Snippets of French History: Marie Antoinette

In some ways Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793)  has gone down in history as a frivolous and spoilt woman who was executed because she allowed the people of France to die of starvation while she lived in great luxury.

This is not the case at all.  One has to remember that it was the year 1770 when she was married to Louis, hier to the throne of France.  Social issues like poverty and starvation were not the norm in any country, ie it was not recognized, generally speaking, as an issue that needed to be vigorously addressed, and it was many years later that those in authority started to look at (and abolish) things like child labour and slavery.  So to expect Marie-Antoinette who was not, to all intents and purposes, the brightest button in the box, to sweep in to France with anything other than a vague disregard for the plight of the people around her is completely unreasonable.  To boot, she was a woman, who anyway had no say.  That saying “let them eat cake” is fiction – Rousseau included this in one of his books over fifty years later.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/snippets-of-french-history-marie-antoinette/