Marie Antoinette: The Journey

On June 7, 1784, the King Gustav of Sweden arrived for a state visit at Versailles, partly to consider the sullen, withdrawn Marie Thérèse, age 5, as a future wife for the Prince Gustav III. Count Fersen, who accompanied his king, returned to Sweden a month later; he corresponded with Marie Antoinette and gifted her a dog.

On August 17, Marie Antoinette announced she was pregnant again. Fraser argues that the child was not Fersen’s; she posits that Marie Antoinette and Fersen would have used contraceptives. That year, Marie Antoinette acquired the Chateau of Saint Cloud, just outside Paris on the River Seine. She was publically criticized for owning property outright—something French queens did not typically do—but loved overseeing the interior decoration of the palace.

On March 27, 1785, Marie Antoinette gave birth to her second son, Louis Charles. This time, the French public did not congratulate the queen on the birth of her son: She had become the “scapegoat for the general political troubles of the King” (226).

In July 1785, the Diamond Necklace Affair took place.

The late King Louis XV had had an absurdly large diamond necklace commissioned for his mistress, Madame Du Barry, but he died before he could pay for it or gift it to her. The jeweler, Boehmer, attempted to sell it to Marie Antoinette to recoup his costs, but she rejected it.

In 1783, con artist Jeanne de la Motte became the mistress of the formerly powerful Cardinal de Rohan, who had fallen out of favor with Marie Antoinette. Jeanne de la Motte convinced the Cardinal that she could help him get back into the queen’s good graces. When word of this got around, Boehmer asked Jeanne to help him sell the necklace to the queen. In response, Jeanne forged letters purporting to be from the queen asking the Cardinal to acquire the necklace as an intermediary, which he did. When the Cardinal asked the queen for repayment, the con was exposed. The Cardinal, Jeanne de la Motte, and her associates were arrested. The Cardinal was eventually acquitted as an unwitting mark. However, rumors spread that Marie Antoinette had participated in the con and disapproval of the queen hardened.

On November 2, 1785, Marie Antoinette turned 30. She was soon pregnant again. After the Diamond Necklace Affair, she gave birth to a second daughter, Sophie Hélène Béatrice, a sickly baby.

In 1787, the French government was on the brink of bankruptcy. Controller General Calonne wanted to address the bankruptcy by raising taxes on landowners and the Church. The Parlement of Paris—a judicial body, rather than a representative one as the name would suggest—was unlikely to support such reforms. Because of this, an Assembly of Notables—a group of high-ranking noblemen and Church leaders that advised the king during emergencies—was called to discuss the proposal. Marie Antoinette’s absence from the proceedings was interpreted as support for the opposition.

Marie Antoinette refused to intervene in support of Austria’s nominee for France’s new foreign minister. Fraser argues that this demonstrates Marie Antoinette increasing political backbone, due to her greater maturity, the challenge posed by the Diamond Necklace Affair, and Louis’s psychological and physical ailments.

Eventually, Calonne was dismissed and replaced with Marie Antoinette’s favored candidate, Brienne. However, Brienne was also not able to garner the political support for reforms needed to address the financial crisis. The king called a meeting of the Estates General—a general assembly representing the First Estate of the clergy, the Second Estate of the nobility, and the Third Estate of the commoners—on July 5, 1788. Louis hoped the Third Estate would ally with him against the nobles and clergy to approve reforms.

Around this time, Marie Antoinette commissioned her famous portrait by Madame Vigée le Brun. The painting, which shows the queen surrounded by her four children, portrays her as a dedicated royal mother. Soon after the painting was completed, the infant Sophie died, so Marie Antionette had the painter erase Sophie from the painting. Marie Antoinette was so unpopular with the public that the painting was withdrawn from submission to the Salon of the Royal Academy for fear of protest. Meanwhile, the dauphin’s health continued to decline. He had spinal tuberculosis and was moved to the rural chateau in Meudon for his health.

On August 26, 1788, Marie Antoinette’s favorite, Brienne, was dismissed and replaced with a new Controller General—Necker. The queen’s hairdresser reported that she was in low spirits. Count Fersen was an important source of support, emotionally and politically.

In January 1789, Marie wrote to her brother, Emperor Joseph, that France would not provide military support for Austria due to the impending Estates General and financial crisis. France’s situation was further strained by a poor harvest the previous summer and a bitterly cold winter. The king developed depression.

In April, a riot broke out in Paris over wage cuts. The government response was brutal suppression; French soldiers killed over 300 people to put down the rebellion. The day after the royal court processed through Paris dressed in finery, the delegates of the Estates General met at Versailles. Louis XVI opened the proceedings with a speech about the state of the nation’s finances. Marie Antoinette attended, but looked miserable—she was distressed about her son’s health.

On June 4, the Dauphin Louis Joseph died. The king and queen were bereft. The king resented having to attend the Estates General meetings while grieving his son. They went to Marly-le-Roi on June 14 to mourn.

While Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette mourned, public resentment of them increased. On June 17, 1789, the Third Estate declared themselves to be the National Assembly—the only legitimate deliberative body. On June 20, the Assembly’s members took the Tennis Court Oath that they did not recognize the king’s sovereignty. Even in the face of this defiance, the king vacillated on how to respond. Marie Antoinette pleaded with him to remain firm as the National Assembly continued to seize power. When violence broke out again in early July, it was again violently subdued by the army. On July 14, a mob broke into the Bastille, a Paris prison. A citizens’ militia adopted the tricolor (red, white, and blue) badge. After this, many nobles, including the Polignac clan and the Duc d’Orléans, fled Versailles. However, Marie Antoinette insisted on staying behind with her husband and children.

On October 5, 1789, a group of market-women marched from Paris to Versailles “to demand grain or flour” (293) and for formal recognition of the National Assembly. That afternoon, the mob following them broke into the palace and killed two of the queen’s bodyguards. Marie Antoinette fled to the king’s apartments. The king succeeded in pacifying the crowd, who nevertheless arrested the royal family and imprisoned them in the Tuileries Palace.