You're Dead to Me - Marie Antoinette (Radio Edit)

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Greg Jenner is joined in the 18th century by historian Professor Katherine Astbury and comedian Jen Brister to learn about French queen Marie Antoinette.Born an Austrian princess, Marie Antoinette went on to be the last queen of France before the Revolution and the abolition of the monarchy. She is famous now for saying "let them eat cake", for her love of fashion, and her supposedly extravagant spending at a time when ordinary people in France were going hungry. But how true are any of these stories, and where did these myths about her originate?In this episode, we look at Marie Antoinette’s Austrian childhood and overbearing mother, her marriage to Louis XVI and time as queen of France, and the hatred directed at her by the revolutionaries. Along the way we take in her involvement in politics, her love of the theatre, and her possible Swedish sweetheart.This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Charlotte Emily Edgeshaw Written by: Charlotte Emily Edgeshaw, Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Janna. I'm a public historian author and broadcaster. And today we are hopping into our hoops skirts and styling our hair in the French fashion as we travel back to 18th century France to learn about Queen Marie Antoinette. And to help us separate myth from reality, we have two very special courtiers. In History Corner, she's professor of French studies at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on French culture in the revolutionary and Napoleonic period. especially plays, prints and novels. She's the author of Narrative Responses to the Trauma of the French Revolution.

It's Professor Catherine Asbury. Welcome Kate. Thank you very much for inviting me. And in Comedy Corner, she's a stand-up comedian, actor and writer. You'll have seen her on all the TV on Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week, Frankie Boyle's New World Order. Or maybe you heard her podcast, WTB, or her other podcast, Memory Lane. And you will definitely know her from our episodes on Hernan Cortez and Melinsin and on Emma of Normandy. It's Jen Bresda. Welcome back, Jen. Thank you, Greg. I'm delighted to be.

back. We have previously done together English history, Spanish history, Mexican history. Obvious question. Do you parley vu Francaise? Unpiti poor. I don't want to get into it because I don't want to embarrass Kate. Thank you. All yourself, Greg, actually. I'm not sure. But I am very excited about this particular episode, not least because it is French history, what a joy, but because I actually know who this person is. And this is the first time I've been invited onto the show with the historical figure whose name I recognised, so I'm delighted. Mariantoinette, you know the name, so do you know some of the story?

Look, I know the story that was told when I was a child, and I think most of the myths around Marianne Twennett are, as we learned later, as an adult, are complete lies. So I'm going to say almost everything I know about this historical figure is not true. Interesting. So I'm really intrigued to hear the truth. So what do you know? This is the Sawadia know, where I guess what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject,

and I bet you all shouted, let them eat cake. She didn't say it, come on. You may have seen Sophia Coppola's fabulous 2006 film Mariantoinette with a punk rock soundtrack starring Kirsten Dunst, or the most recent Mariantoinette TV drama series on the BBC. Of course, you might also remember the shocking Grammy Award-winning performance by heavy metal titans Gauze at the 2024-Paris-Olympic opening ceremony, accompanied by numerous decapitated Mariantoinette in blood red dress. Mary Antoinette is a modern pop culture icon. But what was her life really like? How did an Austrian princess become France's doomed queen?

And how many dresses did she really own? Let's find out. All right, Professor Kate, let's start at the beginning. When and where was Mary Antoinette born? And was that her name? So the Archduxess Maria Antonia of Austria was born on the 2nd November 1755, the 15th child of 16, of the Empress Maria Territre.

ruler of the Habsburg dynasty from 1740, and Father Emperor Francis I. Her mother, Maria Theresa, was a political powerhouse and played a huge role in managing military and diplomatic affairs. In 1756, she made a momentous alliance with Austria's age-old enemy France, reversing 200 years of hostility. At court in Vienna, they spoke German, French and Italian, and Maria Antonia grew up sliding between being called Antonia and Antoine,

all the girls in the family had Maria as a first name, so they tended to avoid that. They were all called Maria? They were all called Maria. It was a family tradition. The girls all had Maria as a first name. How do you solve a problem like Maria? You use the second name.

