The 'Scandalous' Life of Marie Antoinette

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3:11Glamorous, extravagant, scandalous, deeply misunderstood. Marie Antoinette became the ultimate symbol of the French Revolution. The poster girl for the excessive monarchy that feasted while the country starved, who draped themselves in jewels as people died in the streets. At one point, she was the most hated woman in France, the woman they blamed for it all. But did she deserve it? Marie Antoinette, she was a teenage archduchess. She was a princess from and Vienna sent across Europe as a political bargaining chip to secure an alliance between rival empires. In 1770, 14 years old, she entered the suffocating spectacle of Versailles, a court of ritual, a court of surveillance, where every gesture was judged and every weakness exploited.

4:02As the French monarchy began to fracture under crises that were totally out of her control, the Queen became a scapegoat, a scapegoat for the nation that was desperate for someone to blame. As we love to on this show, we are going to be sorting out the truth from the myth. There is no one better to do this than Professor Kate Williams, historian, broadcaster, author of a new book called Regina, A New History of Women and Power. We're very lucky to have her on the pod once again. From the halls of Versailles to the prison cells of revolutionary Paris, right, in fact, to hear our podcast studio at History HQ, this is the story of Marie Antoinette.

4:41Kate Williams, good to have you back on the pod. Thrilled to be here. Thrilled to be here. I mean, what a start. We're going to talk about Marie Antoinette. The key thing is, not French, Austrian. That's kind of essential to understanding her in many ways, right? Not French, Austrian, the Austrian princess. And she was criticised for that at the time. So she's not French. I'd say her spending didn't break Versailles. And she never said, let them eat cake. So there's some myths to overturn. We're going to puncture myths left, right and centre. But the Austrian-ness is fascinating. her mum, Maria Theresa, actually one of the great figures of the 18th century in her own right, like two seconds on Maria Theresa, held an empire together against Frederick the Great, who's pretty hardcore, whilst having children all over the place in a man's world.

5:21Extraordinary woman. Extraordinary woman. I mean, Marie Antoinette is her 15th child. No. And she's, last child, 15, and she's really up doing work on her papers while she's pretty much in labour with Marie Antoinette and gives birth to this small but perfectly healthy archduchess And when her husband died, she's a pretty benign figure. When her husband dies, when Marie Antoinette is a young girl, really, Maria Theresa then becomes the king. She then becomes the king. She rules with an iron fist. She rules for her son. I mean, she is one of the most powerful women really in history in Europe. Would Marie Antoinette have had much access to her mum, do you think, in those early years?

6:00Oh, Marie Antoinette's mother was a control woman, a helicopter mother. We've got a helicopter parent there. There's none of this gentle parenting with Maria Theresa. She was intent on Marie Antoinette. And there's a rather tragic moment. Well, there's a series of moments when smallpox sweeps the family. So what happens when you're the 15th archduchess? You think you're probably a long way away from a major marriage chessboard moment. But in fact, two sisters get killed by smallpox. Another one survives, but her looks are deemed so bad that she has to go and be a nun and becomes a very powerful abyss.

6:40But Marie Antoinette then moves up the sort of table and becomes a powerful piece on the chessboard. And that's why her mother becomes more intent on making her into this perfect princess. She's got to be educated. She has music. There's a combination between having a rather fun childhood. They've got a menagerie with a rhino and Mozart comes and tells Marie Antoinette, perhaps apocryphal, this story. He tells Marie Antoinette he wants to marry her and they have a rather lovely life with ice skating. But also Maria Theresa sees her daughters in particular as a bit like Queen Victoria did. These are her way of creating alliances across Europe and you are going to toe the line.

7:21And Marie Antoinette is made very clear to her early on, you are born to obey. And the Austrians have been fighting the French for longer than anyone can remember. But, and traditionally they've sort of, Europe's been a sort of contest between those two. But now you've got the Prussians on the scene, you've got these Germans rising in the north, and you get this extraordinary revolution, don't you? This absolute 180. France and Austria do the unthinkable, prompted by this dangerous new player. They do the unthinkable and they form an alliance. And that's, and Marion Thornet's key to that, I suppose.

7:53They form an alliance. And how do you seal this deal? With a princess. So Archduchess Marie Antoinette, she is going to be betrothed to the Dauphin, to the future king of France. They had thought about it for her sister, Maria Carolina. But because of the death of the elder sister, Maria Carolina goes off to marry the king of Naples and later has all kinds of drama in her life, including Emma Hamilton and Nelson. And Marie Antoinette, she's destined for the French court. and Marie Antoinette, her job, when she's sent off to the French court, when she's only 14 after being married by proxy, her mother says, oh, do so much for the French that they say, I've sent them an angel.

8:31It's a lot of weight on a teenager's shoulder. Yes, so first, a couple of questions. So she is a teenager still? She's a teenager still. She is married by proxy. Then she's sent over at 14 to conduct the marriage. Any say in it herself? No, this is just, you're told what you're going to be doing. Zero say. Zero say. You are there to obey. You are there to create glory for Austria. And really with Marie Antoinette, you see this problem for the consort. On one hand, she's supposed to give everything to France. On the other hand, she's supposed to advocate for the interest of her home country. The ultimate diplomat.

9:07The ultimate diplomat. So you've got a split personality. So there's still quite a lot of agency here. It's like you're not just a piece on the chessboard to go and join the French. You have to work hard. The expectation is you are going to, you're a politician in your own right. You are going to represent Austria. You're going to make France great. You're going to embody this new alliance. And you do that at 14. You have to make Austria great, secure the alliance. And it's so symbolic, Marie Antoinette's journey to France, because she sets off in this most wonderful trousseau, fabulous outfits, gorgeous gowns.

