55 pages • 1-hour read
Marie Antoinette: The Journey
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of pregnancy loss.
Part 3: “Queen Consort”
Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary: “In Truth a Goddess”
When Marie Antoinette first became queen, there was optimism about her future reign. She was described as pretty and graceful. Soon after her ascension, several of her detractors, such as the Comtesse Du Barry and the Duc d’Aiguillon, the previous king’s advisor, were dismissed from the court. Both removals were attributed to Marie Antoinette, but she had nothing to do with them. The new queen still had little power in the court: She wanted the Duc de Choiseul to be chosen as the king’s advisor, but the Comte de Maurepas was chosen instead, illustrating her limited influence over her husband, who listened to his aunts more than his wife. French queens had less official power than their counterparts in Spain, Austria, and elsewhere in Europe—instead, they were expected to use their access to shape geopolitical affairs.
Marie Antoinette created controversy at court when she appointed her friend, the Princesse de Lamballe, to the position of Superintendent of Household, over the Comtesse de Noailles, who was more senior and thus more entitled to the position. The queen also raised eyebrows by selecting the impoverished Comtesse Jules de Polignac as her new favorite. In 1775, Marie Antoinette was doubly humiliated: Her sister-in-law, the Comtesse d’Artois, became pregnant before her, and then in February, Archduke Max, Marie Antoinette’s younger brother nicknamed “fat Max,” acted rudely toward members of the court during a visit.
Meanwhile, the French government was badly in debt due to the costs of the Seven Years’ War. The liberalization of the French grain market, which led the price of grain to skyrocket, created further instability. Violent protests, dubbed the Flour War, followed in April and May. Fraser combats the myth that in response to these protests, Marie Antoinette said, “if they cannot afford bread, let them eat ‘cake’” (135)—a story that predates the queen by “at least a century” (135).
On June 11, 1775, the coronation ceremony was held. In August 1775, Marie Antoinette’s nephew, the Duc d’Angoulême, was born. Marie was bitterly disappointed that she did not yet have a child of her own. That fall, “satiric and grossly obscene pamphlets” (138) called libelles circulated mocking Marie Antoinette’s desperation for an heir.
Part 3, Chapter 10 Summary: “An Unhappy Woman?”
As queen, Marie Antoinette took on new activities like horse racing and gambling. As she gambled all night long, men hovered around her entourage, hoping to win her affections. Meanwhile King Louis XVI hunted or pursued other interests. Because the couple was known to spend so little time together, libellistes printed pamphlets suggesting the queen was having an affair with the king’s younger brother, the Comte d’Artois. In reality, the chaste Marie was hurt by the libelles, but tried to ignore them.
Other libelles critiqued her profligate spending. Fraser argues that although Marie Antoinette did spend hundreds of thousands of livres (the French currency of the time) on fashionable clothes, it was the role of the queen to be a fashion plate and set the standards for the court. In reality, Marie Antoinette’s spending was not any more lavish than that of other courtiers. Still, while she poured money into developing an English-style garden at her palatial retreat, the Petit Trianon, France went further in debt as it supported American revolutionaries in their fight against the British crown.
On April 18, 1777, Marie’s eldest brother, Emperor Joseph II, visited Versailles. This brought the siblings closer together than they had ever been before. He encouraged his sister to spend more time reading. He also frankly explained the “Facts of Life” (156) to Louis—it turned out that the king did not understand the importance of ejaculating inside the vagina to cause pregnancy. Marie felt optimistic she would soon be pregnant.
Part 3, Chapter 11 Summary: “You Shall Be Mine…”
The marriage of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI suffered during the Bavarian Elector succession crisis, which pitted France against Austria. The Habsburgs wanted to acquire Bavaria (now part of Germany) and place a distant cousin on the throne there, but a coalition of other European powers rejected this bid for increasing the Holy Roman Empire. Although it was still Austria’s ally, France did not want to antagonize the coalition and refused to be drawn into conflict. When Emperor Joseph II invaded Bavaria, starting The War of the Bavarian Succession in July 1778, Marie was unable to convince her husband to send troops to support Austria.
