THE QUEEN BREAKS RULES THAT SHE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND

"I WILL ENJOY THE BENEFITS OF A PRIVATE LIFE, WHICH DOES NOT EXIST FOR US [ROYALS] IF WE DO NOT HAVE THE GOOD SENSE TO ASSURE IT" 

-- Marie-Antoinette

"I recall all the charm of the queen's illusion, of which she could grasp neither the impossibility nor the danger."

-- Madame Campan, her first chambermaid 

         The Hamlet by Claude-Louis Châtelet, 1786 / zoom

The fairy tale farm where Marie-Antoinette would slip away with her clique

The memoir vividly describes the clans, gossip and intrigues of Louis XVI's court, and explains how the unaware young consort took the path that brought disaster. 

A passage at the start of her memoir

"People sincerely attached to the queen have always regarded as one of her first misfortunes, perhaps even the greatest one [...] to have not met in the person naturally placed to be her counsel, someone who was indulgent, enlightened [...] who would have made the young [Austrian] princess understand that in France her dignity depended a great deal on custom [...] and especially that an imposing entourage would protect her against the mortal stings of calumny."

-- Memoir of Madame Campan, 1988 ed., pp. 52- 53, slightly adapted

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Marie-Antoinette was not even 15 when she married the future king...

Marie-Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, age 12, 1767-1768 / zoom

She refused to follow Court codes, notably that aside from the obligation to give children to France their role was only ceremonial. hey were not explained to her, or if they were she did not listen. By becoming a fashion icon she highlighted Paris as a center of style, but defied the obligation to remain in the shadows:

Memories of Léonard, Coiffeur of the Queen Marie-Antoinette / YouTube (in French), zoom and scroll down

Worse, since Louis XVI had no intimate best friend, she inadvertently took on the role of favori(te), the person closest to the king. Such figures were official, detested — and almost indispensable:

 

 

Diane de Poitiers, c.1550; Leonora Galigai, c.1615; Marquis de Cinq-Mars, c.1640;

Marquise de Montespan, c.1670; Marquise de Pompadour, c.1640; Countess du Barry, c.1770

• Favoris shared kings' gifts of lands, posts, honors etc. with their clans, which gave them temporary access to power without the risk of rebellion.

• The institution evolved: Louis XIV's much stronger monarchy made revolt impossible and Louis XV's favorites of commoner origin (Jeanne Poisson ennobled as the Marquise de Pompadour and Jeanne Bécu ennobled as the Countess du Barry) had no traditional entourage to favor.

But clans were improvised around or against them, encouraging the intrigues and struggles for influence that made the exorbitant expense of life at a stifling court worthwhile.

Favoris were also lightning rods whose extravagance concentrated popular fury on themselves and away from the ruler, who was thought fatherly but misled.

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As well, favoring a few friends in a hierarchical court where

proximity to royals was a badge of identity* brought powerful enemies.  

* Louis XV had already broken the rules when his favorite, the Marquise de Pompadour, organized and starred in plays to which only a few were invited. The innovation was rapidly cancelled on the pretext of cost, but really because of excluded courtiers' hostility.

-- The Queen and the Favorite by Simone Bertière, 2000, pp. 347-354 (in French)

The two women who succeeded each other as the queen's best friend were disinterested...

Princess of Lamballe / zoom                                                       Countess de Polignac / zoom: 

                                                         An ancestress of the royal family of Monaco

Madame Campan wrote of the Countess of Polignac, "I always thought her sincere attachment to the queen, as well as her taste for simplicity, let her avoid all that suggested a favorite's wealth. She had none of the faults that almost always accompany that title." 

The Princesse de Lamballe returned from England to be near the queen as clouds darkened, and was massacred for it (please read on).

But the favors they monopolized and the clique that surrounded them are at the root of the tragedy.

  

     Marie-Antoinette: Thoughtlessness Guillotined, documentary, 2022 / Internet

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"Let them eat cake" is one of the "alternative facts" that were popularized from Palais-Royal but born at Versailles...*

  

*The pornographic La Vie de Marie-Antoinette can be read online.

Marie-Antoinette by Sophie Coppola, 2006 / zoom

And that remain: "Barack Antoinette," a columnist called Obama to castigate a fête. 

     -- Maureen Dowd commenting his 60th birthday celebration in The New York Times

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Marie-Antoinette's obliviousness 

is a major reason for that monarchy's end. 

"Without her Parisiens would probably have kept their love for the King [after the flight to Varennes, below]. They liked the plump man who was not at all mean, and who in his portliness had an air that was kindly and paternal, very much to the liking of the crowd. [...] The market women called him bon papa; that was how the people saw him."

--Michelet, p.77 (slightly adapted)

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