History UsefulNotes / MarieAntoinette

* NaïveNewcomer: She was ''not'' prepared for the court of Versailles, with its rigid etiquette, intrigues and power plays. Add to that the fact that her marriage was not a popular decision at court, and many nobles, including her own husband (courtesy of his tutor) were biased against Austria.

* TheFrenchRevolution

* PimpedOutDress: Was actually ''required'' to wear those famously enormous panniered hoopskirts, which were considered formal court dress (along with the idiotically high wigs and huge bright circles of rouge on each cheek). In private life, she greatly preferred the new trend of simplicity, escaping whenever possible into comparatively unfussy sashed frocks in lawn and linen, and scandalized many for wearing an extremely simple dress in one official portrait.

* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Not as a ruling queen, but still otherwise applies. For all her natural kindness, she firmly believed in the divine right of kings and that the people were her subjects. Even after the adoption of constitutional monarchy, she continually hoped and planned for a return to absolute rule, and as much the stronger-willed of the royal couple, tended to get her way. This culminated in the "Flight to Varennes" described above, which was the final straw for a French public that until then had despite everything still clung to the idea of their King as a benevolent father figure.

* HotConsort: Well, sort of. By the standards of the day she undoubtedly was a pretty and graceful woman, but it's hard to sort the actual details of her appearance from the fawning tributes of courtiers.

** The hidden Chuck Taylor Converse shoes were atually used as a message that Marie Antoinette was only a teenager by the time she married Louis XVI and became Queen of France, implying that this was the reason why she appeared so inept to the French masses.
* BeamMeUpScotty: "Let them eat cake" was actually said 100 years earlier by Maria Theresa (not Marie's mother, but a distant cousin of the same name), and was made famous by Jean-Jacques Rousseau 22 years before Antoinette was even born.
** And supposedly Rousseau based it on an even earlier saying from a (unnamed) Chinese Emperor when told that the people have no rice to eat, "Then they should eat meat."
* BreakTheHaughty: Though it's debatable if she ''really'' was that haughty. She did believe in the divine right of kings and the authority it gave her though, even regretting constitutional monarchy.
* BrokenBird: A popular portrayal of her by the end of her life.

* CourtlyLove: With Swedish military officer Count Axel von Fersen the Younger, a member of her intimate circle - there is very little doubt that she was the love of his life, and she likely returned his feelings, but no evidence that this ''affaire de coeur'' was ever consummated; the likelihood is slim because she could rarely, if ever, be away from the prying eyes of the court.

* [[DidTheyOrDidntThey Did They Or Didn’t They?]]: It's unclear if any of her rumored affairs actually happened.
** Though given her [[UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa pious Habsburg Mother]], the latter is more likely.
** It's unlikely that even her worst detractors of the time really believed she did it. As one of them said, the best way to topple the King is to paint the Queen as a whore; even those dedicated to the hereditary principle will abandon it if the Queen's children aren't the King's.
* DeadpanSnarker: There were times when she could be really funny. Her description of the Girondin factions who tried to force the King and Queen to declare war led to a brutal putdown in a letter to Count Axel Fersen:

* TheFashionista: She designed a lot of her clothes, including those awesome [[PimpedOutDress pimped-out dresses.]]

* GagBoobs: Funny thing that. According to documents from that era, it was one of her defining traits, her [[MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail "huge" tracts of land]], and was often exaggerated in pencil art and news articles. In reality, however, her bust was only slightly bigger than average. But back in that time period, smaller breasts were seen as more feminine and attractive.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Not as a ruling queen, but still otherwise applies.
** For all her natural kindness, she firmly believed in the divine right of kings and that the people were her subjects. Even after the adoption of Constitutional Monarchy, she continually hoped for a return to the old ways of feudalism, this culminated in the famous "Flight of Varennes" where she and Louis planned to escape in a royalist region and command an army to invade France, which was the final straw for the French public that until then had been pro-Louis and they regarded Marie Antoinette, not without justice, as the source for this betrayal.