9:41They're all wondrous. There's this fantastic exhibition at the V &A of what could have been many of Marie Antoinette's gowns. And they are teeny tiny. And that's probably because these are children wearing them. Marie Antoinette is so young. So she sets off in this wonderful trousseau. And then when she gets to the border, what happens is every piece of Austrian dress and her jewellery is taken off her. She's totally undressed by the ladies, by the French ladies, and then redressed in French dress. so that nothing remains of the Austrian clothing, not even underwear, because that is a foreign court.

10:19And even her pug mops is taken off her and Marie Antoinette's very sad, but that's just symbolic. The pug is actually sent later to Versailles. So Marie Antoinette then says, I don't want to hear anything but French. That is who I am now. And she sets off in her French finery, surrounded by women she doesn't know, who are very formal with her. They're very formal with her. There's no hugs. There's no, you know, hand-holding. They're very formal with her. And then she goes to meet her future husband, who is, well, he's one of life's pragmatic diarists. He just writes in his diary, meeting with Madame la Dauphine, and that's it.

10:57That's it. That's it. So not much poetry there in his heart. And also, her name changes at that border as well. Yes. She was Marie Antoine, and now she's Marie Antoinette. and everything about her is supposed to be French, except she's, as you say, the child of the historic enemy. I mean, they've been the enemy for so long. So it's all very well, the elite saying, Austrians are friends now, but do the other people, the ordinary people, do they really feel that way? Now here is the young princess who is pretty, graceful, elegant. She's charming. She charms Versailles, but she is Austrian. She speaks perfect French.

11:36She's learning perfect French. And her mother constantly criticises her for the standard of her handwriting and her reading. We might possibly say now that it may be that Marie Antoinette would be defined as dyslexic now. But her mother's always telling her off for her handwriting. But Marie Antoinette's speech and language is really very, really very, very good very early. So she's immured in the court very quickly. Now, so she wins friends at court or impresses people at court, but there are lots of innuendo and rumours about her marriage and whether it was happy at first or whether it was even consummated at first.

12:15So you have the grand wedding, the king, who is grandfather of her husband, he thinks she's delightful and everything seems marvellous. Louis XV. Louis XV. But there is this one problem. The marriage does not seem to be consummated. And this means she can be put aside at any time. She's taught by the Austrians, you don't understand the danger. But she does. She understands that. And as to when the marriage is consummated... And by the way, how do we know that? Was consummation a sort of semi-public event? It's not a semi-public event. It's just the fact that she's not falling pregnant. And the gossip is that they don't know what they're doing.

12:54and the question of when it was consummated is one that historians debate. It could have been three years but we know for sure it's seven years because then she falls pregnant so that's for sure. But I think it's probably around three, four years it takes them to work it out. A doctor has to be sent to talk to them. Her brother actually later goes to talk to them again and it is obviously, you know, Louis, he's a very simple soul. He's a simple soul. He loves clocks. He loves playing with locks. He was never really intended to be king. And I think he just perhaps wasn't his bag. And certainly, unlike every other French king, he doesn't have a mistress.

13:38So Louis doesn't have a mistress. Yeah, I mean, jeepers. Louis XV. Grandpa Louis. Well, Madame du Barry is everywhere at court. And initially, Marie Antoinette says, who's that rather lovely lady? and she's told, she's there to give pleasure to the king. And Marie Antoinette says, oh, that's good. I'd like to give pleasure to the king too. And they're like, yes, not like that, dear. And initially, when Marie Antoinette realises who Madame du Barry is, she's really rather shocked that a mistress is openly at court and won't acknowledge her. And finally, she's persuaded to do so, which is seen as a great diplomatic breakthrough just to say, hello, aren't there a lot of people here today?

14:17Because Madame du Barry is all-powerful and the old king is really in charge. And this is a moment when Marie Antoinette hasn't consummated her marriage, but she acknowledges Madame du Barry, the mistress who controls everything. She consummates the marriage and then things seem to go reasonably well. But the lack of a mistress is actually very annoying to a lot of people at court because they want a mistress and a wife. So you can have two pathways towards the king. And also what we'll see a bit later on is that people might want to criticise the monarchy, but they don't want to attack the king because that could be treason.

14:54Maybe he's chosen by God. So they'll attack the wife and they'll attack the mistress. But with no mistress, it's all going to go on the wife. And France is, I mean, I think France in a perpetual state of crisis, but France has a problem in the 1760s and 1770s, which is not enough money, too much expenditure. they've taken an absolute beating from the Brits in the Seven Years' War. So they're keen for revenge. I mean, where does she... You've talked brilliantly about her in terms of the politics of court. What about the sort of wider, the challenges facing France? Is she involved in those conversations?

15:30Challenges facing France are, as you say, Dan, catastrophic. There's the huge debt after the Seven Years' War. Tax collecting is very inefficient and mainly falls on the poor who haven't got that much money anyway. The aristocrats aren't paying any tax. Aristocrats aren't paying tax in some areas, pay more than others. The court, Versailles, is insanely expensive. It is insanely expensive. But the real cost is these wars that France has been engaged in, and the fact that there's no tax collection. And it's a very sort of archaic, I would say, in terms of centralised bureaucracy and the civil service.

16:05It's really creaking. And so Marie Antoinette is in this court, and what she's been trained to do is be the fairy at the top of the Christmas tree and organise this entire court. And yet also, there are these waves of anger about people's lives just before the coronation. So when Marie Antoinette and Louis become king and queen, just before the coronation, we have what is known as the flower wars, battles over the rising price of bed and riots. And that is when it is said to have been the moment when the Queen said, let them eat cake. But it's not actually true. The let them eat cake is actually totally untrue.

16:49First of all, the quote was about brioche. So it was about let them eat brioche. But it was actually written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his confessions the philosopher the philosopher in 1765 so when marie antoinette was about nine he said i'm going to a bakery but i think my clothes are too nice and then i remembered a great princess who said of the poor let them eat cake so this is when marie antoinette was nine no one knew who she was in france i mean it's totally impossible it would have been her and it just then becomes attributed to her in the 1840s and becomes how interesting a myth that we can't ever shake It's a bit like Catherine the Great, her contemporary, who later writes with some really helpful advice in the midst of the revolution.

17:33Catherine the Great writes to say, well, kings should just do as they please and carry on in their own way. You're like, yeah, thanks, Catherine. Great advice. Yeah, very useful. The myth of her and the horse is created later and can't be dislodged. So Marriott did never say let them eat cake, but as to how much she comprehended, understood, took seriously the riots of the poor about bread, no one did. Versailles was this bubble, this elite bubble, and they thought that if you just let the poor come in and watch you eat, that's enough. So we got 1774, they become king and queen. They become king and queen.

18:11They're getting on pretty well at this point. The marriage is going much better. And when they're in their apartments, when the old king is dying, and then this just sums up Versailles to me. They're in their apartments praying. And then they hear this thunder, thunder of footsteps. And it's the entire court running from the king's deathbed to the new king and queen. And she's just 18. And that's the new centre of power. Poor old Louis XV. He just left there. Everyone's forgotten about him and Jean Dubarry's been sent away. So not even she's there. It is now the king and queen. And she says, we are too young.

18:48And yet she's now at the top of the tree, 500 people. It's all about hierarchy. So ridiculous that when you get dressed, your outfit has to be handed to you by the most senior lady. So if someone else comes into the room, they have to start the whole thing again. And there's this wonderful book in the Archive Nationale of Marie Antoinette's wardrobe, all these individual pieces of material that she used. It reminds me a bit of the beginning of Clueless when Cher chooses her outfit on a computer. You can get Marie Antoinette's all the outfits, but that's her job. And she sees that as her job to dress, to ornament, to preside over court, to support her husband.

19:27But what is wanted from the monarchy is changing. And it's changing because there's a war brewing in North America and France will launch itself into that war. And that proves also incredibly costly. And ultimately, the rewards do not accrue to the French. Despite Britain being defeated, the French end up having had another, well, really kind of, I suppose, a strategic setback. You spent loads of money. The American colonies are independent, but sure, the French haven't actually gained that much out of it. I mean, it's another disaster for the French. and they're already in debt and then they go and take part in this hugely costly war with Britain.

20:06So the national debt is ballooning by this point. It's simply going wild. And of course, the Queen is going to be blamed. And why? Is it because she's still presiding over this glittering cord and wearing lots of jewellery and nice dresses? I mean, or is she a real spender? I mean, let's get into that myth. Is she fiddling while Rome burns at this point? The Queen does spend too much. Her mother tells her off. If she does spend too much, Versailles spends too much, the king spends too much. They see that as their duty. Their duty is to be fabulous, foster French manufacturing. That's their job.

20:41But I think there are such wider problems. And one of the real problems as to why there's so much anger against Marie Antoinette is because she excludes the traditional hierarchy of the nobility from her small circle. So initially, even after the marriage, we believe is probably consummated, it takes some time for a child to appear. And first it is a little girl. Everyone's pleased, but it's a girl. That's no good in France. It's got to be a boy. Giving birth is so public at the time that there's such a huge crush in the room of people all around poor old Marianne Twent at giving birth that she faints and no one realises because they're so busy talking.

21:21The room is full of people. And they're just chatting. And even some servants are like perched on top of cupboards. Having a good look. Having a good look. It's like that TV show that used to be on One Born Every Minute, but the royal version. Well, you know, you think about how our births were publicly witnessed by politicians up until Elizabeth II, when she was Princess Elizabeth who was giving birth to Prince Charles and the king thought, well, maybe not. The home secretary sat outside the door or something. I mean, royals, as Elizabeth II's governess said, are only private in the womb. if they probably could put the royal birth on the TV screen and we all watch it in Hyde Park, people would all be watching it.

21:57So this is what Paul Marion Twinnett has. And then she gives birth to her son and her husband says she fulfilled the joy of France. Little Louis. She's very popular at that point. But the problem is that when she arrived at court, she didn't like the hierarchy. It's not how she was used to in the Austrian court. And she felt that many of them had been rather cruel to her of a childlessness. So she has this very small group of chums, including the Princess de Lambal, the Countess de Polignac and the traditional aristocracy don't like this and they feel excluded. So we see Marie Antoinette going after her, you know, the Petit Trianon, which you can still go to in Versailles.

22:36Which is like a little, she builds a little, carves out a corner of Versailles. It's already there and she just renovates it. It's very beautiful, but it's tiny by royal standards and that's where she can go to feel much more free away from the stultifying court. But it's a small group of people who are allowed there. And Antonia Fraser, who's written just an iconic book about Marie Antoinette, she writes so well about this small group, this small social group that Marie Antoinette becomes socially dependent on. And it's actually shown very well in the Sofia Coppola film. But it's all, it's, you know, these young, fun people.