Because she was also one of the youngest in the family, she was also referred to as Antoinette, which is the French diminutive, meaning little Antoine, and in the end, that's the name that stuck. It's cute. Yeah, they do that in Spain as well. They have a little diminutive name.

They're all called Maria. I feel like that's like 16 kids, come on. Well, the boys weren't called. Maria Roberts. What were they called? Franz. Leopold, Joseph. Good, good solid.

Good solid man named for going to war. And so she grew up in Vienna. She grew up in Vienna. Right. So there is fact numero uno that I did not know. I thought Mariantoineau was French. So that's quite embarrassing. So we have a princess, we have an archduchess.

You can presumably guess what her future is going to be, Jen, in terms of what mother is planning for her? Yes. So I imagine she's planning a very prestigious marriage into a very prestigious court in France. Yeah, bang on. I mean, that's the plan, right? Absolutely. Got it in one. Yeah. So we're minutes into the episode, already wedding bells. We're talking about a little girl here.

Yes, we are. Oh, wait a second. Hang on, rewind. I was talking about in the future. No, no. She had been betrothed as a child. She is betrothed as a child. Maria Theresa's plan is for her to marry the French king Louis XVI's grandson. It's also called Louis. We've got all the girls in Austria,

Maria and all the boys in France called Louis. Little Louis' father has died and he becomes heir to the throne in France, as known as the Dauphin. And at that point, Maria Theresa decides that this is going to be a great way of reinforcing this new alliance between the age-old enemies, Austria and France. Louis is only a year older than Antoinette, but that's considered good because they're quite close in age. But he's described as a lanky, silent, nervous lad.

Okay. Aren't all teenage, I was going to say. I was going to say, it's quite a standard boy. That is your teenage boy. Is it quite usual then to get married before they're 16 or was it? Oh, it is? It is normal, yes. For average people, no, but for princes, for dynastic marriages.

But for royalty. Yeah. So she has got to that point now at the age of 13. She's going to now move away from her home in the Vienna court to go to Paris to live with her new husband who is 14. She's sent off to France aged 14, so cue the problematic marriage claxon, which we unfortunately have to honk a lot on this show. And so when she arrives in France, what are you imagining? Are you sort of, are you thinking, Harry and Meghan?

Is it Kate and Wales? You know, what kind of, what's the vibe? Is it fun? Are people happy? Those are the only two options you have. That's all you got. Okay, I'm going to sidestep comparing the wedding to either. She arrives in May 1770. and meet King Louis the 15th at Compienne.

She's then introduced to young Louis, her future husband, and the extended family, and two days later, the 16th of May, the pair were married Versailles, and she became Dauphinez, Dauphine of France. That's not the end of it, because Jen, on the wedding night, things get awkward. Do you know why?

Why would it be awkward for the new married couple? Well, they don't know what they're doing. Not just that. They don't know what they're doing with an audience. Why does the host? They have to make sure that she's... There's a going-to-bed ceremony. Oh, come on.

It's hard. I mean, we've all... Remember our first time. Can you imagine with an audience, anything worse? Kate, talk us through it. So, the Archbishop blesses the bed. That's definitely going to get you in the mood. That's really going to get you in the mood.

Louis the 15th, then hands the door for his knight shirt. So the grandfather is there. offering advice. They then have to lie down in front of the king and the entire court to prove that they have shared the same bed. The king's advice, was it useful, Kate? Did Louis rise to the occasion, so to speak?

Louis did not rise to the occasion. The marriage was unconsumated for seven years. Aha, care of surprise. You see gay? Or traumatised? These could be traumatised. Right. There's a lot of discussion over why was

the marriage not consummated for so long. Seven years is a long time. We don't know if it was personal hesitation, whether it was health-related. Maybe some things are just best lost to history. We don't know why. Seven years, we'll just sort of write that off. Okay, so with the unconsumated marriage already proving an issue in 1774, so this was still four years into there not sleeping together problem, suddenly Louis was the king of France because Louis the 15th died, making Marie Antoinette the Queen of France. So she was 19, just about. Just about 19. Okay, just turn 19.