* HairDecorations: The extremely fancy wigs the women at the French court wore--some upwards of three feet high--with elaborate feathers, ribbons etc atop. One Duchess' coiffure included a ''detailed scale-model scene of her son's recent birth.'' The hairdo was so huge that mice have been known to roost in it.
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: For a long time, this was her reputation with even Thomas Jefferson holding her as a scapegoat. What her more recent HistoricalHeroUpgrade fail to mention that this was rooted in a very real scandal she was definitely culpable of. In 1791, she convinced King Louis XVI to escape Paris in the famous incident called, "flight to Varennes" which was intended to take the Royal Family to royalists who would then fight against the French government and her own subjects. It was this action, and not the accusations of incest, which permanently tarnished her reputation.

* [[OffWithHisHead Off With Her Head]]: Endured the regular execution method that many French nobles and many victims of Law of Suspects knew back then: guillotine.
** So did her husband and her sister-in-law.

* PimpedOutDress: Was actually required to wear the most grand, and scandalized many for wearing an extremely simple dress in one portrait.
* PrettyInMink: In addition to an ermine cape or two, she wore a few dresses trimmed with fur
** The 1938 film had quite a few outfits with fur, and even the 2006 film had her wearing a jacket trimmed with ermine.

* ReplacementGoldfish: An older sister, Maria Carolina, was to have been the one to marry Louis, but another older sister destined for an Italian prince died of smallpox, bumping the Carolina up to the Italian and Marie up to Louis.

* SlummingIt: One of her hobbies at the Petit Trianon in the Versailles was to dress in peasant clothing and pretend to be a shepherdess. This during a time of widespread poverty, bread prices and starvation endured by the poor. It was one of the many PR disasters which made people so readily believe the "Let them have cake" meme.

* HairDecorations: The extremely fancy wigs the women at the French court wore--some upwards of three feet high--with elaborate feathers, ribbons etc atop. One Duchess' coiffure included a ''detailed scale-model scene of her son's recent birth.''

When the Revolution finally broke into full flower, Antoinette acted instinctively in opposition to it, determined at all costs to preserve the ''ancien regime'' both in principle and for her young son. She thus actively plotted escape when the family was eventually forced from Versailles to Paris and effectively imprisoned in the Tuileries palace. Her loyal favourites Count Axel von Fersen and the Baron de Breteuil organised a scheme in which the royal governess would be disguised as a Russian noblewoman simply travelling through the countryside with the royal family in tow as her children and servants. They were in actuality headed north to a Royalist region where 10,000 of the remaining loyal soldiers were waiting. Unfortunately everything fell apart about two-thirds of the way there, at Varennes, when a local official recognised the King from his likeness on a coin. The discovery that their King had actually planned to unleash civil war, with the Queen's unquestioned support as revealed in letters, sealed their fates as enemies of the Revolution.

* HairDecorations: The extremely fancy wigs the women at the French court wore.

* ParentalIncest: At her trial during the height of the Terror, she was accused by Hébert of personally teaching the Dauphin to masturbate, in order to weaken his character and control him. She refused at first to answer to the charge (saying that nature itself made such a charge too revolting to dignify with an answer), but when one of the jurymen insisted, she turned to the women in the court, appealing to them as mothers. This ''nearly'' secured her acquittal, much to the fury of Robespierre, who complained that Hebert unnecessarily allowed her to invite sympathy. Later, Hebert got guillotined because he was starting to be a pain in the ass to Robespierre.

* SlummingIt: One of her hobbies at the Petit Trianon in the Versailles was to dress in peasant clothing and pretend to be a shepherdess. This during a time of widespread poverty, bread prices and starvation endured by the poor. It was one of the many PR disasters which made believe the "Let them have cake" meme.

