Discover the real story behind France's most misunderstood queen. From her arranged marriage at 14 to her tragic end at the guillotine, we explore how Marie Antoinette became a convenient scapegoat for a nation's anger. Was she really just a frivolous party girl, or is there more to her story than cake and couture?
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00:00Do I know you?
00:01No, I don't think so.
00:04She was the sparkling centerpiece of the most extravagant royal court in European history.
00:09The ultimate party girl, famed for her bold fashion,
00:13and an appetite for luxury that turned out to be downright revolutionary.
00:17Naturally, they'll all be blown to pieces by the army.
00:20Oh, what a crying shame when one considers a servant problem.
00:26An entire country paid the price for her glib recklessness.
00:28Her head was in the clouds until it wound up on the execution block,
00:32and the world was never the same.
00:34But is there more to this doomed queen than just frosting?
00:37Today, we'll dig in and explore how Marie Antoinette has been misrepresented.
00:42No!
00:45Let them eat cake!
00:48Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa never would have expected one of her children
00:52to eclipse her in historical immortality, let alone her youngest daughter, Maria Antonia.
00:57Maria Theresa was something of a maverick, after all.
01:00The war was for you until now, just a kind of game, right?
01:09From now on, there's no game anymore.
01:12She held the throne as sovereign in her own right,
01:15but imperial politics were still a family affair,
01:18with her large brood of children expected to do their part.
01:21She used many of them as pawns in strategic marriages,
01:24shoring up alliances and expanding the reach of her power.
01:27And when she and King Louis XV of France decided to put their differences aside
01:31and become friendly neighbors,
01:33Maria Theresa was ready with a bride as a peace offering.
01:36You're to be married to the Dauphin of France.
01:38France.
01:39The future king.
01:41France!
01:42I'm to be queen of France!
01:44One day?
01:45Only 14 at the time of her official engagement.
01:48The Archduchess Maria Antonia was a year younger than her future husband, the Dauphin,
01:52or heir to the throne, Louis-Auguste.
01:55Though she was a pretty and poised child with a talent for music, dancing and dressing her dolls,
02:01she was considered mediocre as far as the rest of her education went.
02:05However, she sat a nice portrait and had the right family, so affianced she was.
02:10Excuse me.
02:11Antonia, Count Mercy, duty calls.
02:14She will need all the assistance we can give her.
02:17Antonia received a crash course to prepare her to assume the role of Dauphine,
02:21and then off she went to start her new life in France.
02:24A new life that came with a new name.
02:26You are most welcome, Marie Antoinette of Austria.
02:30Marie Antoinette of France, Your Majesty.
02:32When the freshly minted Marie Antoinette arrived at the Royal Palace of Versailles,
02:36she was instantly out of her depth.
02:38The common people seemed to like her well enough,
02:41but after years of hostilities between France and Austria,
02:44she was an unpopular choice of future queen among the nobility.
02:47Here comes the Austria.
02:50I hope you like apples trudo.
02:53Though she was begrudgingly considered both beautiful and charming,
02:56nothing had prepared Marie Antoinette to navigate the political minefield of Versailles.
03:00Well, more like a political fishbowl, really.
03:03The princess was further unnerved to find herself constantly on display,
03:07and at odds with the highly ritualized social etiquette that governed the French court.
03:12And you must not reach for anything,
03:13for the handing of an item to the Dauphine is a guarded privilege.
03:17It must go to the highest rank in the room.
03:19Yes, the courtiers really did watch the royal family dress and eat.
03:22It was a very intrusive status symbol.
03:24Add in a much-documented rivalry with the king's mistress, Madame du Barry,
03:28and it made for a tense environment.
03:31Two women trying to survive in this vicious world.
03:38Well, you didn't make it any easier.
03:40Unfortunately, her new husband Louis was no help.
03:43The Dauphin was painfully shy.
03:45Don't you want to talk about yourself?
03:47I have nothing to say about myself.
03:49Oh, I'm sorry.
03:50I like to be alone.
03:52So do I at times.
03:53I like to be alone all the time.
03:55All the time.
03:56I'll see you in the morning.
03:57Though he gradually warmed to his wife,
04:00a combination of emotional and physical factors made him unable to consummate their marriage.
04:05This rendered Marie Antoinette unable to produce an heir,
04:08which was pretty much the only job she had as a royal bride,
04:11making her even more unpopular at court.
04:14Because naturally, as a foreigner, and a woman,
04:17it was all her fault.
04:18It's Barry, what do you expect?
04:20Well, give us an heir.
04:25I hear you.
04:26She's a friend.
04:27We wouldn't really think of her as a full-grown woman in the modern era, though.
04:31While the young Marie Antoinette is often played on screen by a 20-something actress,
04:35she was still just a high school-aged girl as she was dealing with all this.
04:38Do you realize the consequences of an unconsummated royal marriage?
04:43That it could be annulled?
04:44Your mother has asked that you take this matter very seriously
04:47and do everything in your power to inspire the Dauphin.
04:55The pressure only increased when she became Queen of France at 18.
04:59A long way from home, deeply lonely, and unable to fulfill the one purpose she was assigned,
05:04she began to look for outlets.
05:06And so, the Marie Antoinette most thoroughly imprinted on popular culture began to emerge.
05:11Let your body go, let them know, you know, you know, you know it.
05:16Our obsession with wealth, beauty, and youth is as old as our species.
05:21All three in one person has proven time and time again to be an irresistible fascination.
05:26Like so many it girls of so many eras, the new queen became known for her fashion,
05:31acquiring a sumptuous wardrobe and experimenting with ever more outlandish hairstyles.
05:36I wonder if it's possible to have one's hair fashioned in the shape of a ship.
05:42A ship with sails.
05:45Not only have countless directors eagerly recreated Marie Antoinette's distinct aesthetic,
05:50but she remains a relevant source of style inspiration to this day.
05:54To look at our screens, runways, and stages, it would seem the queen's reign never ended.
05:59There's no way to describe what you do to me, you just do to me, what you do.
06:06However, it does help to ingrain the idea of Marie Antoinette as someone of high style
06:10and little substance.
06:12Unless, of course, that substance was cake.
06:14Marie Antoinette sure likes cake, Mr. Peabody.
06:17Indeed she does.
06:18Marie was a woman with a prodigious appetite for all things covered with frosting.
06:22Yes, if there is one other thing we all know about Marie Antoinette,
06:26it's her fondness for sweet treats.
06:27When she heard her people were starving from bread shortages,
06:31she was famously baffled that they wouldn't just enjoy dessert instead.
06:34No bread indeed.
06:37Then let them eat cake.
06:40Except there's not actually any record of Marie Antoinette saying any such thing.
06:44The phrase originates with an unnamed princess in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's
06:48autobiographical writing Confessions, and it's possible he made up the anecdote entirely.
06:53However, the fact that it is so strongly attached to Marie Antoinette
06:56shows us how far back the smear campaign against her goes.
06:59The words have been put into her mouth to show how thoughtless and out of touch she was.
07:05But worse than that, they've been used to justify the bloody events that follow.
07:11Inside the gilded world of the French court,
07:13Marie Antoinette filled her days with fashion and home redecoration,
07:17court entertainments, and gambling.
07:18You might be aware that these are all things that cost money.
07:22She did not appear to be, at least at first.
07:24False is penniless, and yet you royals, you're spending money like it goes on trees.
07:30Which is silly because it doesn't.
07:33Meanwhile, the common people of France were struggling.
07:36The country was deep in debt.
07:38Agricultural hardships and poor policy decisions had resulted in skyrocketing bread prices,
07:43and the poorest citizens had to contend with a bitterly unfair tax policy on top of everything else.
07:49While France's nobility and clergy had numerous tax exemptions,
07:53peasants often paid more than half their income in taxes.
07:57This system buried France in debt long before the queen's arrival.
08:01Her personal expenses were merely a scapegoat for decades of financial negligence.
