Marie Antoinette (Radio Edit)

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1:10Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are hopping into our hoop skirts and styling our hair in the French fashion as we travel back to 18th century France to learn about Queen Marie Antoinette and to help us separate myth from reality, we have two very special courtiers. In History Corner, she's Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on French culture in the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, especially plays, prints and novels.

1:42She's the author of Narrative Responses to the Trauma of the French Revolution. It's Professor Catherine Asprey. Welcome, Kate. Thank you very much for inviting me. And in Comedy Corner, she's a stand-up comedian, actor and writer. You'll have seen her on all the TV, on Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week, Frankie Boyle's New World Order, or maybe you heard her podcast WTB or her other podcast Memory Lane and you will definitely know her from our episodes on Hernan Cortez and Melintzin and on Emma of Normandy. It's Jen Bresta. Welcome back, Jen. Thank you, Greg. I'm delighted to be back. We have previously done together English history, Spanish history, Mexican history.

2:16Obvious question. Do you parlez-vous Francaise? Un petit peu. Oh! I don't want to get into it because I don't want to embarrass Kate. Or yourself, Greg, actually. Thank you, yeah. you're both fluent. But I am very excited about this particular episode, not least because it is French history. What a joy. But because I actually know who this person is. And this is the first time I've been invited onto the show with a historical figure whose name I recognise. So I'm delighted. Marie Antoinette, you know the name. So do you know some of the story? Look, I know the story that was told when I was a child.

2:49And I think most of the myths around Marie Antoinette are, as we learned later as an adult, are complete lies. So I'm going to say almost everything I know about this historical figure is not true. Interesting. So I'm really intrigued to hear the truth. So, what do you know?

3:13This is the So What Do You Know, where I guess what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject, and I bet you all shouted, let them eat cake! She didn't say it, come on. You may have seen Sofia Coppola's fabulous 2006 film Marie Antoinette with the punk rock soundtrack starring Kirsten Dunst, or the most recent Marie Antoinette TV drama series on the BBC. Of course, you might also remember the shocking Grammy award-winning performance by heavy metal titans Gojira at the 2024 Paris Olympic opening ceremony, accompanied by numerous decapitated Marie Antoinette in blood red dresses.

3:43Marie Antoinette is a modern pop culture icon. But what was her life really like? How did an Austrian princess become France's doomed queen? And how many dresses did she really own? Let's find out. All right, Professor Kate, let's start at the beginning. When and where was Marie Antoinette born and was that her name? So the Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria was born on the 2nd of November 1755, the 15th child of 16 of the Empress Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg dynasty from 1740, and father Emperor Francis I. Her mother, Maria Theresa, was a political powerhouse and played a huge role in managing military and diplomatic affairs.

4:25In 1756, she made a momentous alliance with Austria's age-old enemy France, reversing 200 years of hostility. At court in Vienna, they spoke German, French and Italian, and Maria Antonia grew up sliding between being called Antonia and Antoine, all the girls in the family had Maria as a first name, so they tended to avoid that. They were all called Maria? They were all called Maria. It was a family tradition. The girls all had Maria as a first name. How do you solve a problem like Maria? You use the second name. Because she was also one of the youngest in the family, she was also referred to as Antoinette, which is the French diminutive, meaning little Antoine, and in the end, that's the name that stuck.

5:03It's cute. Yeah, they do that in Spain as well. They have a little diminutive name. They're all called Maria. I feel like that. 16 kids, come on. Well, the boys weren't called Maria, obviously. What were they called? Franz. Leopold, Josef. Good. Good solid. Good solid man named for going to war. And so she grew up in Vienna. She grew up in Vienna. Right. So there's fact numero uno that I did not know. I thought Marie Antoinette was French. So that's quite embarrassing. So we have a princess. We have an archduchess. You can presumably guess what her future is going to be, Jen, in terms of what mother is planning for her.