On April 11, 1778, Marie realized she was pregnant; a week later, she informed her mother. On December 19, 1778, Marie Antoinette gave birth to Marie Thérèse Charlotte, known as Madame Royale. After giving birth, the queen fainted in the crowded, stuffy room—a problem that eventually led to births being less public at the French court. Marie Antoinette also broke with tradition by insisting on breast-feeding her daughter herself rather than relying entirely on a wet nurse.
In April 1779, Marie got the measles and was confined to her palace at the Petit Trianon lest she infect the king. When she recovered, she ignored geopolitical events in favor of focusing on her infant daughter. She had a miscarriage in the summer of 1779.
Part 3, Chapter 12 Summary: “Fulfilling Their Wishes”
By 1780, Marie Antoinette had developed a robust private life, sheltered from the public eye of the court. She took to wearing simpler clothes and enjoying more informal visits from friends, like the Hesse Princesses. She also held amateur theatricals in which she acted and danced.
In the summer of 1780, Marie Antoinette’s romantic interest Count Fersen left for the United States to support French General Rochambeau in the battle against the British on behalf of the Americans. The queen then grew close with members of the Polignac family, who were seen as lowly by other members of the court. In response to her largely unsuccessfully attempts to intervene politically on behalf of the Polignacs, Marie Antoinette began to show more interest in military appointments.
On November 29, 1780, Marie Antoinette’s mother, Empress Maria Theresa, died at 63 years old.
On March 17, 1781, Marie Antoinette announced she was pregnant again. On October 22, 1781, her first son, the Dauphin Louis Joseph, was born. Versailles erupted in cheers of joy.
Part 3 Analysis
Fraser highlights contrasts between The Public and Private Lives of Royals as Marie Antoinette became queen consort. As Marie Antoinette performed duties in the presence of the French court and the people, public opinion about her shifted. At first, the queen was seen highly favorably as “the glamour of Marie Antoinette […] appeared to fit her admirably for the position of Queen of France” (121). However, this glamour was propped up with lavish spending on clothes and interior décor—profligacy that was seen as a flaw when France’s financial situation deteriorated. As framed by Fraser, Marie Antoinette was in a catch-22: She was expected to model an aspirational lifestyle, but condemned for the spending required to do so.
Marie Antoinette’s private life offered an escape from the demands of public appearances and the scathing, tabloid-esque libelles. The queen’s sense that she was entitled to some privacy was an uncharacteristic display of The Power of Women at Court, allowed because it was in keeping with a late-18th century cultural shift that placed emphasis on private spheres (Chartier, Roger, editor. A History of Private Life, Vol. 3: Passions of the Renaissance. Harvard University Press, 1986). In other words, there was a growing understanding in the zeitgeist that individuals, even royals, could have private lives outside of the public gaze. Marie Antoinette established a place where she could literally live outside the public eye: Petit Trianon, a small mansion built for Madame Du Barry by Louis XV. After Louis XV’s death, Marie Antoinette took over the property, continuing to develop its cozy, private English-style gardens. She also had built an extensive complex of canals, animal pens, vegetable gardens, and small houses that ostensibly looked like simple village cottages. This property, about 2.5 miles from the main chateau and set apart from the rest of the grounds, became a favored haunt of Marie Antoinette and her closest friends; there, she could weather adverse events like the measles within a sphere she controlled.
However, whatever power Marie Antoinette used to claim this physical distance from the court did not translate into increased influence elsewhere. Instead, it led to an intellectual and emotional distance from public affairs, most significantly during the French-supported American war with England. To Fraser, Marie Antoinette’s unwillingness to engage showed that she (and the courtiers around her) viewed all external events as equally shallow and unimportant: “the distant military struggle had no more substance than the passing fashion; no more reality than the ballet” (171). This inability of the French court generally and Marie Antoinette specifically to take seriously challenges to their sovereignty foreshadows their response to the revolution on the horizon.
Unlock all 55 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs