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An Ideal Queen
| Posted at 02:38 PM on January 22, 2008 |
In earlier posts, I mentioned that I never particularily liked Marie-Antoinette Queen of France and Navarre. It is true that she does not fascinate me much, but there are some things about her which I do like for I believe that there are lessons that can be learned from her life which, in a certain way, something a queen can not do without.
An Ideal Queen - An essay on Marie-Antoinette
What I like about Marie-Antoinette - although I still do agree with Evelien-chan about her being a naive jewel - is her feminity, her lust for life. Although the 2006 film about her life - with Kirsten Dunst playing the title role - was unbelievably inaccurate, the taglines certainly describe a feeling that each girl, each woman has once in a while:
The second lesson can be found in the second tagline. In the end, achieving which you desire, might create a revolution. Be wise and see it coming. Now, although I am sure no one will suffer the faith of Marie-Antoinette and Louis, there still might be consequences.
Anyway, these taglines certainly show the love for life of Marie-Antoinette. However, a little side note must be made. Queens such as Antoine - as her family called her - behave more like the stereotypical idea of a princess than they behave as a queen. Antoine was decadent, luxurious, extravagant and surrounded herself with all pretty things. Now, no matter how attractive this might be, there are always more important things in the world than having the newest Prada bag. One cannot try to loose herself in her fantasy world - Something Antoine certainly tried. She even let a little farmhouse be build on the grounds of Versailles - called Petit Hameau - where she could play the peasant girl, following the ideas of the romantic philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
On the other hand, Antoine was a true queen in the way that she - of the entire royal family of France - seemed to understand the problems of her people. For example, she was the only member of the royal family whom refused to ride through cropfields with her horse, because otherwise she would destroy costly food. She also tried to teach her eldest daughter, Marie-Thèrese that, even though she was born in wealth and privilege, not all people were. On Christmas morning, she had various beautiful toys brought to the nursery and told her daughter: "I would have loved to give you all of these as gifts, but people are starving in the city so I gave them all my money. There is nothing left for gifts, and thus there will be none".
Her reputation is awful, of course, but the cruel words "Let them eat cake"
were never hers. They were wrongly contributed to her by her enemies. In reality however, these words came from Rousseau whom commented that a 'certain princess spoke them', and this refered to the queen of Louis XIV, Maria-Theresa of Spain. The same sentence was also linked to Madame Elizabeth, the aunt of Antoine's husband, Louis XVI, and to Madame Du Barry, the mistress of her father-in-law. It is certain that these words could have not been hers, as they were noted down by Rousseau in 1766, when Marie-Antoinette was only ten years old and still four years away from marrying Louis Auguste. It occurs in Rousseau's writing that this was something that was said at an occasion before she was even born!
No matter how silly and naive she might have been in her ways, I think she ough to be viewed as a strong woman, that her reputation is much worse than she deserves, as she was a learned women whom certainly sympathized with her people. Unfortunately, she was never understood well. However, Antoine never blamed the people for it. Only moments before she was beheaded, she accidentally stepped on the foot of her beheader and spoke her famous words 'Monsieur, je vous demande pardon. Je ne l'ai pas fait exprès..'.
She also showed a lot of courage when she was on her way to her certain dead. When the priest whom acompagnied her to the scaffold, tried to preach her courage, she replied with the sentence "Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end?"
Had Marie-Antoinette had the ambition of Anne Boleyn, or the ambition of Madame de Pompadour, who had been one of the mistresses of Louis XIV, who knows what would have happened? In theory, one would have had the perfect queen...
øøøøø
From every historical queen, or every important royal mistress, a lesson can be learned which even holds up nowadays. One just has to search for it. Even if it are just the mistakes these women may have made, it teaches you not to make the same. One must always learn from mistakes in the past. Not just her own, but those which were made by others.
The past never really dies.
An Ideal Queen - An essay on Marie-Antoinette
What I like about Marie-Antoinette - although I still do agree with Evelien-chan about her being a naive jewel - is her feminity, her lust for life. Although the 2006 film about her life - with Kirsten Dunst playing the title role - was unbelievably inaccurate, the taglines certainly describe a feeling that each girl, each woman has once in a while:
The Party That Started A Revolution Rumor. Scandal. Fame. Revolution. At 14 she became a bride. At 19 she became a queen. By 20 she was a legend. Let Them Eat Cake
The second lesson can be found in the second tagline. In the end, achieving which you desire, might create a revolution. Be wise and see it coming. Now, although I am sure no one will suffer the faith of Marie-Antoinette and Louis, there still might be consequences.
Anyway, these taglines certainly show the love for life of Marie-Antoinette. However, a little side note must be made. Queens such as Antoine - as her family called her - behave more like the stereotypical idea of a princess than they behave as a queen. Antoine was decadent, luxurious, extravagant and surrounded herself with all pretty things. Now, no matter how attractive this might be, there are always more important things in the world than having the newest Prada bag. One cannot try to loose herself in her fantasy world - Something Antoine certainly tried. She even let a little farmhouse be build on the grounds of Versailles - called Petit Hameau - where she could play the peasant girl, following the ideas of the romantic philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
On the other hand, Antoine was a true queen in the way that she - of the entire royal family of France - seemed to understand the problems of her people. For example, she was the only member of the royal family whom refused to ride through cropfields with her horse, because otherwise she would destroy costly food. She also tried to teach her eldest daughter, Marie-Thèrese that, even though she was born in wealth and privilege, not all people were. On Christmas morning, she had various beautiful toys brought to the nursery and told her daughter: "I would have loved to give you all of these as gifts, but people are starving in the city so I gave them all my money. There is nothing left for gifts, and thus there will be none".
Her reputation is awful, of course, but the cruel words "Let them eat cake"
were never hers. They were wrongly contributed to her by her enemies. In reality however, these words came from Rousseau whom commented that a 'certain princess spoke them', and this refered to the queen of Louis XIV, Maria-Theresa of Spain. The same sentence was also linked to Madame Elizabeth, the aunt of Antoine's husband, Louis XVI, and to Madame Du Barry, the mistress of her father-in-law. It is certain that these words could have not been hers, as they were noted down by Rousseau in 1766, when Marie-Antoinette was only ten years old and still four years away from marrying Louis Auguste. It occurs in Rousseau's writing that this was something that was said at an occasion before she was even born!No matter how silly and naive she might have been in her ways, I think she ough to be viewed as a strong woman, that her reputation is much worse than she deserves, as she was a learned women whom certainly sympathized with her people. Unfortunately, she was never understood well. However, Antoine never blamed the people for it. Only moments before she was beheaded, she accidentally stepped on the foot of her beheader and spoke her famous words 'Monsieur, je vous demande pardon. Je ne l'ai pas fait exprès..'.
She also showed a lot of courage when she was on her way to her certain dead. When the priest whom acompagnied her to the scaffold, tried to preach her courage, she replied with the sentence "Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end?"
Had Marie-Antoinette had the ambition of Anne Boleyn, or the ambition of Madame de Pompadour, who had been one of the mistresses of Louis XIV, who knows what would have happened? In theory, one would have had the perfect queen...
øøøøø
From every historical queen, or every important royal mistress, a lesson can be learned which even holds up nowadays. One just has to search for it. Even if it are just the mistakes these women may have made, it teaches you not to make the same. One must always learn from mistakes in the past. Not just her own, but those which were made by others.
The past never really dies.
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