5:40Yes, I imagine she's planning a very prestigious marriage into a very prestigious court in France. Yeah, bang on. I mean, that's the plan, right? Absolutely, got it in one. Yeah, so we're minutes into the episode, already wedding bells. We're talking about a little girl here. Yes, we are. Oh, wait a second, hang on, rewind. I was talking about in the future. No, no. She had been betrothed as a child. She is betrothed as a child. Maria Theresa's plan is for her to marry the French king Louis XV's grandson, who's also called Louis. We've got all the girls in Austria called Maria and all the boys in France called Louis.

6:13Louis' father has died and he becomes heir to the throne in France, who's known as the Dauphin. And at that point, Maria Theresa decides that this is going to be a great way of reinforcing this new alliance between the age-old enemies, Austria and France. Louis is only a year older than Antoinette, but that's considered good because they're quite close in age. But he's described as a lanky, silent, nervous lad. OK. Aren't all boys lanky? It's quite a standard boy. That isn't a teenage boy. Is it quite usual then to get married before they're 16 or is it? Oh, it is? It is normal, yes. For average people, no, but for princes, for dynastic marriages...

6:54But for royalty. So she has got to that point now at the age of 13. She's going to now move away from her home in the Vienna court to go to Paris to live with her new husband, who is 14. She's sent off to France aged 14, so cue the problematic marriage klaxon, which we unfortunately have to honk a lot on this show. And so when she arrives in France, what are you imagining? Are you thinking Harry and Meghan? Is it Kate and Wills? What kind of... What's the vibe? Is it fun? Are people happy? Those are the only two options you have. Those are the only two options. That's all you've got. OK, I'm going to sidestep comparing the wedding to either.

7:37She arrives in May 1770 and meets King Louis XV at Compiègne. She's then introduced to young Louis, her future husband, and the extended family. And two days later, the 16th of May, the pair were married at Versailles and she became Dauphinès, Dauphine of France. That's not the end of it, because, Jen, on the wedding night, things get awkward. Do you know why? Why would it be awkward for the new married couple? Well, they don't know what they're doing. Not just that. They don't know what they're doing with an audience. Why does it... Oh, they have to make sure that she's... There's a going-to-bed ceremony.

8:13Oh, come on. It's hard. I mean, we've all... Remember our first time. Can you imagine with an audience anything worse? Kate, talk us through it. So, the Archbishop blesses the bed. That's definitely going to get you in the mood. That's really going to get you in the mood. Louis XV then hands the Dauphin his nightshirt. So the grandfather is there offering advice. They then have to lie down in front of the king and the entire court to prove that they have shared the same bed. The king's advice, was it useful, Kate? Did Louis rise to the occasion, so to speak? Louis did not rise to the occasion.

8:52The marriage was unconsummated for seven years. Aha, surprise. Is he gay? Or traumatised These could be traumatised There's a lot of discussion over why was the marriage not consummated for so long Seven years is a long time We don't know if it was personal hesitation, whether it was health related Maybe some things are just best lost to history We don't know why, seven years, we'll just sort of write that off Okay, so with the unconsummated marriage already proving an issue In 1774, so this was still four years into their not sleeping together problem Suddenly Louis was the King of France because Louis XV died, making Marie Antoinette the Queen of France.

9:33So she was 19, just about? Just about 19. OK, just turned 19. So the age at which we would normally maybe go to university or maybe get your first job, her first job, Queen. Yeah, that's a lot. What's the first thing she does, Kate, in terms of court politics? How does it go? Not perhaps as well as it might have done. OK. This is a funny thing. I mean, they're both still very young. Yeah. They're very inexperienced. She has nothing to do. Because the marriage isn't consummated, she's not going to get pregnant and therefore her sole reason for being at court can't exist. So she fills her time with gambling, with balls, with going incognito into Paris, to balls, to the theatre.

10:12She gathers around her a group of young people nearer her own age. She's not interested in being polite to the older members of court. She hates the really strict etiquette of court, so she does all she can to sort of sidestep that. She'd rather have a little bit of privacy, she doesn't want to spend all her time in the public eye and really she carries on living the life she'd lived whilst she was the wife of the heir to France rather than changing her behaviour once she's become Queen. So, Jen, how do you think she's doing on RateMyMonarch.com? Do you think the people of France are pleased about their new Queen?

10:46I'm guessing the people of France, and they are very vocal as a people, are not at all happy with their new Queen who appears to be just having a big old jolly and ignoring the needs and wants of the people, particularly the working people of Paris, and of France, rather. So I would imagine there's a lot of resentment and anger building. The problems that will later arise in the French Revolution, they're already there, right? They are already there, yes. OK. Joan, how would you turn things around if you were Marianne's winnette? What's your policy to get people to love you? Well, I would think I would do something for the people and make a really big gesture.

11:23that was like, you know, oh, guys, I've got this great big party and I'm going to put it on for you because I love you and I really want you to know that I care about you. So you'd say let them eat cake. I would say. Guys, I'm really sorry that you're in poverty, but have you had jelly and ice cream before? Kate, she does the most important thing, of course, she produces in air. She does produce in air. That's really what makes a difference. She does, finally, she has a daughter, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, born in 1778. Another Marie. Another Marie. She has Louis-Joseph in 1781. He will die aged seven just before the start.

12:00So he was the Dauphin. He was the Dauphin. He dies just before the start of the French Revolution in 1789. Louis-Charles, who is born in 1785, and Sophie-Hélène-Béatrice in 1786, who dies aged one. So she has four children, two of whom will die in her lifetime. It did help her popularity, but because of the gap between the marriage and the first child being born, there are a huge number of rumours about who the father of each of these children is. OK, Kate, here's my question, because as a historical figure that I certainly don't know a great deal about, what I do know about her is that it's very two-dimensional and she has been given a really hard rap.

12:44Are there any redeeming qualities to marry Antoinette, other than that she's a party girl that is very self-involved, suffered a lot of losses as a mother? Anything else going on for her that we can give her a little bit of cheerleading for? OK, we can certainly try. How about her being an important figure in the patronage of arts and culture? OK. So particularly decorative arts and music. She uses her influence to move public tastes to a more modern, cosmopolitan style of music. She sets the agenda in the theatre. She certainly sets the agenda when we come to fashion as well. And what about politics?

13:23So the way that the French court had developed over the 18th century was that the mistress of the king was the one who had the king's ear and could be the one to sort of get favours and advantages from. Because Louis isn't interested in taking a mistress, people expect Marie Antoinette to gain them favours, but she has a very fine line to tread because she can't be seen to be... Overstepping her. Overstepping her mark, exactly. Her role as consort, her role is to bear children. So she's in a slightly awkward position and accused of meddling because there isn't anyone else to take the flack. So she's effectively queen and mistress because she has the king's ear.

14:05so it's all concentrated down onto her. We need to talk about a marathonette and fashion. She's renowned for it. There's a new exhibition coming to the V &A Museum soon about her sort of amazing clothes. Jen, do you know how many new dresses she ordered per year from her favourite dressmaker? Oh, I'm imagining in their hundreds. Yeah, it was 300. 300 a year? 300 a year, brand new dresses. So that's almost a new dress for every single day. Yeah. Can you tell us more about fashion and Marie Antoinette's sort of role within it? One of the things that lots of people know about Marie Antoinette is her extravagant clothing.

14:42She was accused at the time of spending too much money on dresses, although in her defence she is supposed to be promoting the superiority of French culture. She represents the nation and is keeping dozens, if not hundreds of people employed as a result of being the face of France in that sense. But again, Marie Antoinette finds herself criticised, you know, devil you do, devil you don't. She's criticised for spending too much on over-the-top outfits, but then she's also criticised when she tries wearing simpler clothes. So there's a really famous dress that's called the chemise à la reine, which was made out of white muslin rather than French silk.

