On this day in 1793, Marie Antoinette was tragically put to death by guillotine, during the French Revolution. For today’s post I wanted to instead focus on her life, so here are five facts about the Queen of France.
1. Petit Trianon was probably where she was her most
content
Petit Trianon is a small pleasure house in the grounds of
Versailles. Marie Antoinette had long wanted her own little country retreat and when she asked her husband, Louis XVI, he gifted it to her. She
adorned the Trianon with a romantic garden. Blue Hyacinths, tulips, irises, and
wildflowers were the flowers she favoured. She also had trees planted. Her
father had taken a keen interest in Horticulture, so perhaps this was where she
got her love for planning her gardens from.
There were rumours that the Petit Trianon was decorated with
gold and diamonds, however, the house was quite the opposite, she loved it for
its simplicity. When she invited her friends to visit, she said, “I shall be
quite alone, so don’t dress up” They dressed in ‘country clothes’, drank milk
and boated along the grand canal.
After the grandeur and very public life at Versailles,
her trips to the Petit Trianon must have felt idyllic and therapeutic. She
was able to enjoy her time here in relative privacy and did not have to act like
the Queen of France.
2. This portrait of the queen caused quite the scandal
In the late 18th century women all over Europe
began to ditch heavy makeup, huge hair, and heavily embellished, structured
gowns for the more comfortable and effortless muslin gowns. The dress had a
drawstring neck, puffy sleeves, ruffles and was tied at the waist with a silk sash.
Marie Antoinette loved these dresses and even sent one over to England for Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire. The muslin was originally imported to France by the
Creole ladies of the West Indies.
The artist Madame Vigée Le Brun painted Marie Antoinette wearing her beloved garment and it was later exhibited in the salon, where it was promptly heavily criticised and removed. The queen being painted in such a dress caused quite a scandal, it resembled something that a woman would usually wear as underwear. It also resembled a simpler style of dress, which wasn't thought of as fitting for the queen of France to wear in public. She was accused of being unpatriotic by not supporting the French silk industry. The painting in the salon was replaced with another of Madame Vigée Le Brun’s paintings, in which Marie Antoinette was painted in a similar pose, but this time she was dressed in a silk embellished dress, instead of her muslin robe en chemise and straw hat.
3. What we know about her appearance:
The Queen of France had Habsburg blood and inherited the
famous jutting lower jaw/lip. (Although not as noticeable as some others in the
Habsburg family!) She also had a prominent nose. As a child, she had crooked
teeth, which were straightened with wires. Another aspect of her appearance
that (at the time) was seen as ‘less flattering’ was written about in Antonia
Fraser’s book Marie Antoinette: The Journey, she writes of Marie ‘One
shoulder was higher than the other but that could be corrected by the proper
use of corsetry or concealed by padding.' Presumably this was not severe
and likely undetectable once she was dressed.
Her complexion was thought to be one of her best features.
The artist Madame Vigée Le Brun said her skin was ‘so transparent that it
allowed no shadow.’
One of Marie Antoinette’s portraits that we know has a
fairly reliable likeness, is of a young Antoinette in a red riding costume by
Joseph Kreutzinger in 1771. Her mother thought that it captured such a good
likeness of her daughter, that she kept it and another copy, exclaiming “Thus, I
have you always with me, under my eyes.”
Painting by by Joseph Kreutzinger in 1771.
4. She was related to Mary Stuart
Marie Antoinette and Mary Stuart were distantly related. As well
as being remembered for their charisma and beauty, both also met the same
tragic ending, they were killed by beheading. Mary Stuart by axe on 8 February
1587 and Marie Antoinette by guillotine on October 16, 1793.
5. She was a dog lover
Marie Antoinette was a dog lover. One of her dogs' Mops, was
her beloved childhood canine friend. During her journey to France, she had to
symbolically shed her Austrian life, which also meant parting with Mops. This
must have been heart-breaking for the young girl, who had already had to leave
behind her family and home. Thankfully, the two were later reunited at
Versailles.
Below is a luxurious dog kennel made in 1775-80. This was
made for one of Marie Antoinette’s dogs. It is constructed from gilded beech
and pine and covered in velvet. Inside it is lined with silk.
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
References:
Marie Antoinette: The journey by Antonia Fraser
Versailles: A Biography of a Palace by Tony Spawforth
BBC Marie Antoinette A Stitch in Time: Series 1, Episode 6
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