Pod Insights You're Dead to Me Marie Antoinette (Radio Edit) About this episode Greg Jenner is joined in the 18th century by historian Professor Katherine Astbury and comedian Jen Brister to learn about French queen Marie Antoinette.
Born an Austrian princess, Marie Antoinette went on to be the last queen of France before the Revolution and the abolition of the monarchy. She is famous now for saying "let them eat cake", for her love of fashion, and her supposedly extravagant spending at a time when ordinary people in France were going hungry. But how true are any of these stories, and where did these myths about her originate?
In this episode, we look at Marie Antoinette’s Austrian childhood and overbearing mother, her marriage to Louis XVI and time as queen of France, and the hatred directed at her by the revolutionaries. Along the way we take in her involvement in politics, her love of the theatre, and her possible Swedish sweetheart.
This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.
Hosted by: Greg Jenner
Research by: Charlotte Emily Edgeshaw
Written by: Charlotte Emily Edgeshaw, Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner
Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner
Audio Producer: Steve Hankey
Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett
Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse
Executive Editor: Philip Sellars
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:47 Greg Jenner? Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name's 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. She's the author of Narrative Responses to the Trauma of the French Revolution. It's Professor Katherine Asbury. 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
2:31 Greg Jenner? 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 Brista. Welcome back, Jen.
2:45 Speaker 03 Thank you, Greg. I'm delighted to be back.
2:47 Greg Jenner? We have previously done, together, English history, Spanish history, Mexican history. Obvious question, do you parlez-vous français?
2:54 Speaker 03 Un peu, peu. But let's like, don't, I don't want to get into it because I don't want to embarrass Kate. Or yourself, Greg, actually.
3:01 Greg Jenner? Thank you, yeah.
3:02 Speaker 03 I'm glad 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.
3:17 Greg Jenner? Marie Antoinette, you know the name, so do you know some of the story?
3:21 Speaker 03 Look, I know the story that was told when I was a child, and 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.
3:38 Greg Jenner? Interesting.
3:39 Speaker 03 So I'm really intrigued to hear the truth.
3:42 Greg Jenner? So, what do you know?
3:49 Greg Jenner? This 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, Go Gira, at the 2024 Paris Olympic opening ceremony, accompanied by numerous decapitated Marie Antoinette in blood-red dresses. Marie 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.
4:33 Greg Jenner? When and where was Marie Antoinette born, and was that her name?
4:38 Speaker 04 So, the Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria was born on the 2nd of November 1755, the fifteenth child of sixteen 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. In 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.
5:22 Greg Jenner? They were all called Maria?
5:22 Speaker 04 They were all called Maria. It was a family tradition, the girls all had Maria as a first name.
5:26 Greg Jenner? How do you solve a problem like Maria?
5:28 Speaker 04 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.
5:39 Speaker 03 It's cute. Yeah, they do that in Spain as well, they have a little diminutive name.
5:43 Greg Jenner? They're all called Maria? I feel like that's... sixteen kids, come on.
5:47 Speaker 04 Well, the boys weren't called Maria, obviously.
5:49 Speaker 03 What were they called? France?
5:51 Speaker 04 Leopold, Joseph.
5:54 Greg Jenner? Good.
5:55 Speaker 04 Good, good, solid.
5:56 Greg Jenner? Good, solid man names for going to war.
5:58 Speaker 03 And so she grew up in Vienna?
6:01 Speaker 04 She grew up in Vienna.
6:02 Speaker 03 Right, so there's fact numero uno that I did not know. I thought Maria Antonia was French. So that's quite embarrassing.
6:09 Greg Jenner? So, we have a princess, we have an Archduchess, you can presumably guess what her future's going to be, Jen, in terms of what mother is planning for her?
6:17 Speaker 03 Yes, I imagine she's planning a very prestigious marriage into a very prestigious court in France.
6:23 Greg Jenner? Yeah, bang on, I mean, that's the plan, right?
6:25 Speaker 03 Absolutely, got it in one.
6:26 Greg Jenner? Yeah, so we're minutes into the episode, already wedding bells, we're talking about a little girl here.
6:30 Speaker 04 Yes, we are.