23:13But it's a problem because the traditional aristocrats of Versailles, they don't like being excluded. And when they want to whip up hatred against Marie Antoinette, it's not going to work for them to say, oh, well, no one invited us to the party. Oh, dear. Oh, well, where am I? But if they say, oh, this place where Marie Antoinette parties, she's pretending to be a shepherdess. She's playing at being a shepherdess and getting involved in all these strange orgies. That's what's going to work. So some of this is disgruntled aristocrats who aren't being invited to the party. So if that's a model.

23:47As your mum says. Invite them all. As your mum says, the bullies, they're just jealous. They're just jealous. Invite the whole class to your party. Marie Antoinette did not invite the whole class to her birthday party. And we should say, so you've mentioned this little cottage and they're all there and they have great times and a bit of privacy. They do, you mentioned the shepherdess, and they have, what, animals and things? I mean, she's not doing cosplay to be a shepherdess. She's got a sheep there. It's nice, right? It's a real sheep. It's a real sheep. Yes, it's the Petit Hamo is Marie Antoinette's farm.

24:16And it's a working farm. It is a working farm. and this is very fashionable in the aristocracy to have small working farms. It actually puts food on the table in Versailles. So we might say she's a very early allotment keeper, but what is a very traditional occupation for women, pretty common in the aristocracy, is easily shaped by the caricatists into this playing at being a shepherdess. So divorced from reality. So divorced from reality. People are starving and here she is dressed a bit like Bo Peep in Toy Story wandering around looking for her sheep. And then what about sexual, the suggestions that that was also a place where she could have affairs?

24:52I mean, this has been levelled at every single woman who's ever been wielded power. So, I mean, how seriously are we going to take this? Marie Antoinette is accused of having affairs, that when she does have this son that he's not legitimate. She's accused of having various lovers, lesbian lovers, that Princess de Lambal is accused of being her lesbian lover, all kinds of lovers. Basically, anyone who comes anywhere near Marie Antoinette is her lover. And all of them. I mean, absolutely not. there's a possibility we scholars discuss it with Count Ferson who is a very handsome soldier and he's very much in Marie Antoinette's inner circle and the letters that have been found and decoded are from their later friendship and they seem very affectionate so all that tells us is they had a very affectionate friendship later in life did they have an affair we I think will never know but certainly all the caricatures it wasn't about the truth and in fact the lesbian love the sort of lesbian love accusations were much more potent, it seems, because those were the really shocking ones.

25:52That's the outrageous one. The Queen corrupts even the ladies in her circle. She corrupts everyone, the Autrichen. So in the 1780s, the war's come to an end, but France is kind of on the winning side, but hasn't really got much to show for it. No. And is utterly bankrupt. The French system depends on a super charismatic, capable king at the top. It's not like Britain, where they've got some political class ruling. So you need... Yes, that's true. You need a kind of Louis XIV style baller in charge. Louis XVI is not one of those people. So there's a lot of problems. You're absolutely right. You know, you need, he just wants to be looking at his clocks.

26:27You need to be charismatic, rule with an iron rod, come down hard on the aristocracy. You're absolutely right. That is what France needs as a monarch if a monarch is to survive. And our man Louis is not that. He's in a bubble. Right. But Marion Swinett keeps getting the blame for things. I mean, I always, I look at this period and think, the guilty man here is Louis. He's an incompetent fool. I mean, nice guy, tinkering with his clocks. But poor Marianne Stratus keeps taking hits for her husband, effectively, and poor government. She takes the hits. And this is the fascinating question about queens.

27:00Yes, they live in gilded palaces. Yes, they live in gilded cages. Yes, they eat wonderful food when their people starve. But sometimes they're just there to be put in a sort of lined up and like a bowling alley and have a ball thrown at them and knocking them down because that's what she's used for, attacked over and over again. And people, you know, generally leave Louis out of it. She is the one. She's sexually depraved. She's spending. She's Madame Deficit. She's the one that's causing this ballooning debt, which creates massive inflation, huge prices of bread. It's all her fault. And she's this easy target.

27:44And she does try and counter this with images of her as a royal mother. and it really fascinates me in the history of queenship how so many women try and use the images of them as a royal mother from Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette I'm sure Anne Boleyn did so as well if we hadn't have lost so many of her portraits but people don't want that they want the sexy, wild, lascivious, party girl Marie Antoinette and that's what was thrown at her over and over again and then she comes to the biggest scandal of all which is going to tear her reputation apart Oh, what's that? That is the affair of the diamond necklace.

28:19Sounds like Sherlock Holmes. It sounds like Sherlock Holmes. Now, Dan, I know you're one for beautiful jewellery and glamorous jewels. I know. Yeah. You've got to imagine now the most unpleasant diamond necklace. I know it sounds an oxymoron, doesn't it? But it's this diamond necklace, this sort of giant thing, sort of square thing, 650 stones, tassels and crosses and blobs. it's not very appealing. No, it sounds rubbish. It sounds totally rubbish. Now, this necklace was made by Louis XV for Madame du Barry. His mistress. His mistress, commissioned for her. It was going to be her insurance. So I suppose when you're using a diamond necklace as insurance, you don't want it to be just a delicate little solitaire diamond.