15:21And it's seen, by the standards of the time, as a really casual garment. The formal French court dresses, you've got the tight corsets, you've got the giant skirts. This is much, much looser. It's a sort of neoclassical, we're heading towards Jane Austen sort of style. It's almost a slip, isn't it? It's almost a slip. It looks like an underdress. Well, it must have looked completely bananas when you compare it to what everyone else was wearing. You must have thought, are you wearing your nightdress? It was, yeah, exactly. And meanwhile, another huge scandal breaks out, this one involving a very famous necklace.

15:51It's called the Diamond Necklace Affair. What happens? A con artist tries to persuade the former French ambassador to Vienna to buy a necklace to get him back into Marie Antoinette's favour. This is a necklace that Louis XV had ordered for his mistress, but never bought, and Marie Antoinette had turned it down. The former French ambassador, Rohan, thought that it was a good way of getting back in the Queen's good books, buys it, and then finds that he's been completely duped by the con artist who's taken the jewels and done a runner. Yeah, and he's hired an actress to perform as the Queen, right?

16:26So there's a sort of con in there. And poor Marion Toinette's sort of left going, hang on, what? I've never even heard of this guy. Yeah, the Queen, Rowan thought that he was meeting the Queen when he was actually meeting a lookalike sex worker. And everyone believed that that was entirely plausible, that he might meet the Queen in the gardens of Versailles at night. And therefore nobody thought that that was anything out of the ordinary. So far had her reputation slumped by then. Oh, dear. That is the irony, is that she never wanted them. she thought there was an inappropriate amount of money to be spent and she still got completely hung out to dry.

16:56Yeah, story of her life. So here's where I think maybe she's getting a hard rap because it doesn't sound to me that within the world that she lives in, in that sort of aristocratic sphere, that she is working particularly outside of that in terms of luxury, spending a huge amount of money on clothing. It all seems to be fitting in within the parameters of what is expected of a queen. Why does she get such a hard rap from the French people? I think the key to the answer to that question is that it's not initially the French people, it's those at court that she's alienating because she doesn't want to be with any of the old guard.

17:36She wants to be with young people and there's a very substantial group who are anti-Austrian. So she's still foreign, she's not politically astute enough and she's been made a patsy for this sort of diamond heist. And we start getting much more aggressive attacks on her in the media. These are forms of attack against Marie Antoinette that are designed to humiliate her, to scandalise her. She's cheating on the king, she can't be trusted, all of those things. All of the above. From the early 1770s onwards, she's accused of night-time sexual encounters in the palace gardens from before she's even queen.

18:15They become increasingly pornographic throughout the 1780s. She's frequently depicted in lesbian relationships with her friends. She's often shown with Louis' brother, younger brother, the Comte d 'Artois. They're trying to destroy her reputation and with it the reputation of the French monarchy. I mean, this all happens now to women, doesn't it? I mean, the misogyny's off the scale. And how effective was it? Because, I mean, this sort of stuff works. Yeah. It really works. The king tries to have copies seized and burnt, but it's very hard. You can't control all print outlets. Yes, you don't need many of them.

18:57You only need one to survive. But she was cheating on the king, we believe. What was the name of the real lover? So the love of her life was a Swedish officer called Axel von Fersen. That is quite a hot name, actually. It is a hot name, isn't it? Axel von Fersen. Immediately in my head, I'm just seeing a kind of Swede in a chemise shirt, just being like, hello. I think the jury is still out as to how far they went. Oh, interesting. I think now most people will say she probably did have a physical relationship with him. He's the kind of fancy man. But all these other kind of rumours and scandals are false and designed to destroy her.

