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Night Walk

Marie Antoinette wasn’t the materialistic empty-headed blonde bimbo that a lot of people think she was. She was, first and foremost, a young girl. She (along with Louis) was still a teenager when she was crowned queen, and anyway she knew she was too young to rule (“Oh God protect us, we are too young to reign” —when Louis XV died). On top of everything, she was lonely at French Court. In Austria, she had tons of siblings she could play with but in Versailles all she had were three aunts that were much older than her (and gave her pretty bad advice at one point). Plus in her first few years, she and Louis were still strangers so they didn’t talk much (that changed later on but that’s besides the point). SO, she was a) a 14 year old girl, b) a complete stranger to france and its culture, and c) alone and virtually friendless for some time. Not to mention, her so-called “friends” (her three aunts) gave her really sucky advice about ignoring Louis XV’s current mistress and upsetting both her father-in-law and a lot of the French Court—all because her aunts had some personal issues with Madame du Barry. And on top of everything, France was already in a tricky spot and she was pressured by her mother to have an heir and also make sure the French were not angered by Catherine the Great of Russia partitioning Poland and handing it out to Austria and Prussia. Imagine dealing with all that shit as a teenager. 

Pretty sure most people know that the “let them eat cake” myth is already debunked, but that leads me to my next point—she had, and has, the image of being an apathetic, money-guzzling queen when in reality she was extremely compassionate and generous. This is from Marie Antoinette and the Decline of the French Monarchy:

“The first occurred when her carriage passed the scene of an accident. She insisted her driver stop, then tended to the wounded man herself while her attendants went for help. She refused to leave until he was safely on his way to a doctor.”

and also…

“A peasant was accidentally fatally wounded during one of Louis Auguste’s hunts and Marie Antoinette had him taken to his home in her own carriage, and when he died, she made her his wife and children were compensated.”

That “let them eat cake” phrase being attributed to her and making her seem cruel and indifferent to the starving poor is complete crap but it’s just part of the revolutionary propaganda that blamed her for the country’s inability to govern their subjects properly and justly. Which brings me to my next point…

The peasant’s weren’t actually the direct cause of the revolution. Revolts by the starving peasants were actually considered harmless just right before the official breakout of the French Revolution. And even during the revolution, it wasn’t the peasants that led that bloody and poorly planned revolution. It was middle class white men from the third estate who basically wanted to pay less taxes so they could have more money for themselves. As if they gave a shit about the starving peasants. The bourgeoisie were made of lawyers, bankers, merchants… in other words, they had enough money. They were educated, so they were the ones who led the French Revolution. Not the peasants. That’s why the Revolution shouldn’t be romanticized as some noble attempt to give the peasants food again—the leaders of the revolution had their own ambitions in mind. Once the educated and persuasive bourgeoisie rallied the support of the peasants, that’s when the peasants actually posed a threat to the monarchy (see: the women’s march on Versailles). 

Revolutionaries were REALLY fond of pointing fingers, and Marie got the brunt of it. They called her Madame Deficit and blamed her for France’s financial crisis, but Marie’s role in the financial crisis wasn’t… actually …that big?? She did spend a lot of money, but the main cause of the crisis was the aid they sent to the American Revolution, taxes that the CLERGY set on the third estate, the ancien regime in general, the previous king’s lavish spending, along the king before that (Louis XIV) digging France into debt with war costs. So in perspective, Marie buying lots of dresses and perfumes isn’t that big of a deal, coupled with the fact that she didn’t have an idea what the hell was going on with the economy anyway!! Is it really fair to blame an woman who was kept in the dark about the country’s financial troubles over continuous, conscious mistakes made over the reigns of the past two French kings??

So then it bothers me when people act like it’s “cute” or worthy of a sitcom trope when dads are clueless…because the subsequent assumption is that it’s not a big deal because his wife or some other woman will let him off the hook and take over (as she “should” because women are made to be caregivers and assumed to be naturally nurturing)! There’s nothing amusing about a grown man refusing to do simple things for his own children and essentially forcing his wife (and/or other women in his life) to pick up his slack.