So the age of which we would normally maybe go to university or maybe get your first job, her first job, Queen. Yeah, that's a lot. What's the first thing she does, Kate, in terms of court politics? How does it go? Not perhaps as well as it might have done. This is a funny thing. I mean, they're both still very young.

They're very inexperienced. She has nothing to do because the marriage isn't consummated. She's not going to get pregnant and therefore her sole reason for being at court can't exist. So she fills her time with gambling, with balls, with going incognito into Paris, to balls to the theatre. She gathers around her group of young people nearer her own age. She's not interested in being polite to the older members of court. She hates the really strict etiquette of court.

So she does all she can to sort of sidestep that. She'd rather have a little bit of privacy. She doesn't want to spend all her time in the public eye. And really she carries on living the life she'd left whilst she would. the wife of the heir to France rather than changing her behaviour once she's become queen. So, Jen, how do you think she's doing

on rate my monarch.com? Do you think the people of France are pleased about their new queen? I'm guessing the people of France and they are very vocal as a people are not at all happy with their new queen who appears to be just having a big old jolly

and ignoring the needs and wants of the people, particularly the working people of Paris and of France rather. So I would imagine there's a lot of resentment and anger building. The problems that will later arise in the French Revolution, they're already there, right? They are already there, yes.

Jane, how would you turn things around if you were Marion-Swin-Sk? What's your policy to get people to love you? Well, I would think I would do something for the people and make a really big gesture that was like, you know, oh, guys, I've got this great big party, and I'm going to put it on for you. Because I love you and I really want you to know that I care about you. So you'd say let the meat cake.

I would say, Because I'm really sorry that you're in poverty, but have you had jelly and ice cream before? Kate, she does the most important thing, of course, she produces an air. She does what matters. That's really what makes a difference. She does, finally.

She has a daughter, Marie-Teres, Charlotte, born in 1778. Another Marie. Another Marie. She has Louis-Josef in 1781. So he was the d'OFAR, he was the dauphin. He was the dauphin. He dies just before the start of the French Revolution in 1789, Louis Charles, who is born in 1885, and Sophie Elene Beatrice in 1786, who dies aged one.

So she has four children, two of whom will die in her lifetime. It did help her popularity, but because of the gap between the marriage and the first child being born, there are a huge number of rumours about who the father of each of these children is. Okay, Kate, here's my question, because as a historical figure that I certainly don't know a great deal about, what I do know about her is that it's very two-dimensional and she has been given a really hard rap. Are there any redeeming qualities to marry Antoinette other than that she's a party girl that is very self-involved,

suffered a lot of losses as a mother? Anything else going on for her that we can give her a little bit of cheerleading for? Okay, we can certainly try. How about her being an important figure in the Pets? patronage of arts and culture. Okay. So particularly decorative arts and music. She uses her influence to move public tastes

to a more modern, cosmopolitan style of music. She sets the agenda in the theatre. She certainly sets the agenda when we come to fashion as well. And what about politics? So the way that the French court had developed over the 18th century was that the mistress of the king was the one who had the king's ear and could be the one to sort of get favours and advantages from.

Because Louis isn't interested in taking a mistress, people expect Marie Antoinette to gain them favours, but she has a very fine line to tread because she can't be seen to be... Overstepping her. Overstepping her mark, exactly, her role as consort. Her role is to bear children. So she's in a slightly awkward position

and accused of meddling because there isn't anyone else to take the flack. So she's effectively queen and mistress because she has the king's ear. So it's all concentrated down onto her. We need to talk about a marantoinette and fashion. She's renowned for it. There's a new exhibition coming to the VNA Museum soon about,

her sort of amazing clothes. Jen, do you know how many new dresses she ordered per year from her favourite dressmaker? Oh, I'm imagining in their hundreds. Yeah, it was 300. 300 a year? 300 a year. Brand new dresses.