6:30 Speaker 03 Oh, wait a second, hang on, rewind, I was talking about in the future. She had been betrothed as a child?
6:36 Speaker 04 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, all the girls in Austria called Maria and all the boys in France called Louis. Little Louis's 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.
7:13 Speaker 03 Okay. Aren't all teenage, aren't all boys lanky?
7:17 Greg Jenner? It's quite a standard boy, that isn't a teenage boy.
7:20 Speaker 03 Is it quite usual then to get married, you know, before they're 16, or is it? Oh, it is?
7:26 Speaker 04 It is normal, yes.
7:28 Greg Jenner? For average people, no, but for princes, for dynastic marriages.
7:31 Speaker 03 But 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.
7:46 Greg Jenner? 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 sort of, are you thinking Harry and Meghan? Is it Kate and Will's? You know, is it what kind of, what's the vibe? Is it fun? Are people happy? You know? Those are the only two options you have.
8:08 Speaker 03 Those are the only two options. Okay. I'm going to sidestep comparing the wedding to either.
8:13 Speaker 04 She 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 Dolphiness, Dolphin of France.
8:32 Greg Jenner? 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?
8:39 Speaker 03 Well, they don't know what they're doing.
8:40 Greg Jenner? Not just that. They don't know what they're doing with an audience.
8:44 Speaker 03 Why does it, oh, they have to make sure that they're, that she's...
8:48 Speaker 04 There's a going-to-bed ceremony.
8:49 Speaker 03 Oh, come on. It's hard.
8:53 Speaker 04 I mean, we've all remember our first time. Can you imagine with an audience, anything worse?
8:59 Greg Jenner? Kate, just talk us through it.
9:00 Speaker 04 So, the Archbishop blesses the bed.
9:04 Greg Jenner? That's definitely going to get you in the mood.
9:05 Speaker 04 That's really going to get you in the mood. Louis XV then hands the dole for his night shirt. 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.
9:21 Greg Jenner? The king's advice, was it useful, Kate? Did Louis rise to the occasion, so to speak?
9:26 Speaker 04 Louis did not rise to the occasion. The marriage was unconsummated for seven years. Aha, Caillou's surprise. Um, this he gave.
9:36 Greg Jenner? Or traumatised.
9:37 Speaker 04 He could be traumatised.
9:38 Greg Jenner? Right.
9:39 Speaker 04 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.
9:50 Greg Jenner? 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. So she was nineteen, just about?
10:12 Speaker 04 Just about nineteen.
10:13 Greg Jenner? Okay, just her nineteen. So the age at which we would normally maybe go to university, or maybe get your first job. Her first job, queen.
10:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's a lot.
10:22 Greg Jenner? What's the first thing she does, Kate, in terms of court politics? How does it go?
10:26 Speaker 04 Not perhaps as well as it might have done.
10:28 Greg Jenner? Okay.
10:29 Speaker 04 They're both, 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. She gathers around her 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
11:12 Speaker 04 heir to France, rather than changing her behaviour once she's become queen.
11:17 Greg Jenner? 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?
11:22 Speaker 04 I'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.
11:45 Greg Jenner? The problems that will later arise in the French Revolution, they're already there, right?
11:48 Speaker 04 They are already there, yes.
11:50 Greg Jenner? Yeah, okay. Jen, how would you turn things around if you were Marie Antoinette? What's your policy to get people to love you?
11:56 Speaker 04 Well, I would think I would do something for the people and make a really big gesture. That 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.
12:07 Greg Jenner? So you'd say, let them eat cake?
12:09 Speaker 04 I would say, yeah. Because I'm really sorry that you're in poverty, but I've just, have you had jelly and ice cream before?
12:17 Greg Jenner? Okay, she does the most important thing, of course, she produces an heir.
12:20 Speaker 04 She does produce an heir. That's really what makes a difference. She does, finally. She has a daughter, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, born in 1778.
12:29 Greg Jenner? Another Marie.
12:30 Speaker 04 Another Marie. She has Louis-Joseph in 1781, that he will die aged seven just before the start.
12:37 Greg Jenner? So he was the Dauphin.
12:38 Speaker 04 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-Elaine-Baptiste 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. Okay, 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.
13:20 Speaker 03 Are there any redeeming qualities to Marie Antoinette, other than that she's a party girl, that is very self-involved, suffered a lot of losses as a as a mother? Anything else going on for her that we can give her a little bit of cheerleading for?
13:35 Speaker 04 Okay, we can we can certainly try. How about her being an important figure in the patronage of arts and culture?
13:41 Speaker 03 Okay.
13:43 Speaker 04 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.
13:58 Greg Jenner? And what about politics?
13:59 Speaker 04 So the way that the French court had developed in 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
14:24 Speaker 03 Overstepping her.
14:25 Speaker 04 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 flak. So she's effectively queen and mistress because she has the king's ear.
14:42 Greg Jenner? Yeah.
14:43 Speaker 04 So it's all concentrated down onto her.
14:45 Greg Jenner? We need to talk about Marie Antoinette and fashion. She's renowned for it. There's a new exhibition coming to the V and 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?
14:58 Speaker 03 Oh, I'm imagining in their hundreds.
14:59 Greg Jenner? Yeah, it was three hundred.
15:01 Speaker 03 Three hundred a year?
15:02 Greg Jenner? Three hundred a year, brand new dresses.
15:04 Speaker 03 So that's that's almost a new dress for every single day.
15:08 Greg Jenner? Yeah. Can you tell us more about fashion and Marie Antoinette's sort of role within it?
15:14 Speaker 04 One of the things that lots of people know about Marie Antoinette is her extravagant clothing. She 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, W do, W 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. And it's seen by the standards of the time
15:59 Speaker 04 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.
16:13 Greg Jenner? It's almost a slip, isn't it?
16:14 Speaker 04 It's almost a slip. It looks like an underdress.
16:16 Speaker 03 Well, it must have looked completely bananas when you compare it to what everyone else was wearing. They must have thought, are you wearing your nightdress?
16:21 Speaker 04 It was, yeah, exactly.
16:22 Greg Jenner? Yeah. And meanwhile, another huge scandal breaks out, this one involving a very famous necklace. It's called the Diamond Necklace Affair. What happens?
16:30 Speaker 04 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, Roan, 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.
16:59 Greg Jenner? Yeah, and he's hired a sort of an actress to perform as the Queen, right? So there's a sort of con in there. It's a, you know, and poor Marie Antoinette's sort of left going, hang on, what? I don't, I've never even heard of this guy.
17:07 Speaker 04 Yeah, the Queen, Roan, thought that he was meeting the Queen when he was actually meeting a lookalike sex worker.
17:13 Greg Jenner? Right.
17:13 Speaker 04 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.
17:24 Greg Jenner? Oh dear.
17:25 Speaker 03 That is the irony is that she never wanted them. She thought they were an inappropriate amount of money to be spent and she's still got completely hung out to dry.
17:33 Greg Jenner? Yeah, story of her life.
17:34 Speaker 03 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, of a, of a Queen. Why does she get such a hard rap from the French people?
18:00 Speaker 04 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. She wants to be with young people and there's a very substantial group who are anti Austrian.
18:20 Greg Jenner? 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 scandalize her. She's cheating on the king, she can't be trusted, all of those things.
18:40 Speaker 04 All of the above.
18:41 Greg Jenner? Yeah.
18:42 Speaker 04 From the early 1770s onwards, she's accused of nighttime sexual encounters in the palace gardens. From before she's even queen, they become increasingly pornographic throughout the 1780s. She's frequently depicted in lesbian relationships with her friends. She's often shown with Louis's brother, younger brother, the Comte d'Artois.
19:04 Greg Jenner? Oh.
19:04 Speaker 04 They're trying to destroy her reputation and with it the reputation of the French monarchy.
19:11 Speaker 03 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.
19:20 Greg Jenner? Yeah.
19:21 Speaker 03 It really works.
19:22 Speaker 04 The king tries to have copies seized and burnt, but it's very hard. You can't control all print outlets and...
19:31 Speaker 03 Of course, you don't need many of them to circulate.
19:33 Speaker 04 You only need one to survive.
19:35 Greg Jenner? But she was cheating on the king, we believe. What was the name of the real lover?