29:06You want all the whoppers so you can use it as a piece to fund you when you get sent away. Now, it didn't get finished before the king, Louis XV, died. Oh, no. And so it kind of, the jeweler, Burma, carries on doing it and then thinks, what shall I do with it? And he says to Marie Antoinette when she comes to the throne, would you like this? And she says, oh, no, because she doesn't want something made for a mistress. It doesn't suit her taste. She goes for these much more simple outfits, very simple Muslim dresses. This is the new fashion. Doesn't suit her taste. and she also thinks it's too expensive.

29:42She says we need ships more than we need a necklace. A woman after my own heart. I know, isn't she just so very heroic? She's run me over on me. Yes, exactly, exactly. She'd buy all the ships. And then when she has a son, up comes the jeweller. Oh, a push present, I believe we would call it. Would you like this present? And, you know, just 1.5 million livre. And she says no. So the jeweller's got this ridiculous necklace on his hand And he sends a paste version around the other courts of Europe. And all the other women say, oh, I'm not buying this. It's horrible. And then we have a man called Cardinal de Rohan, who had been the ambassador from Paris in the Austrian court.

30:24And Marie Antoinette thought he'd said mean things about her. So he doesn't like him and he feels excluded. And then he gets a message suggesting that he meets a mysterious lady in the gardens of Versailles at night. And he turns up there in the gardens of Versailles. And there is beautiful, gorgeous Marie Antoinette. And she says to him, you may imagine that the past is forgotten. And essentially asks him to buy the diamond necklace for her in secret. So no one knows. And then she'll pay him back. And so transported, because number one, he's back in favour. Number two, he thinks he's going to have an affair with Marie Antoinette.

31:12He thinks that meeting her in the twilight zones of the Versailles Gardens means very exciting stuff. He speaks to the jeweller and the jeweller, poor old jeweller, is over the moon that he's going to sell this white elephant necklace that everybody thinks is disgusting. Well, maybe a bit far more disgusting, but not the most beautiful necklace that anyone's ever seen. And so the necklace is handed over and de Rohan thinks it's all marvellous. But then there's a problem. Marie Antoinette still keeps ignoring him. She just cold shoulders him at first time. And that's weird. And then the jeweller writes to Marie Antoinette, her lady-in-waiting, her chief lady-in-waiting, Madame Campan, and says, I can have the money now.

32:00And Marie Antoinette and Madame Campan are like, what's he talking about? He's just trying to get us to buy something. We're just going to ignore this sales pitch. And the dealer says, no, no, you actually owe me the money for the necklace. You bought it. You need to pay for it. And the whole thing gets exposed. Now, what has happened is Cardinal de Rohan had this very glamorous mistress, Jeanne, who was an illegitimate descendant of the French royalty, Countess de Lamotte. And she could see how naive he was and therefore got a Parisian sex worker called Nicole Dolliver to dress up as Marie Antoinette and pretend to be her in the gardens of Versailles.

32:40And therefore the necklace was then delivered to Jean de Lamotte, who nicked it, took the whole lot and sold it off. And now everyone's in the midst of a drama. And Cardinal Rohan is called in front of the king and queen to account for this and he says but look Marie Antoinette you wrote me letters and he gets these letters out and they say to him that because that's not because she signs them Marie Antoinette de France and that's not how queens sign the letters it's like Elizabeth R you would just be Marie Antoinette and they say to him how did you know this how did you not know this he says whoops and we have this gigantic problem if Marie Antoinette had bought that necklace, stuffed it in her jewellery box, just said to herself, okay, I hate it, but it was commissioned by the monarchy.

33:28Maybe I have to fulfil their debts. I think it would have just been a minor scandal of spending. This blows up. Now, some courtiers say, I think, king, hush it up. This is just too scandalous. Hush it up. But the king and queen think that making this a public discussion is a way of saving Marie Antoinette's reputation Yeah, because she's said, no, I'm not buying it too expensive. I'm not buying it. She's showing fiscal prudence. Exactly. I'll take ships instead. And she has been defrauded. I mean, Jean de Lamotte is the original romance scammer. So all those people who contact you saying, well, I think Brad Pitt went around asking people for money and got hundreds of thousands of pounds and people.

34:15So Brad Pitt and George Clooney and Elon Musk, Apparently, I'm sure in a few years' time, I'll fall prey to them and send George Clooney lots and lots of gift cards. But all these romance scammers have their ancestor in perhaps the biggest romance scammer of all, who doesn't just get some gift cards and, I don't know, your retirement fund. She gets 1.5 million livres of necklace. She's done very well. She gets all of this. And there is a trial. Jean is found guilty and branded with a V for voleurs, for thief. So she's put on trial and found guilty. But still, it's a massive scandal against Marie Antoinette because, you know, Rohan is acquitted.

34:57And this sort of suggests that maybe him thinking that he could have met Marie Antoinette in the gardens of Versailles might be possible. and that's the poor old sex worker, Nicole Oliver, she just thought it was, I think she thought it was a sort of game that she was employed for. She's let off, poor woman. But, you know, initially there's not a huge conversation about the diamond necklace, but it is going to explode much later and one of the jokes that is played upon is that bijou is slang for female genitals. So there is this joke that Marie Antoinette is sexually lascivious and she's fiscally lascivious, so throwing her bijou around.