So that's almost a new dresser. for every single day. Yeah. Can you tell us more about fashion and Marianne Tuenette's sort of role within it? One of the things that lots of people know about Marie Antoinette is her extravagant clothing. She was accused at the time of spending too much money on dresses,

although in her defence she is supposed to be promoting the superiority of French culture. She represents the nation and is keeping dozens, if not hundreds of people employed as a result of being, being the face of France in that sense. But again, Marantinette finds herself criticised, you know, do, w do, do you don't. She's criticised for spending too much on over-the-top outfits,

but then she's also criticised when she tries wearing simpler clothes. So there's a really famous dress that's called the chemise al-Aren, which was made out of white muslin rather than French silk. And it's seen, by the standards of the time, as a really casual garment. The formal French court dresses, you've got the tight corsets, you've got the giant skirt, This is much, much looser.

It's a sort of neoclassical. We're heading towards Jane Austen sort of style. It's almost a slip, isn't it? It's almost a slip. It looks like an underdress. Well, it must have looked completely bananas when you compare it to what everyone else was wearing. It must have thought, are you wearing your nightdress?

It was, yeah, exactly. And meanwhile, another huge scandal breaks out. This one involving a very famous necklace. It's called the Diamond Necklace Affair. What happens? A con artist tries to persuade the former French ambassador to Vienna to buy a necklace to get him back into Marie Antoinette's favour. This is a necklace that Louis XVIth had ordered for his mistress, but never bought.

And Marie Antoinette had turned it down. The former French ambassador Roan thought that it was a good way of getting back in the Queen's Good Books, buys it, and then finds that he's been completely duped by the con artist, who's taken the jewels and done a runner. Yeah, and he's hired an actress to perform as the Queen, right? Yeah. There's a sort of con in there. And poor Marion Twinnett's sort of left going, hang on what?

I've never even heard of this guy. Yeah, the Queen. Rowan thought that he was meeting the Queen when he was actually meeting a lookalike sex worker. And everyone believed that that was entirely plausible that he might meet the Queen in the Gardens of Versailles at night. And therefore nobody thought that that was anything out of the ordinary. So far had her reputation slumped by then. Oh dear.

That is the irony is that she never wanted them. She thought there were inappropriate amount of money to be spent and she still got completely hung out to dry. Yeah. story of her life. So here's where I think maybe she's getting a hard rap, because it doesn't sound to me that within the world that she lives in in that sort of aristocratic sphere, that she is working particularly outside of that in terms of luxury, spending a huge amount of money on clothing. It all seems to be fitting in within the parameters of what is expected

of a queen. Why does she get such a hard rap from the French people? I think the key to the answer to that question is that it's not initially the French people. It's those at court that she's alienating because she doesn't want to be with any of the old guard. She wants to be with young people. And there's a very substantial group who are anti-Austrian. So she's still foreign. She's not politically astute enough.

And she's been made a patsy for this sort of diamond heist. And we start getting much more aggressive attacks on her in the media. These are forms of attack against Mariannezzan. That are designed to humiliate her, to scandalise her. She's cheating on the king. She can't be trusted. All of those things. All of the above.

From the early 1770s onwards, she's accused of nighttime sexual encounters in the palace gardens. From before she's even queen, they become increasingly pornographic throughout the 1780s. She's frequently depicted in lesbian relationships with her friends. She's often shown with Louis' brother, younger brother, the comte d'Artois, they're trying to destroy her reputation

and with it the reputation of the French monarchy. I mean, this all happens now to women, isn't it? I mean, the misogyny's off the scale. And how effective was it? Because, I mean, this sort of stuff works. Yeah, it really works. The king tries to have copies seized and burnt, but it's very hard.

You can't control all print outlets. Of course, you don't need many of them to insertionate. You only need one to survive. But she was cheating on the king, we believe. What was the name of the real lover? So the love of her life was a Swedish officer called Axel von Fersen. That is quite a hot name, actually. It is a hot name, isn't it?