19:40 Speaker 04 So the love of her life was a Swedish officer called Axel von Fersen.
19:44 Speaker 03 That is quite a hot name, actually.
19:46 Greg Jenner? It is a hot name, isn't it? I immediately in my head, I'm just seeing a kind of Swede in a chemise shirt, just saying like, hello.
19:54 Speaker 04 I think the jury is still out as to how far they went.
19:58 Greg Jenner? Oh, interesting, okay.
20:00 Speaker 04 I think now most people will say she probably did have a physical relationship with him.
20:05 Greg Jenner? He's the fancy man, but all these other rumours and scandals are, you know,
20:10 Speaker 04 Are false.
20:10 Greg Jenner? Are false and designed to destroy her. So you've got this real rising anti-monarchist 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?
20:29 Speaker 04 The state was left virtually bankrupt after supporting the American War of Independence. Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estates 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 the 14th of July 1789, and that marks the beginning of what we now call the French Revolution.
20:54 Greg Jenner? But the obvious upshot is the French Revolution comes to the palace, and what happens to Marie Antoinette and her family and her husband?
21:02 Speaker 04 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 revolution is trying to make a constitutional monarchy along the lines of the British system. But Louis is reluctant to sacrifice any of the notion of kingship that he feels he's inherited
21:45 Speaker 04 from Louis XIV. And in the end, on the 20th of June 1791, the royal family try to flee France.
21:52 Greg Jenner? Yeah. We know how this ends. The king is executed first. And then this, in 1792, isn't it?
21:59 Speaker 04 1793.
22:00 Greg Jenner? 1793, sorry, sorry, yes, 1793. He's executed first. He's accused of treason. He's found guilty of treason. He is executed. That is an incredibly serious thing. Marie Antoinette, they don't, it's not the same day, it's not the same week, and so they clearly have a bit of a pause. So... Are they debating what to do with her?
22:19 Speaker 04 There 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 seventeen ninety-three, 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.
22:53 Greg Jenner? So writing to her brother to say help.
22:54 Speaker 04 Writing to her brother to say help. She hasn't behaved brilliantly, she's very spoilt 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 are, 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, more ordinary people are killed during the period of the terror than members of the nobility.
23:28 Greg Jenner? And her children, the two surviving children?
23:30 Speaker 04 The son will become, became Louis the Seventeenth on his father's death.
23:36 Greg Jenner? Yeah.
23:36 Speaker 04 King is dead, long live the king. So child became king. He dies shortly afterwards in prison, having been looked after, looked after in inverted commas by the revolutionaries.
23:46 Greg Jenner? Sure.
23:47 Speaker 04 Not, not a well child. He dies. Marie-Thérèse will survive, she will become the Duchess of Angoulême and will help Louis's younger brother become Louis the Eighteenth. Napoleon famously said of her, she was the only one in the family to wear trousers.
24:04 Greg Jenner? So Marie Antoinette was executed sixteenth of October seventeen ninety-three. And her last words, rather extraordinarily, do you want to tell us what they were, Kate?
24:12 Speaker 04 Allegedly.
24:14 Greg Jenner? Yeah.
24:14 Speaker 04 I don't, do we know how much truth there are in actually her words? Allegedly she said to the executioner, pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose, after she stepped on his foot.
24:24 Speaker 03 Oh, that's heartbreaking.
24:26 Greg Jenner? Isn't it? It's really...
24:27 Speaker 03 That's so heartbreaking.
24:28 Greg Jenner? So, she was executed. Do you want to guess how old she was at this point, on her death?
24:32 Speaker 03 What are we, seventeen? I don't... so, she's like, young. What is she, twenty, twenty, in her twenties?
24:37 Greg Jenner? No, thirty-seven.
24:38 Speaker 03 Oh, she's just thirty-seven?
24:39 Greg Jenner? Yeah.
24:40 Speaker 03 Oh, my gosh.
24:40 Greg Jenner? Yeah, it's, I mean, 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. It's, you know, she was the victim of scandal and rumour and gossip.
24:54 Speaker 03 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.
25:02 Greg Jenner? Yeah.
