serve as her last words. The blade falls just after midday, and the head of the former queen is held up to the ecstatic crowds. and the head of the former queen is held up to the ecstatic crowds. Her body is thrown in a communal grave, but not before a young artist makes a death mask of her face.

The artist will exhibit this keepsake in the London Museum that she opens in her own name, that of Madame Tussauds. Another memento records Marie Antoinette's last moments. There is a sketch by artist Jacques-Louis David, who's a very important revolutionary and Napoleonic artist. He sketches her going to the guillotine. And it's just literally just like a little line drawing. And what it shows us is a woman who

is sitting ramrod straight with her hands tied behind her back. So there's a kind of a defiance there. In the image, some see the determination of a woman who lived out her entire life in the public eye with courage and defiance, even in the face of hatred and persecution. Others interpret her stance as indicative of the haughtiness and arrogance of which she was long accused. And in the years since her death, historians, writers, filmmakers, and others have continued to disagree about who she was and how she should be remembered. In truth, she was neither the heartless villain of revolutionary propaganda, nor the blameless martyr of legend since, but something less definable.

A queen caught in a collapsing world, trying imperfectly to survive. It's striking how often she's still, in the public imagination, presented as a kind of naive, innocent, who's caught up in events beyond her control. She's a hapless victim of the revolution. She's just a mother trying to do her best. You know, she just had some nice clothes and people didn't like her because of that, which is a misconception because she does try to influence French politics before and during the revolution.

She does enter into politics in a way that other queens hadn't. She does commit treason, technically, in her actions during the Revolutionary Wars. On the other hand, there's a tendency that is also untrue and inaccurate, to present her as this kind of proto-feminist figure, as a kind of girl boss. She's a strong woman doing strong woman things, and, you know, she's kicking ass against big bad revolutionaries. This is a total misconception. That's not what she was. She is of her time and she's very much of her time. And she isn't this sort of female badass that people want her to be. If you want female badasses, there

are lots of others in the revolutionary period that you can talk about. She is not one of them. Next time on Short History of, we'll bring you a short history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. I think the use of the bomb led to other nations wanting to develop it. And whether they would have done the same if they'd simply learned about the existence of the bomb, a bomb that had not been used, I don't know.

If you want one silver lining, no one has used one since Nagasaki. And one can only hope that memories of the utter destruction of these bombs, of what they did to human beings, will prevent people, prevent governments from ever deploying them again. That's next time. If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiza Plus.

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