19:36So you've got this kind of real rising anti-monarchist. The movement is growing bigger and bigger against the monarchy, but also personally against Marie Antoinette. So, Kate, obviously Marie Antoinette's political career is in the context of what will become the French Revolution, which is caused by many factors. But what do we need to know? The state was left virtually bankrupt after supporting the American War of Independence. Louis XVI called a meeting of the state general to ask for permission to raise emergency funds. but instead they declared themselves a national assembly and the people of Paris, worried that the king will suppress this new assembly, stormed the state prison the Bastille on 14 July 1789 and that marks the beginning of what we now call the French Revolution.

20:17But the obvious upshot is the French Revolution comes to the palace and what happens to Marie Antoinette and her family and her husband? In October 1789, a group of women marched to Versailles demanding bread and the king. At this point, the people of Paris still think that the king can save them. They're starving. The king has been misled by his courtiers over in Versailles. Bring him back to Paris and all will be well. They're relocated to the Tuileries Palace in Paris and over the next two years face increasing demands for constitutional reform. So the revolutionaries are trying to make a constitutional monarchy along the lines of the British system.

21:01But Louis is reluctant to sacrifice any of the notion of kingship that he feels he's inherited from Louis XIV. And in the end, on 20 June 1791, the royal family try to flee France. Yeah. We know how this ends. The king is executed first. And then there's 1792, isn't it? 1793, the king is executed. Sorry, yes, 793. He's executed first. He's accused of treason. He's found guilty of treason. He is executed. That is an incredibly serious thing. Marion to Annette, they don't, it's not the same day, it's not the same week, and so they clearly have a bit of a kind of pause. So are they debating what to do with her?

21:43There is debate about what to do with her. They consider putting her on trial. They consider sending her into exile. They wonder about exchanging her for political prisoners. I think part of the background to the discussion on what to do with her is the years of propaganda that have made much of her sexual appetites. So in the end, in October 1793, she's given a two-day show trial in effect. She's accused of planning a massacre of the National Guards, liaising with foreign enemies, Austria obviously. So writing to her brother to say help. Writing to her brother to say help. She hasn't behaved brilliantly.

22:21She's very spoiled and has literally done nothing for the people of France. However, she's not guilty of any of those things. All those people that were putting out all of this stuff about Marie Antoinette and, you know, this kind of, like, really indulging on how the aristocracy have no morals and have no sort of values, value system, kind of backfired on all of them because they all got their heads taken, didn't they? They were all killed. More ordinary people are killed during the period of the terror than members of the nobility. And her children, the two surviving children? The son became Louis XVII on his father's death.

23:00The king is dead, long lead the king. So child became king. He dies shortly afterwards in prison, having been looked after, in inverted commas, by the revolutionaries. Sure. Not a well child. He dies. Marie-Thérèse will survive. She will become the Duchess of Angoulême and will help Louis' younger brother become Louis XVIII. Napoleon famously said of her she was the only one in the family to wear trousers. So Marie Antoinette was executed 16th October 1793. Her last words, rather extraordinarily, do you want to tell us what they were, Kate? Allegedly. Yeah. Do we know how much truth there are in actually her words?

23:41Allegedly she said to the executioner, Pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose after she stepped on his foot. Oh, that's heartbreaking. Isn't it? It's really... That's so heartbreaking. Yeah, so she was executed. Do you want to guess how old she was at this point on her death? What are we, 17? I don't know. So she's, like, young. What is she, 20s? No, 37. Oh, she's just 37? Oh, my gosh. It's an extraordinary life. I think, you know, as you said at the beginning of the episode, Jen, a lot of the things we know about her are not true, but actually a lot of the things that the French people knew about her were not true.

24:13And it's, you know, she was the victim of scandal and rumour and gossip. Yeah, and a very deliberate and successful smear campaign, which really undid all of the nobility to a degree and the French court as a whole. It's weird, isn't it, how the more you learn about these people, the more you give them like a third dimension. I mean, I can see that she's an incredibly flawed human being, but also she was a product of what the court created. Yeah. Thank you. I really enjoyed that. I thought it was fascinating. The nuance window!