08:06Be that as it may, the image of Marie Antoinette blithely spending down the royal treasury
08:10while the populace tightened their belts again and again,
08:13turned what goodwill they had once held for their queen into simmering resentment.
08:17In fact, the U.S. ambassador, who's Thomas Jefferson, will come to say this about her.
08:24Had there been no queen, there would have been no revolution.
08:29It's interesting that Thomas Jefferson should stick his nose in here,
08:31because he arguably had more to do with France's situation than Marie Antoinette did.
08:36Yes.
08:40True, her profligate spending in a time of need was a bad look,
08:45and it certainly couldn't have helped the financial situation.
08:49However, by the time she was supposedly suggesting cake to fix a famine,
08:52the largest chunk of France's debt was due to its choice to support the American colonies
08:57in their revolution against Great Britain.
08:58France supports the independence war of America, and it costed about $1.5 billion.
09:06And the budget of France was about $600 million a year,
09:11so that is to say about two and a half more than the annual budget of France.
09:19Though she was not responsible for the decision to get involved,
09:22it's worth noting that Marie Antoinette had been in favor of French intervention in the conflict,
09:26and had tugged some of her own strings to secure Austrian and Russian aid as well.
09:31Despite the fact that most depictions of Queen Marie Antoinette paint her as generally frivolous,
09:36she did gradually become more politically engaged throughout her husband's reign.
09:40Unfortunately, it only hurt her reputation further.
09:43Many people never stopped seeing her as a foreigner and inherently untrustworthy.
09:47Here in Austria, everyone is weeping.
09:52France?
09:54Yeah, France, Spain, everyone is weeping.
09:57Her efforts to balance her duties as a bridge between her adopted country and her homeland,
10:02as well as any reminder of her ties to Austria,
10:04often resulted in implications that she was working to weaken France from the inside.
10:09Those pale faces, full of hatred, shouting what's being shouted all over France.
10:15Foreigner, Austrian, leech.
10:17When she attempted to manage the relationship between her husband,
10:20a truly inept monarch, and the French parliament,
10:23the vitriol aimed at her only increased.
10:25Her growing unpopularity proved detrimental to the policy reforms she tried to support.
10:30You have traveled into dangerous territory.
10:37Everywhere you turn, you have made enemies.
10:40Meanwhile, numerous rumors circulated about extramarital affairs with members of her inner circle,
10:45further impugning her character.
10:47Two of the best-known Marie Antoinette movies haven't been able to resist exploring a romantic liaison
10:52with Swedish diplomat Axel von Fershen.
10:54The pair were close enough to prompt much speculation,
10:57but there is no hard evidence to prove a physical relationship existed between them.
11:01While Sofia Coppola depicted a dalliance provoked by Marie Antoinette's listlessness in her life at court,
11:20the 1938 version shows her ready to throw her entire life away to be with Fershen,
11:24and quietly implies that he might be the father of one of her children.
11:28I once thought if I were queen, I'd be so happy to be applauded and adored and obeyed.
11:34I don't want it now.
11:36I just want to be free to be with you,
11:38to love you.
11:39I cannot wear my crown upon my heart.
11:44This all-mirrors malicious gossip spread about Marie Antoinette by her contemporaries.
11:48Interestingly, the much more nuanced 2012 film Farewell My Queen does the same, if more thoughtfully.
11:55The rumored same-sex relationship between Marie Antoinette and her friend and favorite,
12:14the Duchess of Polignac, was supposedly one more German vice Marie Antoinette had brought with her
12:19to inflict upon the French court.
12:21And here, you're having an orgy with quite a big group.
12:25I think I'm here sucking your toes.
12:26Of course, this all fits with the image we have of Marie Antoinette
12:30whiling away her life in a hedonistic world.
12:33However, the truth is that her most indulgent tendencies were mostly confined to her youth,
12:38as they are with most people.
12:39Given maturity and time, she grew out of it and turned her attention to other things.
12:44Politics, yes, but also extensive charity work and raising her children.
