This is a an excerpt of a great entry about Marie Antoinette’s reputation from one of my favorite blogs, Tea at the Trianon:
She is the queen who danced while the people starved; who spent extravagantly on clothes and jewels without a thought for her subjects’ plight. Such is the distorted but widespread view of Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France (1755-1793), wife of King Louis XVI. The recent Coppola film has further damaged the image of the much-maligned, beautiful and charming Austrian archduchess, sent to France at age fourteen to marry the fifteen-year-old Dauphin. Sadly, the picture many people now have of Marie-Antoinette is of her running through Versailles with a glass of champagne in her hand, eating bonbons all day long, and rolling in the bushes with a lover…
Click here to read the rest of the article.
yes, i totally agree that marie was the victim of bad pr. it sucks how our idea of history is often incorrect.
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Very sad that she has been portrayed in such a poor light. Just a reminder that the history we remember is written by the victors, and not the impartial light of truth.
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I remember visiting her castle during my trip to France, they said they beheaded her before the castle was fully complete. Too bad, it’s one sick place!:)
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What I love about you Kooty is that not only are you gorgeous but you’ve got brains too! Love it! xoxo
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Interesting read.
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Very interesting read!!
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Nice article, lol yup thats pretty much the image a lot of ppl have
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Well – I for one, thoroughly enjoyed the film. But it was clearly a modern hipster interpretation of Marie Antoinette as a historical figure, and not to be taken literally. If anything the film touches very strongly on her fashion sensibilities – she was queen of France for Pete’s sake, she had an image to uphold!
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I can’t say I cared too much about Marie Antoinette when I learned about her as 15-year old in high school nor did I really care when the film came out. Oh well.
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I really enjoyed that article. Thanks for sharing it.
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