35:35And sometimes I wonder, Cardinal Rohan, were you that naive? Were you in on the plot? Did you think you were going to get some diamonds as well? Because he does destroy his correspondence, a lot of it, before the investigators get there. I mean, we will never know, but there is one big consequence of this. And when the story gets out in the midst of a lot of anger against Marie Antoinette because of rising prices, when Jean herself escapes prison, she comes to London, publishes her memoirs, says she was a lover of Marie Antoinette. And of course, the British think this is marvellous. Lap it up.

36:11Oh, yes. Give us more about our enemies. Yes, this is splendid. And God knows where all the money goes. And this becomes this huge drama. And Marie Antoinette can't escape it. She cannot escape it. So that is the background against which we are heading into the revolution. Because that's the 1780s. We're in mid-1780s. So we're very close. There's an Icelandic volcano that goes off. French harvest completely destroyed. All of France problems get a lot worse. And then late 1780s, the rubber hits the road. storming the Bastille government you know they are they've no more money it's all chaos storming the Bastille uh the king is told while he's in bed that the Bastille has been stormed big castle in Paris stormed by the people full of munitions and king asks oh is it a revolt and the duke who tells him this is no sire it's a revolution it is a revolution we have the real And what happened before this was that the king actually called a meeting of the estates general, which hadn't met since 1614.

37:15So a sort of parliament. A sort of parliament. We have the aristocracy, we have the clergy. And it was decided that the third estate would also meet as well, that the poor, that very large, you know, lower working class, increasingly middle class as well, that they all should be represented. But the king and Marie Antoinette, their son is dying during this. So they aren't really very present. And this isn't seen as understandable. And really from this, you see the big movement of the aristocracy who don't want to pay any land taxes, any property taxes. I mean, some aristocracy, I think, genuinely do believe in freedom.

37:49Some just don't want to pay any more tax. And the rise of the third estate, the rise of the third estate, who become this very powerful grouping. and when they want to meet, they can't meet, so they meet in a tennis court in Versailles. So the rise of these political voices of the people, of all the sections of the people, and increasingly the King and Marie Antoinette seem at odds to them. We're going to pause right there, but there's more coming up after this. This episode is brought to you by TikTok. I never thought about the history of coffee. You make it, you drink it, nothing more to it.

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41:42Kate Williams, what happens next? The big moment. Big moment. Early October, we see the Women's March on Versailles. The women head, the market women, increasingly, you know, a huge group of women. Parisian. Parisian market women who are angry at the price of bread, you know, thousands head towards Versailles. And here they are initially calmed a little by the king making promises. But in the evening, it really surges once more. And they come into Versailles. And this is the moment when the royal family, well, that is the end of them and Versailles. They are then taken to the Tuileries. And they are pretty much, and then, prisoners.

42:27So they're physically taken out of Versailles and taken to Paris, the Tuileries Palace in the heart of Paris. I just don't understand this. They're meant to have the biggest army in the world. Like, what's going on? They're meant to have the biggest, most effective army in Europe. Why is there a crowd control issue at Versailles at this point? What's going on? The king and queen have the Swiss guard, but they are overpowered. And also the king, he sees himself as the father of his subject. He doesn't want to shoot lots of women. He does not want to. I mean, pretty wise. But he wants to be the kindly father.

42:57And he really feels, I am booked by God. I am here. And if I am nice and speak gently, then I will be appreciated. And Marie Antoinette is so much more hated than the king. She doesn't want to sleep with him in the same room in case he is attacked and a stake is driven through her bed. She is the one that garners all the hate. He is really forgiven. And I think that's because, yes, he's chosen by God. That's the principle. But there is, I think, the majority of people at this point, what they want is a constitutional monarchy. What we would say is a constitutional monarchy. I would say probably 95, 96 % of the country want Louis to be a figurehead.

43:42Not unlike Britain. Spend less money. A sort of Swedish model. Spend less money, be a figurehead, and really accept that role. That's what they want. And Louis believes he can write it again. He believes he can come back. So they head to the Tuileries. So they're taken from Versailles. So Versailles, the women have marched into Versailles. The Queen's bed has been torn apart. Barely anything can be taken. And the royal family are then taken to the Tuileries and they are now under house arrest. A rather lovely house arrest. They have freedom to walk around. They can go to church services, have visitors, have quite a lot of visitors.

44:22But they are now under house arrest. And the king is ineptly attempting to restore his position, play politics. There's discussion. The constitutions are issued with the king as a head of state, but not all powerful. There's a period of upheaval. This is a period of endless negotiations, endless upheaval, battles within the powerful people in Paris as to what this new state, what this new country is going to look like. What is the rights of man? What is it? But generally, the royals are in a reasonable position. Yeah, it's still reasonably friendly. I mean, it's a political wrangle, but we're not pitchforks and firebrands at the moment.

45:09And then they make the fatal error. Ah, yes. They make the fatal error of trying to escape in summer 1791. Why do they try and escape Paris? They probably are aiming to get over the border. Just get the heck out of France. Get the heck out of France. Be protected. Plenty of other royals fled in 1789. Plenty of the royals and aristocrats fled in 1789 and got over the border and escaped. And what are they trying to do? Are they just trying, as they say, to go to a different part of France and really show themselves as the wonderful king and queen of France and there create a lot of loyalty? Well, maybe so, because certainly the further you get from Paris, the more generally royalist it is.

45:53So that is true. But either way, they are completely acting against the modern government. So what they're doing is almost traitorous, whether they're trying to get to a loyal part of France or whether they're actually trying to get to Austria. Either way, they're going up against the government. And this is a real problem. Because the king is pretending to be negotiating good faith. The government's saying, yeah, sure, I'll be one of your constitutional monarchs and we can work together. That's fine. And now he's just dashed out of Paris, perhaps to go and work with the enemies of France. With the enemy, with the Austrians, with the enemy, because yes, they're enemies now.

46:29So with the enemy, is this what he's doing? Now, the whole idea of escaping, I think, could have been possible. It could have worked. But the entire execution is a disaster. It's a disaster. And the first disaster, I'd say, is the fact that they go in this rather large, rather large travelling sort of barouche, in a rather large carriage because we have to be dignified. And they think as, well, you know, when the very famous go around incognito and everyone recognises them, They think, oh, you know, I'll just maybe drive a smaller role's voice and no one will know it's me. They really think that they make themselves look much humbler.

47:07But it's pretty obvious what it is. The other problem, I would say, is that there isn't with them a military man who knows how to command and think on his feet in what is going to be a very complicated operation. The queen is there and the royal governess is there and the king's sister is there. So it is the king, some women, some children, and the king, as we've talked about, he's a bit like Fatherington Thomas in Molesworth, isn't he? A bit, hello clouds, hello trees. He's not going to take command in a military operation. So it's all got a lot of issues to start with. And then they're late.

47:46They are late to the first post. Each post, they're going to get more horses and carry on going in the military escort. It's all been planned. The whole thing's been planned. And there's a chap called the Duc de Choisil, who is known for being a little bit panicky, a little bit panicky. He's on the first post, which is a great idea, isn't it? So he decides when they haven't arrived, bang on time. He says, oh, it's not happened. The whole thing's not happened. Oh, my goodness. Everyone stand down. Stand down, guys. Let's go. Let's go to bed. Let's go to bed. Stand down. And so when the first rider gets there, there's no there's no men.

48:20There's no horses. And this really begins the disaster. And then they try and find horses and they're looking for horses and they try and carry on. And there's an overturned furniture wagon and everything that could go wrong does go wrong. So within 24 hours, they are captured. They've been spotted, they're captured and they're put in the house of the procurator, Monsieur Source. Now, at this moment, they are surrounded by the villagers. But at this moment, perhaps they could have escaped and perhaps they could have escaped and got out. But Louis doesn't command. And in fact, there are commands that if the king was taken prisoner, you know, it should be fought to take him.

49:01The military men should fight and get him out. But, you know, he doesn't. And they stay in the house of the procurator, Monsieur Source. And, you know, then Marie Antoinette tries to delay their leaving just in case some people are coming to save them. And actually will do come to save them by the time they arrive. It is too late. and they are being escorted back to Paris. And on this journey, it is horrendous because people turn their backs on them. They watch them in silence. They turn their backs on them. And that attempt, that flight to Varennes, that attempt to escape, I think is the big turning point in this whole story.

49:44Because after this, the idea that, as you say, Dan, the idea that we could have this constitutional monarchy and the king was agreeing to it and it would all work out and we could put him on the throne and he could just do a bit of smiling and waving and the rest of the time could be much more equal. That's over. It's now war between the assembly, the convention and the king and queen. So they're back in Paris. They're back in Paris. Are they now in a closer... Close arrest. Marie Antoinette's hair turns white overnight. She's only in her 30s. It turns white in the entire moment of the horror of this flight.

50:21And now things are going to become very severe. So in 1792, they are moved to the prison, the temple in the Marais, the tower. They are moved there and their associates are really in danger now. So the Princess de Lambal, who was a great friend of Marie Antoinette, who's actually the sister-in-law of the Duc d 'Orléans, who's very instrumental in the whole aristocracy uprising of the French Revolution. She, she is, you know, she's beloved by Marie Antoinette. Oh, I feel so sorry for her. Because she actually did manage to get out of France. And then she comes back because she feels so sorry for Marie Antoinette.

51:00And she's basically executed pretty swiftly. Now, at this point, it isn't really as brutal as it gets to be later. some of the executioners and the guards let the women go because they just think they're just women but they can't let her go she's been in every caricature she's you know all these images she's marie antoinette's lesbian lover another profligate excessive woman she's hated by all the aristocrats because she got all the party invitations and when she's executed what they do the mob the crowd is they get her head and they put it on a pike the princess de lamballe is very pretty. So they take her to a hairdresser, have her hair all done in the ringlet so it just looks like it would do at court.

51:41And then they take this head and they wave it all along the street. And then they get to where Marie Antoinette is imprisoned in the temple in the Marais. And they wave it. They wave it outside her window. And what condition are they being kept in? They're still together as a family? They're still together as a family. They can play cards. It's not total imprisonment yet. but the end is nigh. I mean, they have to know that. And they know now that their friends are being executed. And, you know, Marie Antoinette is so hated. So no one wants to wave a head outside the temple tower for the king. They want to do it for the queen.

52:22Because even though the whole point of a queen, the whole point of a woman is she can never have the throne in France. It's the Salic law. You can never have the throne. She is just a consort, but still, she is hated so much more than the king and yes she had some political power yes she may have given information to the austrians yes she did have you know she did have influence over ministers what they did or they didn't do and who was in charge and who was not but overall she's a consort and she is the one who's hated there's it is misogyny it is anti-austrian propaganda but most of all, she, I think, is the easy target of the revolution.

53:02And the revolution is going to be a world of equality for men and liberty, egalite, fraternity for men. And so it's the queen who's got to be sacrificed. We'll take a quick break here, folks, but there is plenty more coming up after this.