It is a hot name, isn't it? I immediately in my head I'm just seeing a kind of Swede in a kind of chemise shirt, just something like, hello. I think the jury is still out as to how far they went. Oh, interesting, okay. I think now most people will say she probably did have a physical relationship with him. He's the kind of fancy man, but all these other kind of rumours and scandals are, you know, are false. A false and designed to destroy her.

So you've got this kind of real rising anti-monicist. The movement is growing bigger and bigger against the monarchy, but also personally against Mariantoinette. So, Kay, obviously, Marie Antoinette's political career is in the context of what will become the French Revolution, which is caused by many factors. But what do we need to know? The state was left virtually bankrupt after supporting the American War of Independence. Louis XVIth called a meeting of the Estates General to ask for permission to raise emergency funds. But instead they declared themselves a National Assembly, and the people of Paris, worried that the King will suppress this new assembly,

stormed the state prison, the Bastille on the 14th of July 1789. And that marks the beginning of what we now call the French Revolution. But the obvious upshot is the French Revolution comes to the palace. And what happens to Marionneux and her family and her husband? In October 1789, a group of women marched to Versailles demanding bread and the king. At this point, the people of Paris still think that the king can save them. They're starving. The king has been misled by his courtiers over in Versailles,

bring him back to Paris and all will be well. They're relocated to the Tulliere Palace in Paris, and over the next two years face increasing demands for constitutional reform. So the revolutionists are trying to make a constitutional monarchy along the lines of the British system. But Louis is reluctant to sacrifice any of the notion of kingship that he feels he's inherited from Louis XIV.

And in the end, on the 20th of June 1791, the royal family try to flee France. Yeah. We know how this ends. The king is executed first. And then there's in 1792, isn't it? 1793. He's executed first. He's accused of treason. He's found guilty of treason.

He is executed. That is an incredibly serious thing. Marion to Annette, they don't, it's not the same day, it's not the same week, and so they clearly have a bit of a kind of pause. So are they debating what to do with her? There is debate about what to do with her. They consider putting her on trial, they consider sending her into exile, They wonder about exchanging her for political prisoners. I think part of the background to the discussion on what to do with her

is the years of propaganda that have made much of her sexual appetites. So in the end, in October 1793, she's given a two-day show trial in effect. She's accused of planning a massacre of the National Guards, liaising with foreign enemies, Austria, obviously. So writing to her brother to say help? writing to her brother for say help. She hasn't behaved brilliantly. She's very spoiled and has literally done nothing for the people of France.

However, she's not guilty of any of those things. All those people that were putting out all of this stuff about Marie Antoinette and this kind of like really indulging on how the aristocracy have no morals and have no sort of values, value system, kind of backfired on all of them because they all got their heads taken, didn't they? They were all killed. More ordinary people. are killed during the period of the terror

than members of the nobility. And her children, the two surviving children? The son will become, became, yeah. Louis the 17th on his father's death. Yeah. The king is dead long leave the king. So child became king.

He dies shortly afterwards in prison, having been looked after, looked after, in inverted commas by the revolutionaries. Sure. Not a well child, he dies. Marie-Terez will survive. She will become the Duchess of Angoul-em, and will help Louis's younger brother become Louis the 18th.

Napoleon famously said of her, she was the only one in the family to wear trousers. So Marianne Tuenette was executed 16th of October 1793. And her last words, rather extraordinarily, do you want to tell us what they were, Kate? Allegedly. Yeah. Do we know how much truth they are in actually her words?

Allegedly she said to the executioner, pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose after she stepped on his front. Oh, that's heartbreaking. Isn't it? That's really... That's so heartbreaking. So she was executed. Do you want to guess how old she was at this point on her death?

What are we? 17. I don't know, she's like young. What is she? 20, you know, 20s? No, 30s? 37. Oh, my gosh.

It's, I mean, extraordinary life. I think, you know, as you said at the beginning of episode, Jen, a lot of the things we know about her are not true, but actually a lot of the things that the French people knew about her were not true. It's, you know, she was the victim of scandal and rumor and gossip. Yeah, and a very deliberate and successful smear campaign, which really undid all of the mobility to a degree and the French court as a whole.

It's weird, isn't it? The more you learn about these people, the more you give them like a third dimension. I can see that she's incredibly flawed human being, but also she was a product of what the court created. Thank you. I really enjoyed that, I thought it was fascinating. The nuance window!

Well, it's time now for the nuance window. My stopwatch is ready. Kate, take it away. It can be tricky to untangle myth and reality with Marie Antoinette because what we know largely come from things others wrote about her rather than from her own words. Opinions then and now are contradictory. Was she a monster or a martyr?

Was she thoughtless and frivolous or a scheming villain? Was she depraved or a devoted mother? Did she bring down the French monarchy with her extravagance? Or is she a proto-feminist influencer and role model? Versailles was a palace of mirrors and multiple reflections. Marie Antoinette reflects back at us our own biases, so to different people she will mean quite different things. It is important, though, to distinguish more clearly

between the teenage Marie Antoinette and the person she was 20 years later. Ill-prepared to become Queen, age 19, she did end up taking on more political responsibilities when Louis was paralysed by depression and indecision, but the task of modernising the monarchy and solving the economic crisis without impinging on the privileges of the nobility was an impossible one. During the revolution, she tried to save the monarchy, writing a huge number of letters to revolutionaries as well as her brother on the throne in Vienna to try to effect change.

She would have seen herself as acting in France's interests, when in fact it's the point in her life when she's most actively working against them, just another of the many contradictions that make up her life. Her most tangible legacy is the impact she had on interior design, one of her most enduring passions. Furniture and Objadre from this period are usually labelled Louis XVI, but it would be much more accurate to call them Marie-Antonet's style. as her interest in fabrics and furniture very much marked the late 18th century. Her taste is now appreciated as elegant and refined, a marketable brand for everything from tea to tote bags.

Our collective fascination with her riches to rags story she has no sign at all of fading. And given that powerful women in society are still seen with suspicion, and that tensions between privacy and celebrity have taken on a new urgency in a social media age, Marie Antoinette's life will undoubtedly continue to be relevant and generate debate for years to begin.

come. Two minutes on the dot. Incredible timekeeping. Wow. That's impressive because I've spread up because I was about five seconds over when I practiced it yesterday. Oh, well done, Kate. Thank you so much. I mean, that's fascinating. The idea of the mutability, the fact that she was all things to all people. Really interesting, Jen, isn't it? Yeah. And also the parallels about celebrity now, you know, you can see them clearly, especially with like social media. Because the printing press existed and think people were able to get things out so much easier. It was much easier to augment your celebrity, but it was much easier to pull you down as well.

Exactly, exactly. People will believe what they want to believe. And still do. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Professor Kate. Thank you, Jen. And listener, if you want more from Jen, we've got episodes on Emma of Normandy.

And, of course, we did Hernan Cortez Amelinsin. That was very interesting. And for more controversial French queens, listen to our episode on Catherine de Medici. That one was a fun hoot. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with your friends. Subscribe to your dead to be.

me on BBC Sounds in the UK to get episodes 28 days early. But I just like to say a huge thank you. To our guests in History Corner, we had the incredible Professor Catherine Asprey from the University of Warwick. Thank you, Kate. A pleasure. And a comedy corner.

We had the brilliant Jen Brister. Thanks again, Jen. Oh, what a treat, Greg. Thank you. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we engage in some more historical myth-busting. But for now, I'm off to go and get my hands on my own delicious swede.

Keep it, classy people. I'm talking about the root vegetable. Bye! That's a good one. Thank you. You're dead to me is a BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4. Hi guys, this is Ryland, and I'm here to tell you about how to be in love from BBC Sounds. Now, as a single divorcee, I feel ready to find love again, but I want to see if there's a better way of going about it.

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