25:03 Speaker 03 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, she, I can see that she's an incredibly flawed human being, but also, she was a product of what the court created.
25:13 Greg Jenner? Yeah.
25:14 Speaker 03 Thank you. I really enjoyed that. I thought she, I thought it was fascinating.
25:24 Greg Jenner? It's time now for the nuance window. My stopwatch is ready. Kate, take it away.
25:28 Speaker 04 It can be tricky to untangle myth and reality with Marie Antoinette, because what we know largely come from things others wrote about her, rather than from her own words. Opinions then and now are contradictory. Was she a monster or a martyr? Was she thoughtless and frivolous, or a scheming villain? Was she depraved, or a devoted mother? Did she bring down the French monarchy with her extravagance? Or is she a proto-feminist influencer and role model? Versailles was a palace of mirrors and multiple reflections. Marie Antoinette reflects back at us, our own biases, so to different people, she will mean quite different things. It is important, though, to distinguish more clearly between the teenage Marie Antoinette and the person she was twenty years later.
26:08 Speaker 04 Ill-prepared to become queen aged nineteen, she did end up taking on more political responsibilities when Louis was paralysed by depression and indecision. But the task of modernising the monarchy and solving the economic crisis without impinging on the privileges of the nobility was an impossible one. During the revolution, she tried to save the monarchy, writing a huge number of letters to revolutionaries, as well as her brother on the throne in Vienna, to try to effect change. She would have seen herself as acting in France's interests, when in fact it's the point in her life when she's most actively working against them, just another of the many contradictions that make up her life. Her most tangible legacy is the impact she had on interior design, one of her most enduring passions. Furniture and objets d'art from this period are usually labelled Louis XVI, but it would
26:53 Speaker 04 be much more accurate to call them Marie Antoinette's style, as her interest in fabrics and furniture very much marked the late 18th century. Her taste is now appreciated as elegant and refined, a marketable brand for everything from tea to tote bags. Our collective fascination with her riches-to-rags story, she has no sign at all of fading. And given that powerful women in society are still seen with suspicion, and that tensions between privacy and celebrity have taken on a new urgency in a social media age, Marie Antoinette's life will undoubtedly continue to be relevant and generate debate for years to come.
27:27 Greg Jenner? Two minutes on the dot, incredible timekeeping.
27:29 Speaker 04 Oh yeah.
27:30 Greg Jenner? Wow, look at that.
27:31 Speaker 04 That's impressive, because I've sped up, because I was about five seconds over when I practised it yesterday.
27:35 Greg Jenner? Oh, well done, Kate, thank you so much. I mean, that's fascinating, the idea of the mutability, the fact that she was all things to all people. Really interesting, Jen, isn't it?
27:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, and also the parallels about celebrity now, you know, you can see them clearly, especially with like, social media, because the printing press existed and think people were able to get things out so much easier, and it was much easier to augment your celebrity, but it was much easier to pull you down as well.
28:00 Greg Jenner? Exactly, exactly.
28:01 Speaker 03 People will believe what they want to believe.
28:02 Speaker 04 And still do.
28:03 Greg Jenner? Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Professor Kate, thank you Jen, and listener, if you want more from Jen, we've got episodes on Emma of Normandy, and of course, we did Hernan Cortez and Melintzin, that was very interesting, and for more controversial French queens, listen to our episode on Catherine de Medici, that one was a fun hoot. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with your friends, subscribe to Your Dead to Me on BBC Sounds in the UK to get episodes 28 days early, but I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We had the incredible Professor Katherine Asprey from the University of Warwick, thank you, Kate.
28:34 Speaker 03 A pleasure.
28:35 Greg Jenner? And at Comedy Corner, we had the brilliant Jen Brister, thanks again, Jen.
28:38 Speaker 03 Oh, what a treat, Greg, thank you.
28:39 Greg Jenner? And to you lovely listener, join me next time as we engage in some more historical myth busting, but for now, I'm off to go and get my hands on my own delicious Swede. Keep it classy, people, I'm talking about the root vegetable, bye!
28:51 Speaker 03 That's a good one.
28:52 Greg Jenner? Thank you.
28:56 Greg Jenner? You're Dead To Me is a BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4.
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