Page 34 - All About History - Issue 27-15

The Hated Queen: Marie Antoinette

Good Deeds

The kind acts that the libelles tried to hide

Housing the homeless
Although the construction of Hameau de la Reine was
criticised as the queen playing at being a peasant while
her people suffered, she allowed several peasant families
to live at the site, building cottages specifically for them.
Peasants also maintained the farm and its output.
The beloved couple
When Marie and Louis were married in 1774, many
people were killed in a stampede during the celebratory
firework display. The newlyweds donated all their private
spending money for a year to the suffering victims and
families. Marie was well liked at this time.
A sympathetic queen
It is very unlikely that Marie uttered the infamous phrase
"let them eat cake," in reference to the bread shortages.
Her actual recorded words when hearing about the
famine were far more sympathetic: “It is quite certain
that in seeing the people who treat us so well despite
their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to
work hard for their happiness.”

Charitable monarch
The queen and her husband both supported a number
of charitable causes. Louis XVI founded the Maison
Philanthropique and Marie became a patron of a society
that helped the elderly, blind and widowed. She also
started a home for unwed mothers.

Sacrifice for the nation
Marie did more than simply pity the suffering peasants.
During the famine of 1787-88, her family sold a lot of
their flatware to buy grain for the poor. Every Sunday
Marie would take a collection for them from the rich of
When Louis XVI ascended the
Versailles, and when her people were starving she ate throne aged just 19, the country
cheap barley bread so more money could be donated.
was already in huge debt
reduce her expenditure, stripping her room of her The queen did not understand for to the National Assembly that was now
fineries, but these efforts went largely ignored. one moment the justifications ruling Paris. But this was not enough
When she emerged in her box at the theatre, she or hopes that underpinned for the outraged population. The
was hissed at so horrifically by the crowd that she the revolution. All that she king had hoped that by agreeing
began to completely withdraw from the woman witnessed was the brutality to demands and staying at the
she once was. She stayed away from parties, from and murderous tactics of Marie’s palace in Versailles he could
balls, even from the king’s council chamber, and its leaders, and she wanted extravagant keep a low profile until the
devoted her attention to her children, terrified that to blast every trace of it andluxurious revolution died down, but on
if she involved herself further, she would be held from existence. What she dresseshad 5 October a mob of outraged
responsible for tearing France in two. saw was not liberty, but fittingnames, women marched from Paris
On 4 June 1789, tragedy struck. The dauphin, rebellion and chaos. suchas‘Heart’s to Versailles. They had one
Marie’s eldest son and all-important heir to the The queen decided that aim in mind, and navigated
throne, died. The royal couple were overcome with the revolution must be Agitation’and their way through the palace
grief for the child they had anticipated for so long, crushed with mercenary ‘StifledSighs’ to Marie’s private suite. Fuelled
but the people were not. The death, usually cause Germanic troops. She by revolutionary passion, they
for national mourning, was ignored by the people believed, deep down, that the cut down their foes and sacrificed
desperate to end the famine that was killing their people were good natured and their own lives to confront Madame
own children. Marie was outraged, and when would respect the authority of the Déficit directly.
demand after demand poured through for reform, monarchy when faced with force. But Marie had fled, barefoot and half naked,
she urged the king to remain strong against them. she was wrong. As news of an armed attack swept to the king’s bedchamber, barely escaping with
For a woman who believed in the absolute power through Paris, the revolutionaries took their cause her life. The mob reformed beneath a balcony and
of monarchy, who had spent all her childhood a step further, stormed the Bastille and turned the their voices rose in unison as they demanded to
and adult life in palaces, the revolution opposed streets red with blood. see the queen. Marie, who had never bowed to
and offended everything she believed in and had As royalists fled Paris for their lives, the woman anyone she deemed inferior, was humiliated, but
worked for. Now she was ready to use force to get most at risk remained with her husband and was had no choice. Taking her young son and daughter
the rebellious masses to understand. forced to stand by as his power was signed away with her, she emerged, straight backed and strong
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