When the Revolution finally broke into full flower, Antoinette acted instinctively in opposition to it, determined at all costs to preserve the ''ancien regime'' both in principle and for her young son. She thus actively plotted escape when the family was eventually forced from Versailles to Paris and effectively imprisoned in the Tuileries palace. Her loyal favourites Count Axel von Fersen and the Baron de Breteuil organised the now-famous plot in which the royal governess would be disguised as a Russian noblewoman simply travelling through the countryside with the royal family in tow as her children and servants. They were in actuality headed north to a Royalist region where 10,000 of the remaining loyal soldiers were waiting. Unfortunately everything fell apart about two-thirds of the way there, at Varennes, when a local official recognised the King from his likeness on a coin. The discovery that their King had actually planned to unleash civil war, with the Queen's unquestioned support as revealed in letters, sealed their fates as enemies of the Revolution.

That said, what really put the people against the Royal Family permanently was the Queen and the King's own actions. Since the beginning of the Revolution, Marie Antoinette was afraid of her family's safety but she also wanted to preserve her power. She regarded the Revolution as a passing thing and wanted a restoration of the old regime. At the time, several European powers were sabre rattling for a war, including her own relations in Austria. Marie Antoinette did involve herself in several plots to get the family out of the Tuilleries Palace, but she refused most of them for being impractical or for separating her from her children. Finally Count Axel von Fresen, rumoured to be a lover (and regarded by some of her biographers to actually be so) arranged for what came to be called, "the Flight to Varennes". Another conspirator, Baron de Breteuil planned to take the King to a Royalist region where 10,000 soldiers were waiting for the arrival of the King. This plot failed spectacularly, and the King and the Queen were caught red-headed in the region of Varennes on their way to Montmedy. The discovery that the King actually planned to unleash an army of foreigners against the French people, with the Queen's unquestioned support as revealed in letters, invoked outright hatred among the French public who while earlier had merely disliked her, now actively wanted her head.

After the revolution, she and Louis were executed during [[ReignOfTerror the Terror]], and their second son died in prison (their oldest daughter lived, given that she couldn't legally inherit the throne or pass it on). This would have ended the French monarchy, but Louis's brothers escaped and were actually put back on the throne after Napoleon was defeated (twice, the first brother the first time Napoleon was defeated, and the second brother the second time).

Although the Queen didn't actually dismiss the concerns of her suffering subjects with the line "let them eat cake", against this backdrop of misery she ''did'' lead an unnecessarily frivolous life, and very visibly so. Although kindhearted and generous on a personal level, she lacked the broader vision to be anything other than a fairytale princess at a time when history was spectacularly unforgiving of such. "The Diamond Necklace Affair," in which a prominent courtier was tricked by a conman into buying the priceless trinket under the impression he was doing the Queen a discreet favour, finally did in her waning public popularity. Even though there was no proof of her involvement, [[TheTysonZone her reputation was so bad that nobody doubted it]]. This was also related to the fact that in the initial 1791 Constitution where the Revolution initially placed Louis XVI as a constitutional monarch (and which Marie Antoinette did exercise some influence over), the King had privileges that meant he could not be spoken against or criticized but the same protection did not extend to his family, [[LoopholeAbuse so revolutionary dis-enchantment naturally spoke against the King via Marie]].

Her childhood in the Habsburg (Austrian) empire was relatively free compared to her eventual life in Versailles; as the fifteenth of sixteen children she was certainly not brought up as might befit a future occupant of the greatest European throne of its time, as regards either education or life experience. In fact, she was sent to France only after a series of misfortunes took her older sisters out of the running.

** Though given her [[MariaTheresa pious Habsburg Mother]], the latter is more likely.

* ''Series/LetThemEatCake'': She is played by Creator/JenniferSaunders.

In the interim, many Austrian court customs had been discarded as too stuffy by her mother, the [[TheHighQueen Empress]] [[MariaTheresa Maria Theresa]]. Antoinette (as she was known) tried to impose this same openness on Versailles, and brought with her an overall distrust of the intensely rigid formal etiquette which characterised the French court.

* StarCrossedLovers: Marie and Fersen in the 1938 film and ''RoseOfVersailles''.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Save for the 2006 film and ''RoseOfVersailles''.

