Marie Antoinette more sinned against than sinner, it would seem.
It’s almost reflexive – think of Marie Antoinette, consort to France’s Louis XVI and the answering statement comes back:
Let them eat cake! – an example of how remote France’s 1% – the aristocracy – were from the issues and concerns of everyday Frenchmen.
Except Marie Antoinette never uttered the phrase.
It was actually from the book Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in which he said: “I recalled the make-shift of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread and who replied: ‘Let them eat brioche’.” The attribution to Queen Marie is no doubt anti-royal propaganda during a very troubled time in French history.
But that’s not the worse that was said of the Austrian-born Princess who ended up, like her husband, that the end of Madame Guillotine’s razor.
The Gazettes, the tabloid media at the time published rumours that she had affairs with both men and women.
The worst of the rumours was that she sexually abused her own son.
As described in this post, Louis Charles had become the pawn of Jacques René Hébert, who, in order to strengthen the fairly flimsy case against Marie Antoinette, had concocted a vindictive story that Marie Antoinette had sexually abused her son. Hébert had managed to persuade Louis Charles to sign a document supporting this allegation, and had even made the boy confront his sister and aunt with the tale. Hébert unveiled this accusation with showmanly flourish at Marie Antoinette’s trial, and though it had not had quite the galvanising impact he had hoped for, the Queen was inevitably found guilty anyway…
On this basis as well as treason, Marie Antoinette – described centuries later as the Princess Diana of her day – was executed in October 1793, nine months after her husband. Her only son, young Louis died at the age of 10 most likely from his mistreatment by his gaolers.
Marie Antoinette was finally tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 14th October. Unlike the king, who had been given time to prepare a defence, the queen was given less than a day to prepare for her trial. The whole event was a sham, probably intended to humiliate Marie Antoinette further. Most of the charges, if not all, were rumours and untrue.
A sketch of Marie-Antoinette, now known as The Widow Capet. She was 37 when she was executed.
Sadly demonising political opponents has a long and ignoble history and it is still carried on today. One of the quickest ways of shutting down personal criticism or criticism of an idea or a concept is to slur your opponent and accuse them of having malice: sexist, racist, homophobic, privileged, ableist, transphobic – all epithets designed to delegitimise the ‘other’.
One reason is the adverse effect demonizing our opponents has on the kind of public discourse democracy needs to succeed. Democratic societies require the free exchange of ideas among a populace willing and able to make informed judgments about them. But if we fail to engage in the rational examination of ideas and seek instead to work our will through vilification and personal attack, the democratic process is subverted.
We become less able to see the strengths and genuine weaknesses of alternative viewpoints. Public discourse becomes more focused on the acquisition of power and less on the pursuit of truth, more enamored of sensationalism and less attentive to the deeper issues of our times, more interested in personalities and less in the plausibility of the policies these persons advocate. Emotionalism usurps reason; cant and prejudice prosper — and democracy suffers a dearth of meaningful social dialogue.
Radical of all stripes know this – emotional engagement trumps rational thought every single time and very few people had put it so succinctly as Saul Alkinsky, the renowned community organiser whose Rules for Radicals is the Twelve Commandments for activist groups since they were first published in 1971.
The last one is particularly pertinent to poor Marie Antoinette as she became the focus of the National Assembly and the Jacobin’s bile and hatred.
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
It sure does work, but as history has shown us, that level of unthinking animus and unrestrained emotion doesn’t create a better society, it creates division, hatred and death – about 40,000 people were executed or murdered in less than 15 month Reign of Terror.
It’s something that Lady Abigail Houghall, the heroine of Moonstone Conspiracy quickly recognises.
Here is an excerpt:
She could feel her smile become brittle as he stepped closer, sliding his hand across her upper arm and bare shoulders where his fingers strayed beneath the satin before trailing across to her neck. There, like a spider, his fingers uncurled and wrapped themselves around her neck with the barest squeeze.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you darlin’?” he whispered in her ear.
Abigail forced herself not to react in revulsion. Instead, she kept her answering voice low and husky. She turned her head so she could see his profile. “Should I be?”
“Oh yes. I think you should.”
Forcing disquiet into anger, Abigail shrugged him off with little effort and glared at him.
“Don’t be such a bore,” she warned, icily.
Dauncey stepped back, his hands clasped over his heart. “I’ll take many insults but that one! You’ve wounded me to the quick, dear girl.”
“Then stop being ridiculous, Mr. Dauncey. You’re as dangerous as blancmange,” she replied, her heart pounding less. “Come along, the coach is waiting outside.”
She set off towards the door with purpose, but Dauncey’s hand shot out and gripped her left arm. He cruelly dragged her to him and turned her to face him.
“Don’t mock me either,” he ground out as his hand squeezed hard into her arm. “I’m happy to play the clown for you and your vapid aristocratic friends, but never, ever underestimate the depth of my commitment to the cause.”
Abigail staggered as he pushed her away from him. She rubbed her arm against the bruises she suspected would appear by morning and watched his lip curl and nose wrinkle in an open expression of utter contempt.
“You disappoint me,” he told her. “I thought you of all people would have a better understanding of our goals and ideals. Liberation and equality, freed from the shackles of societal conventions, freed from shame. I thought you were a true believer.”
Now, like an actor on the stage, Dauncey paced the length of the drawing room, then turned, throwing his arms open and bracing his legs apart, seeming to Abigail that he might actually sing his next words.
“‘Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible,’” he quoted. “‘It is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country.’”
“Revolution,” Abigail answered.
“But of course! Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason. Have you not being paying attention? America… France… England will be next, mark my words, darlin’ Abigail, and we’re going to make it happen.”