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- Few women in history have inspired as many myths as Marie-Antoinette, the last queen of France, typically portrayed as the embodiment of excess and debauchery. Many of those myths are based on the vicious and often pornographic Revolutionary propaganda that poured from French printing presses in the last days of the 18th century.
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Oct 11, 2023 · Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France before the French Revolution, and for more than 200 years she has stood as the ultimate example of a cold, careless aristocrat, living a life of luxury as thousands starved to death around her.
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The execution ballads about the last queen of France spread myths about her that most people still believe.
Few women in history have inspired as many myths as Marie-Antoinette, the last queen of France, typically portrayed as the embodiment of excess and debauchery. Many of those myths are based on the vicious and often pornographic Revolutionary propaganda that poured from French printing presses in the last days of the 18th century. The effect of this propaganda has meant that for centuries she was falsely blamed for the downfall of the monarchy.
Antoinette’s supposed crimes against both France and nature itself often took the form of songs, and her beheading on October 16, 1793 inspired a slew of execution ballads, known in French as complaintes. Execution ballads were a popular genre of news song throughout early modern Europe, cheaply printed songs set to a familiar tune. They all recounted the crimes of the condemned, with some in the first-person voice of the criminal, singing of their remorse at their evil actions, and their fear of execution.
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Often execution ballads showed compassion for the criminal who was presented as repentant, but for the despised queen these ballads reveled in delight at her beheading for high treason. Ballads were sold on busy streets, marketplaces and bridges by ballad sellers, and then re-performed in taverns, cafés, theaters and at home by all classes of society. Thus, all could participate in the communal tarnishing of her reputation.
The songs are often brutal in their attacks on her: she is ‘Antoinette the tigress’, ‘the monster escaped from Germany’, ‘cursed creature’, ‘the scourge of the French’, ‘cruel’, ‘detestable’ and ‘hussy’. They attack her gross pride and her unnatural ambition: ‘I, who believed myself divine’, she sings in The Pride of Marie-Antoinette. In another, The Complainte of Marie Antoinette widow of L[ouis] Capet, she admits ‘From my most tender childhood/My hard and perverse heart/ Burned with impatience / To destroy the universe’.
Explore the extraordinary life and times of Napoleon Bonaparte, the great military genius who took France to unprecedented heights of power, and then brought it to its knees when his ego spun out of control.
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May 2, 2023 · Marie Antoinette, known for her infamous and apocryphal quote, “Let them eat cake,” has been the subject of many myths and legends over the years. However, recent examinations of her personal letters reveal a woman who was far from the callous and indifferent queen portrayed in popular culture.
Jul 14, 2023 · Here are the 5 most famous myths about Marie Antoinette: 1. She had blonde hair. Portrayed as blonde in several films, Marie Antoinette was actually a redhead. This motivated Madame du Barry, mistress of King Louis XV, to nickname her “la petite rousse,” which in free translation corresponds to "little redhead." 2. She was originally from France.
Marie Antoinette was heavily disliked by many of the French people, who believed that her fondness for expensive fashion was helping to push France closer to financial ruin, giving her the nickname...
Jun 20, 2018 · Here are 10 facts about a woman we love to make up myths about. 1. Marie Antoinette was only 14 years old when she married the future Louis XVI.
Apr 4, 2022 · Marie Antoinette (l. 1755-1793) was the queen of France during the turbulent final years of the Ancien Régime and the subsequent French Revolution (1789-1799). With the ascension of her husband Louis XVI of France (r. 1774-1792), she became queen at the age of 18 and would shoulder much of the blame for the perceived moral failures of the ...