* ''RoseOfVersailles'', and its spoof ''RoseOfVersaillesAbridged''.
* The comedy ''StartTheRevolutionWithoutMe'', where she is portrayed as a lustful schemer, but it's PlayedForLaughs.
* She is the star of one of the ''[[TheRoyalDiaries Royal Diaries]]'' books.

* A last-ditch attempt to save her head in ''TheFarSide.''

* The NancyDrew PC game ''Treasure in the Royal Tower'' is centered around the Queen and the Diamond Necklace Affair.

* DickDastardlyStopsToCheat: If she and King Louis hadn't made their ill-planned Flight to Varennes, it's probable they would have lived as constitutional monarchs. The people at the time weren't ready to stomach executing their king and queen.

* In the Disney channel original movie ''Film/HEDoubleHockeySticks'', her head works as a secretary in hell.… [[SarcasmMode Nice]].

* GagBoobs: Funny thing that. According to documents from that era, it was one of her defining traits, her "massive" breasts, and was often exaggerated in pencil art and news articles. In reality, however, her bust was only slightly bigger than average. But back in that time period, smaller breasts were seen as more feminine and attractive.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: At the beginning of the Revolution, a mob gathered outside of Versailles. They called for the Queen, by then a national hate figure, to appear on the balcony above them. She did, taking her little ones with her in an effort to gain sympathy, only to have the mob scream "No children!" Convinced by this that she was about to be assassinated, she sent the children inside and remained, head high, facing the crowd. The mob was so impressed by her courage that some began to cry out, "God save the Queen!" It was the first time in a long time that she had been seen in a positive light by her subjects, and it would unfortunately be the last.

* BreakTheHaughty: Though it's debatable if she ''really'' was that haughty.

* ParentalIncest: At her trial during the height of the Terror, she was accused by Hébert of personally teaching the Dauphin to masturbate, in order to weaken his character and control him. She refused at first to answer to the charge (saying that nature itself made such a charge too revolting to dignify with an answer), but when one of the jurymen insisted, she turned to the women in the court, appealing to them as mothers. This ''nearly'' secured her acquittal, much to the fury of Robespierre.

* UpperClassTwit: A trait exaggerated by her enemies.

* Her biography by Stefan Zweig is one of the most famous.
* The biography, ''Marie Antoinette: The Journey'' by Antonia Fraser is another famous biography. Also the basis for the Creator/SofiaCoppola [[Film/MarieAntoinette film.]]

Although the Queen didn't actually dismiss the concerns of her suffering subjects with the line "let them eat cake", against this backdrop of misery she ''did'' lead an unnecessarily frivolous life, and very visibly so. Although kindhearted and generous on a personal level, she lacked the broader vision to be anything other than a fairytale princess at a time when history was spectacularly unforgiving of such. "The Diamond Necklace Affair," in which a prominent courtier was tricked by a conman into buying the priceless trinket under the impression he was doing the Queen a discreet favour, finally did in her waning public popularity. Even though there was no proof of her involvement, [[TheTysonZone her reputation was so bad that nobody doubted it]].

There were two at least major fictional films named for her (others are books and documentaries), one in 1938, with NormaShearer, and in 2006, with KirstenDunst.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade

** And of course there's her modern-day vindication, now that it's known in hindsight that she wasn't such a bitch after all and that TheFrenchRevolution was far from a heroic endeavor, with the revolutionaries who condemned her actually being guilty of [[MoralEventHorizon far greater misdeeds]] than those they claimed she'd committed.

** [[EvenEvilHasStandards Even Love for Diamonds Has Standards]]: she was once offered a ''gorgeous'' diamond necklace and was smitten with it, but had the sense of asking the price and refused when they told them, at you could equip a ''warship'' for its price.

->''It's such a sad sad thing that I'm with somebody else\\
I wanna go to Argentina or to anywhere else\\
It's such a sad sad thing but there's a crown on my head\\
I've got a feeling I'm unwanted and I'm losing my head''\\
--'''Lio''', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrztc4fGOs0 "Marie Antionette"]]