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55:20Yes, she's the perfect foil, isn't she? Every movement like that needs great stories and you've got this foreign spendthrift sexually deviant queen that's ruining chasing yeah yeah she and and so of course she's she's the perfect fool i suppose the revolution descends in this kind of spiral of radicalism the king so that that's august 1792 within six months he'll be he'll be killed the king there's a trial his lawyers he's given the evidence. He's put on trial. And there was a vote. There's a vote about the convention takes a vote on whether or not he should be killed. And it's passed by six votes.

56:02So that's a slim, slim majority, but it is passed. And so it is the democratic decision that the king will be executed. The king is also given time to prepare before he is executed. He's given time to pray. and Marianne Tornet says to the king, we'll come and talk and be together the night before you die. And the king doesn't want that. The king manages to escape. He doesn't want it, I think, to be imposed upon the queen that that's what's going to happen. So the king goes to his execution and he's executed in front of everyone. And the king's been executed. Well, you might think, there we are.

56:39Job done. The king's executed. There's no more monarchy. There's a son, but he's a child and the king's brothers, but yeah, they've gone. They're abroad. They've gone. They've whizzed off. So surely job done. Matter is done. And the revolution can now continue. The son's being re-educated now. So the son is taken and given to a cobbler and he's being re-educated. And then the big question comes, what do we do with the queen? Because there's a long discussion. Should we send her to Austria in sort of a hostage exchange? All the rest of the aristocrats are in Austria, so there are plenty of people to hang out with there.

57:18What can we do with her? I mean, she has no political power. But there's this all-night meeting, this all-night meeting about this politician journalist. He said, I have promised the people the head of Marie Antoinette, and I'll cut it off myself if you don't give it to them. And he also says, if we don't give them Marie Antoinette's head, they'll take ours. So she's now going to be the sacrifice to appease the crowd, this vision that the politicians who are now in control have, that yes, they've killed the king, but that's not enough. They've got to kill the queen. And that's what the crowd really, really wants.

58:00So Marie Antoinette must be put on trial for treason, for collaborating with Austria, pushing the king ETC. But in the middle of the trial is brought up that she committed incest with her son, that she corrupted the heir to the throne. And at this, Marie Antoinette is devastated, she says, in an appeal to the other mothers. You know, I wouldn't do this. And actually, a lot of the women in the room are sympathetic. And I think almost that's a problem for the committee, because I think, goodness me, when the queen speaks, it's not good. She's quite convincing. Yeah, she's quite convincing. So we probably really do need to get rid of her.

58:36And there isn't a vote. There isn't an actual democratic vote on whether or not to behead her as the consequence of the trial. I mean, yes, you might say she has no political role, so she doesn't need a vote. But at the same point, this is the queen we are executing. And it has simply decided that she's going to be executed. life imprisonment, but execution is what she's going to get and they want to execute her very, very fast. And she's been transferred to the conciergerie under very cruel restrictions. Guards watch her all the time. She has this devoted maid, Rosalie Lamoyer, who looks after her, tries to shield her when she's getting dressed because the guards are trying to watch.

59:20She She tries to let her in a corner and stand so no one can see. And on the morning of her execution, Rosalie begs her to have some broth. She really wants her to have some broth. And I think Marie Antoinette just does it because she wants to please Rosalie. And Marie Antoinette's been, everything's been taken from her. And what I find so striking is that the king went to his execution in a carriage. Marie Antoinette goes in an open cart. She is the real enemy of France. even though she could never, ever be on the throne. In the history of queenship, we see an awful lot of women who were consorts then popping up and taking the throne for themselves, including Catherine the Great.

1:00:00Absolutely. She was an iconic figure of, oh, well, um, oh, bye-bye, husband. Oh, it's me. Heavens. Marianne Trinette couldn't do that. But yet she is the ultimate enemy. She's public enemy, number one. Her hands are bound together and she's jeered. She's laughed at. and she gets up onto the scaffold and she steps on the executioner's foot by mistake and she says, excuse me, monsieur, I did not mean to do it. And those are her last words. The queen is beheaded. She's executed. Her head falls to the ground and then she's thrown into a communal grave. So we don't know where she is. But when Madame Tussaud sets up her wildly successful wax model museum, that head of Marie Antoinette that she sculpted just after the Queen's execution, that would be pride of place.

1:00:54I went to the Vatican archives once and I saw the last thing, she had a little scrap of paper, she wrote to the Pope, one of the last things she did, didn't she? She asked him. Yeah, it's an amazing thing. You saw it. One of the treasures of the Vatican archives, extraordinary. They had to kill prison 280. Kate Williams, that was so interesting and fantastic. If people want to know more about it, they can read your book. My new book, Look, Regina is out, the History of Queens. A smash hit, History of Queens. What happens to Queens? They get satirised by everyone from caricaturist to medieval chronicler.

1:01:22So you think of the History of Queens, they're attacked for vanity and spendthrift and disgraceful nature, pulling the king from his true aims, from the medieval chroniclers from the Earth of Aquitaine, right up to the paparazzi photographs now and Marie Antoinette and that battle that she has to try and control her image, which fails in every way because what everyone wants is a spendthrift, disgraceful, shocking queen. And it's she who has to die for the revolution to be truly born. You sent me a copy of that book pre-publication. I could not put it down. Well done, Kate. Congratulations on getting it published.

1:01:58Kate, well, that was amazing. If you want to see more episodes like that, make sure you like and subscribe and follow and all the things. Hit the buttons, folks. See you next time.

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