treasure for your pleasure: marie antoinette

Facsimile of the passport issued on June 5, 1791 by M. de Mont-morin, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to M. Sémolin, Russian ambassador to Paris on behalf of Baroness Korff, Russian subject, born Steegleman.

Baroness de Korff was the name that Madame de Tourzel, the governess of Marie Therese Charlotte and Louis Charles, was travelling under during the flight to Varennes. It was a copy of this passport that the Royal Family used to aid them in their escape attempt. The children were to pretend to be “Baroness de Korff’s” children, with the adult members of the Royal Family being her various servants.

Costume Parisien Fashion Plate, 1820

You know.... Montmedy....the French city in France.

That is very French.

That Montmedy.

June 20th, 1791

Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, their two children and Madame Elisabeth secretly fled from the Tuileries in Paris with the intention of going to the stronghold of Montmedy. Due to various factors they did not reach their destination and were eventually captured in the small town of Varennes.

June 20th, 1792

A crowd of hundreds of men and women forcibly entered the Tuileries Palace and filled the apartments of the royal family. The king, and queen with her two children in a separate apartment, were threatened and insulted by the crowds for hours before the mob was forced to disperse.

June 20th, 1810

I absolutely want you, my dear Elisabeth, to visit [my little Trianon]. If you would like to come here on June 24th … we are mourning the death of my poor little angel. Farewell dear heart, you know how much I love you and I need your whole heart to comfort mine.

The youngest member of the group, the baby Sophie, died on 19 June 1787, a few weeks shy of her first birthday. Her figure had to be painted out; the Dauphin’s finger pointing in the direction of the empty cradle was a sad memorial to his sister’s short life. The Queen – “greatly afflicted” – told Princesse Louise that the baby had never really grown or developed. The was confirmed by the autopsy, which was signed by the deputy Governess Madame de Mackau in the absence of the Duchesse de Polignac in England. It made pathetic reading, down to the details of the three little teeth that the baby had been about to cut and which had been responsible for the five or six days of convulsions that ended her life.

I know that I have never before experienced such enthusiasm. I was totally amazed to find myself in tears and to see everyone else in the same state…. the king seemed truly moved by this beautiful moment… Our king attired with all the brilliance of royalty, on the true throne, was a sight that was so impressive it is difficult to describe.

In the understandable grief that overwhelms me, which I share with all of the realm, I nevertheless have duties I must fulfill. I am the king and this one word covers a great many obligations, but I am only twenty years old. I do not think that I have acquired all the knowledge necessary for my position.

I cannot tell you how heartened and pleased I am about everything I hear about you; the whole world is ecstatic. They are right, too: a King of twenty and a Queen of nineteen, all their actions are full of humanity, generosity, prudence and wisdom. … in a word my heart is overjoyed, and I pray God to preserve you for the good of your people, for the world, for your family, and for your old Mama…

The hands of Divinity Louis, sends you the crown The scepter, the sword, the law gives to you But it is your virtues and your kindness Which assures you the throne in our hearts

–verse written in honor of the coronation of Louis XVI, 1775

On June 8th, 1795, Louis Charles de France, the second son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, died while imprisoned in the Paris Temple. Louis Charles had been kept separated from his family for two years and suffered from ill health which was exacerbated by periods of severe neglect and abuse.

In the context of the original work, it’s not used in a serious or moralistic context. Its usage is casual and the context is… well, very Rousseau.

It’s part of a section where Rousseau is talking airily about his ‘adventures,’ in particular a period of time in which he’s stealing bottle upon bottle of wine from his (in his own description) generous employers (he was hired as a tutor) and he just, y’know, has to have bread with wine, he can’t fathom drinking all this stolen wine without bread. As one does.

But he’s a gentleman and he can’t fathom the idea of someone like himself being so lowly as to go into a simple bread shop personally to buy a loaf of bread. Unfortunately, he can’t send the employer’s servants, either, or even his own lackeys, because they’ll find out he’s stealing wine! What is he to do!

So he recalls the ‘advice of a great princess’ told about the people having no bread (”Then let them eat brioche”) and lightning strikes! It’s not too beneath him to go personally into a high-end shop to get brioche, and he can have that with his stolen wine. But even then he writes about how he would walk by many different storefronts and only go inside if there was one person working and only if that person had a “good countenance.”

Because when you’re buying expensive brioche to go with your stolen wine so that you don’t have to be seen entering a bread shop, it’s good form to be choosy about who you’re buying said brioche from.

Marie Antoinette running, weeping, into the comtesse de Noailles' arms? From an apocryphal memoir written decades later.

"Do so much good to the French that they can say I sent them to an angel"? From the English translation of Joseph Weber's memoirs, an anecdote with no source. I still haven't found it in the original French edition, granted, I am still searching on this one. At best, from something that the "Weber" memoir (at least partially if not wholly written by someone who wasn't Joseph Weber) admits is an anecdote.

Mops being a dog taken from Marie Antoinette at the border? Antonia Fraser's bizarre made-up story.

Etc etc

This also why I found Charles-Éloi Vial's biography disappointing. After promising to "go back to the archives," and lots of articles/press indicating he was going to discover the 'real Marie Antoinette' by going back to the actual sources....