1793: Marie Antoinette

ExecutedToday.com ^ | October 16, 2008 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

This afternoon in Paris, 1793, the French Revolution devoured the Queen.

Among the most emblematic death penalty victims in history, Marie Antoinette — the “widow Capet,” as she was styled in egalite, after the guillotine shortened her husband — had the bad luck to personify the decadence of the ancien regime under the hegemony of the sans-culotte.

(And, of course, the good luck to be born heir to all the perks of absolutism she enjoyed for the first thirty-plus years of life. So, you know: a mixed bag.)

Those infamous excesses — and her infamous alleged bon mot, “let them eat cake” — are said to have been greatly exaggerated, nothing that everyone wasn’t doing, nothing that wasn’t understandable under the circumstances.

She had a gift, it seems, for accumulating to her personal reputation the outrage incurred by every gross and petty indulgence of the old order. And she had a popular press, the libelles, ready to embroider them salaciously.....

[allendale]

France has been a cursed nation ever since it had its “revolution”.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

“let them eat cake”

I have read several different meanings into this. One says she actually said “Let them eat rolls.”

Another says the “cake” was the burnt scrapings from the baker’s ovens.

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Tribe of Reuben

[Geoffrey]

I stumbled upon this area a while back...In northern, middle Pennsylvania a haven for Marie was attempted...

“Between 1793 and 1803, French refugees established a settlement in the area. That settlement is now known as the French Azilum Historic Site. It is said that Marie Antoinette planned to settle in Towanda. Towanda began as a lumber town, and several of the town’s buildings from the 1800s still stand and can be viewed. Many of these buildings are also listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings.

It is believed that members of the French aristocracy bought land that was across the river from the lookout and built a house there for Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin. The architecture and detail of the house believed to be built for them can be seen from this area.”

[Dr. Sivana]

I have read several different meanings into this. One says she actually said “Let them eat rolls.”

She never said it. This was a lie fabricate by Rousseau. She was a 13 year old child in Austria when he wrote the fictitious work where the quotation is attributed to "a great princess".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake

[The Chid]

She almost certainly never said it.

"At length I remembered the last resort of a great princess who, when told that the peasants had no bread, replied: "Then let them eat brioches." — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions" written in 1765, published in 1782

Marie Antoinette was nine years old in 1765.

[BroJoeK]

"had the bad luck to personify the decadence of the ancien regime under the hegemony of the sans-culotte."

"sans culotte"??
I had no idea that referred to an entire political movement & government -- always just assumed, assumed, it had some suggestion of lights, red lights.

Silly me, live & learn.

[rfreedom4u]

From reading her biography “To The Scaffold” I believe she got a bad rap.

[SeekAndFind]

“Let Them Eat Cake”

Marie Antoinette never said those words. She was MISREPRESENTED to make her look like a cold, callous royal who does not care for starving people.

She wasn’t anything like that at all.

[SeekAndFind]

In her book, “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America”, Ann Coulter actually tells the TRUTH about the martyred Queen Marie Antoinette who has suffered more unjustly in the popular culture than just about any other royal figure.

Now, I am not trying to paint a rosey picture here, Ann takes her swipe at the French monarchy too, no doubt about it, but she does speak of the Revolution as the true horror that it was and condemns past and present efforts to portray it as some sort of righteous crusade for liberty and freedom. She also relates how it resulted in the exact opposite and, as I said, she puts the lie to the many false rumors about Marie Antoinette.

[BroJoeK]

SeekAndFind: "In her book, “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America”, Ann Coulter actually tells the TRUTH about the martyred Queen Marie Antoinette who has suffered more unjustly in the popular culture than just about any other royal figure...
...she does speak of the Revolution as the true horror that it was and condemns past and present efforts to portray it as some sort of righteous crusade for liberty and freedom. "

And just to bring this story straight home to us today, a little appreciated fact:
Among the big fans of the French Revolution was the founder of what became the Democrat party -- Thomas Jefferson.
Of course, Jefferson considered himself, if anything, a small-r "republican", but his Federalist opponents noting his fondness for the allegedly democratic French Revolution, began calling Jefferson's Opposition Party the "Democratic Republicans".
Well, it turned out that Jeffersonians kind of liked that name "Democratic Republicans", so adopted it and before long they dropped "Republicans" to become just the "Democratics".
Indeed, they often referred to themselves as "The Democracy".

Today we still see the Democrat party self-reference as "The Democracy" only slightly adjusted as, "Our Democracy".
You find it in expressions like, "Donald Trump is a threat to Our Democracy", and very few grasp that what they historically mean is: "to our Democratic party" -- which of course would be somewhat true if Democrats weren't so talented at stealing elections.

So their expression "our Democracy" refers back to "the Democracy" of Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans and there "Democratic" refers back to the French Revolution, and poor Marie Antoinette lost head.

Now, whenever you next hear Democrats say "...a threat to Our Democracy", think of poor Marie's head rolling off the guillotine -- ours will be next!

[Beowulf9]

Read MARIE ANTOINETTE. MEMOIR OF MADAME CAMPAN. Madame Campan was the First Lady in Waiting to the Queen, close friend, a French educator, writer and Lady’s maid. In the service of Marie Antoinette before and during the French Revolution. She continued to attend on her until the 10 August 1792 storming of the Tuileries Palace, in which she was left behind in the palace when the queen and the royal family left prior to the storming. With her own house pillaged and burned that day, Henriette sought asylum in the countryside.

Henriette Campan died in 1822, leaving valuable Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette, published 1823.

[SuperLuminal]

I cannot form a well-informed opinion on Marie A. since she was somewhat before my time...

[higgmeister]

I also have read that the Cat breed, Maine Coon Cat was developed from Marie Antoinette's cats that were sent to the Americas ahead of her joining them here, which of course never happened.

Marie Antoinette’s Cats and an American Rescue Attempt

[Sans-Culotte]

Jefferson apparently admired everything about the French Revolution. He didn’t see the Reign of Terror as the murderous bloodbath it was. Disappointing that the author of the Declaration of independence supported a Pol Pot type of regime in France.