Marie-Antoinette Taylor McCall

The Beginning Born in Vienna, Austria in th Child of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Hasburg Empress Maria Teresa In 1766, Maria Teresa promised Antoinette's hand in marraige to the future king of France (hopes to seal an alliance) The two were married by proxy, or stand in, in Vienna before 1770, when the two had a lavish 'second' wedding.

As a Queen Marriage was difficult Did not have many official duties, bored with the ones she was given Spent most of her time indulging in her expensive taste Had a farm built on the palace lands so that she and her ladies in waiting could play "dress-up" This behavior was not well viewed by the public, rumors spread quickly (Easy target to blame for France's problems)

The Diamond Affair "The affair fused three disparate situation, united by widely held beliefs in the loose morals of Marie Antoinette. For years an impoverished scion of past Valois nobility, Madame Lamotte schemed to gain a position at court. At the same time, socially prominent Prince de Rohan, the Cardinal of France was unhappy over his years of exclusion from Marie Antoinette’s inner circle, and the jeweller Boehmer was unable to convince Marie Antoinette to buy a fabulously expensive diamond necklace originally made for Louis XV’s lover Madame du Barry. Lamotte was a full figured attractive woman who caught the attention of both men, and was able to convince them she was a lesbian lover of Marie Antoinette. Lamotte convinced Rohan that the Queen indeed wanted the necklace and Rohan obtained it from Boehmer and gave it to Lamotte after meeting a prostitute dressed as Marie Antoinette at a late night rendezvous near the Temple of Love, where the Queen was said to hold lovers’ trysts with others. When Boehmer approached the Queen for payment (just as she was preparing for to play a role in a banned Beaumarchais play Le Figaro), the charade unravelled. When they learned the basic facts of the affair, both king and queen were enraged that Rohan would think that the queen would use a go- between to obtain a necklace. Royal pique proved disastrous. The cardinal, highest churchman in France, was arrested on the Day of Assumption in the middle of the entire court. Next the Queen demanded public vindication, so the king obtained a trial before the Parlement of Paris. The trial proved a sensation for months, with the dirty laundry of the monarchy paraded before all France. The cast included the highest nobles, charlatans, a prostitute who looked like the Queen, and above all the fabulous diamond necklace and the Queen herself despite never being called as witness. In the end, the nobility displayed their defiance before the entire nation in the Diamond Necklace Affair with their acquittal of Prince de Rohan on the charge of insulting the queen. The ruling of the Parlement of Nobles effectively said that at the least, given her reputation, the queen was worthy of such insult. Rohan could reasonably believe Marie Antoinette would use him as a go-between and in the end exchange her sexual favours for a diamond necklace. When the not guilty verdict was announced in the crowded Paris opera house an enormous roar went up and all eyes turned to the royal box. A shocked Marie Antoinette hastily departed for her coach, amid the crowd’s hoots. The court did convict the less well connected Lamotte, and she was branded on her breasts and imprisoned. But her husband had escaped to England and she escaped prison. She exacted her revenge by concocting and circulating a tale that she was indeed the queen’s lesbian lover, that the queen was insatiable in her desires and that the queen got the necklace and the affair was all for her amusement. As fabulous as her story was, it circulated in the thousands and was widely believed. So much so that had she not died in 1793, Lamotte might well have testified against Marie at her trial." Marie-Antoinette-- A Biography

French Revolution There was tremendous debt for France due to the American Revolution, and normally, the first and second estate did not have to pay taxes on their wealth, however the common people felt pressured by the high taxes and resented the government. Louis XVI and his advisers tried to impose a more representative system of taxation, however nobility refused. The popular press blamed Marie- Antoinette and she was called "Madame Veto". In 1789, representatives from all three estates met at Versailles to come up with a plan to save France. The Third Estate planned a "National Assembly" and placed the French government in the hands of the people. As conditions worsened for the French people, it became the popular idea to blame Marie-Antoinette In October 1789, A mob of women stormed Versailles in protest of the high cost of goods, and locked the royal families in the Tuileries. In June, 1981, the royal family attempted to flea France for Austria. When they were only 200 miles from the border, the royal family was caught, and forced to return to Paris, France, embarressed. This incident proved to many that their foreign queen was a traitor.

The End In 1792, as a way to test the royal family, France declared war on Austria, however due to the terrible condition of the French Army, the French lost. People did, however, blame the Austrian born Queen. Later that year, in August, another mob stormed Versailles and locked away the King and Queen. In September, revolutionaries began to massacre royalist prisoners by the thousands. (Marie-Antoinette's best friend was dismembered and paraded through the streets) In December, Louis XVI was placed on trial for treason. In January, Louis XVI was executed at the guillotine. In July, Marie Antoinette lost custody of her son when he was forced to accuse her of sexual abuse and incest during a revolutionary trial. In October, Marie Antoinette was placed on trial for treason, found guilty, and (at 37 years old) was executed at the guillotine.

"The story of revolution and resistance in 18th-century France is a complicated one, and no two historians tell the story the same way. However, it is clear that for the revolutionaries, Marie Antoinette’s significance was mainly, powerfully symbolic. She and the people around her seemed to represent everything that was wrong with the monarchy and the Second Estate: They appeared to be tone-deaf, out of touch, disloyal (along with her allegedly treasonous behavior, writers and pamphleteers frequently accused the queen of adultery) and self- interested. What Marie Antoinette was actually like was beside the point; the image of the queen was far more influential than the woman herself."