12:49Madame, you have fulfilled our wishes and those of France.
12:52You are the mother of a Dauphin.
12:55Despite their rough start in married life, Louis was eventually able to get over his issues in the bedroom,
13:00and the couple would have four children, though only two survived their parents.
13:05Marie Antoinette took a leaf from her own mother, mobilizing her family to try and improve the affairs of state.
13:11In this case, trying to rehab her public image and stabilize the popular mood.
13:15And it's very important because it is a political representation of the new Queen of France.
13:21In truth, she reportedly was a very loving and involved parent to her children.
13:26Sadly, it's a side of the Queen that is frequently sidelined or completely eliminated in popular depictions.
13:32When Marie Antoinette's relationship with her children is used,
13:35it's usually to add emotional stakes to a scene rather than to lend dimension to Marie Antoinette as a human being.
13:41The revolution demands the baby king when an edict tears him from his mother's arms.
13:46Why?
13:47Because he is, in theory, the heir to the French throne, if not, in fact, the occupant of it.
13:52And no doubt the tortured mother realizes that before her eyes again shall see her boy,
13:58the guillotine will have blinded them forever.
14:00Eventually, the Queen's world collapsed out from under her with the ignition of the French Revolution.
14:05Marie Antoinette was not unaware of the dire circumstances leading up to it,
14:09as media often suggests, and in fact had to be the one to get Louis to take it seriously.
14:14She often took a harder line against the revolution than her husband and pleaded with Louis to fight back.
14:20But the situation was too far gone to be salvaged by the weak solutions the king and his ministers offered.
14:26As tensions rose to a fever pitch, the royal family was urged to flee.
14:30But Marie Antoinette refused to leave her husband behind in a show of courage and fidelity
14:34that directly contradicted her reputation.
14:37Nevertheless, it sealed her fate.
14:39Are you admiring your Lime Avenue?
14:45I'm saying goodbye.
14:46Stripped of their titles, Marie Antoinette and her family were imprisoned for a time
14:50before she was executed via guillotine at the age of 37.
14:54At her trial, she had been found guilty of depleting the Treasury,
14:57conspiracy against the security of the state,
14:59and treason for her intelligence actions on behalf of an enemy.
15:03The newspapers dared not write afterwards that she'd been cowardly,
15:07that she'd shrieked and cried as they liked writing about aristocrats.
15:11They had to say that she'd been dignified.
15:14So they said it was the pride of a habitual criminal.
15:17And so the petty, unfounded whispers that had followed her
15:20since she was little more than a child became etched in the public record as truths.
15:24Her final words, spoken to her executioner after stepping on his foot,
15:29hold a kind of tragic irony.
15:31Pardon me, sir.
15:32I did not do it on purpose.
15:34Perhaps it's understandable why Marie Antoinette's reputation
15:37suffered the way it did during her lifetime.
15:40Not that much of it was true,
15:41but because angry, oppressed people needed a target for their rage,
15:45and she was a very visible and very convenient one.
15:48But with the benefit of distance,
15:49why haven't we done better to clear some of the tarnish for Marie Antoinette's name?
15:53I have learned so much,
15:57like never hang out with peasants.
16:01To be fair, more recent film and TV projects have tried to tell her story with greater nuance,
16:06but it's a tricky balancing act.
16:08Sofia Coppola's 2006 film has become the best-known screen retelling of the Queen story,
16:13and as a piece of visual art, it's above reproach.
16:16It was wonderful.
16:19Clap, clap.
16:20It does give a sense of Marie Antoinette's deeper interiority.
16:24However, it doesn't do much to plumb those depths or to show her personal growth.
16:28Some have critiqued the movie,
16:30saying that its reliance on the aesthetics and visual aspects of storytelling
16:34have weighted it more heavily towards style than substance.
16:37This makes it a perfect representation of Marie Antoinette, the pop culture figure,
16:41but not so much of Marie Antoinette, the person.
16:43There is no reason a girl with so many charms as you should be in this situation.
16:50The latest effort at telling the Queen story comes in the form of a 2022 TV series written
16:54by Deborah Davis, who previously gave us The Favourite, a dark comedy set in the court of
16:59Great Britain's Queen Anne.
17:00This outing introduces us to the very young Marie Antoinette at the beginning of her journey
17:05towards infamy.
17:06The contract has been signed and sealed.
17:09Please?
17:12Mama?
17:14Don't.
17:15Don't make me go.
17:17The show benefits from having more time to flesh out a narrative,
17:20as well as from a strong cast and high production values,
17:23and gives us one of the more developed versions of Marie Antoinette.
17:27However, it also eschews strict historical accuracy
17:30in favour of a very modern feminist spin for her as a character.
17:33I must be a queer, crazy kind of wife.
17:40Because when I look at men, I see...
17:46No, no, nothing but their faults.
17:49It's not an unwelcome take, especially in contrast to the traditional airhead read.
17:54But a lot of what makes her interesting are things that would conflict with an easy girl
17:58power narrative.
17:59Don't squander this opportunity.
18:01It may be your last.
18:04That's the crux of the issue when it comes to this woman.
18:07She was human.
18:08But her status and privilege created a separation that made it easy to treat her more as a symbol
18:12on a pedestal than a person.
18:14So she became a glamorous mannequin that we could dress up in our own meanings.
18:18Do you like with ruffles or without?
18:22Have you been paying any attention?
18:24To the French revolutionaries, she was the living embodiment of excess and corruption.
18:28As time has passed and we've evolved through eras of different political and social philosophies,
18:33she has been a cautionary tale of careless vanity run amok.
18:37She has been a silly spoiled girl doing silly girl things.
18:41And once consumer culture got a hold of her, she was frequently translated into a tragic icon
18:45of luxurious indulgence.
18:47Sure, she lost her head, but she looked fabulous right up until then, and that's what matters.
19:02You too could be fabulous if you embraced her good taste and opened your wallet for us.
19:06With the resealable fable of dough, you can let me cake again and again.
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19:28As bizarre as it is to see Marie Antoinette rebranded as an aspirational avatar for the
19:33Suite Life, it's in keeping with the long legacy that has seen her continuously forced
19:37into the boxes society has constructed around her.
19:40The real tragedy is that throughout her life, Marie Antoinette earnestly tried to satisfy the
19:45people around her, be they her family, her courtiers, or her subjects.
19:49Letting everyone down would be my greatest unhappiness.
19:52Each effort to serve was met with dismissal, derision, or downright fury.
19:57As a victim of xenophobia and misogyny, constantly blamed for the shortcomings of the men around
20:02her, Marie Antoinette, for all the material comforts of her life, remains a depressingly
20:06relevant figure in the modern era.
20:08You go too far, Antoinette.
20:11Yes, you're right.
20:12It's a fault of mine.
20:14Seems I have many, the greatest, greatest of which was my stupidity to have been born
20:21a woman.
20:23Her status suggested power, yet she was ultimately powerless against prejudice and circumstance.
20:29Any potential she had to develop as a leader was discouraged at every turn.
20:33And she would live to see all of her complexity flattened down to the worst things ever said
20:38about her.
20:38Perhaps already understanding that that was the version history would remember.
20:42People saw the dresses, the parties, the air, and they assumed I was a spirit brat.
20:51We can't change the fact that Marie Antoinette will always be somewhat of a cipher to project
20:55our own interpretations upon.
20:57But whether you think she's a feminist icon, or a wasteful one-percenter who probably had
21:02it coming, is beside the point.
21:04Under the gossip and the lies and the beautiful clothes, it's important to remember her as
21:09a person, and that she was trying her best.
21:11Really?
21:11I was just a lonely Viennese girl, trying to fit into French society.
21:19Which other historical figure do you think got an unfair cut in the pop culture edit?
21:23Let us know in the comments.
21:25I will now, pardon my French, make un exit dramatic.
21:41Let us know in the comments.