\n
<\/p>\n
Presented\u00a0to\u00a0the French court as a peace offering after years of hostility with Austria, Marie Antoinette had split allegiances that mired her in suspicions \u2212 not all unfounded \u2212 that she shared military secrets with Austria. She was deemed indifferent\u00a0to\u00a0the French people, and derogatory references\u00a0to\u00a0her as “L’Autri-chienne” (a wordplay on the French for both Austrian and bitch) exemplify the distrust that fuelled public feeling.<\/p>\n
Ch\u00e2teau de Versailles, Dist. Grand Palais RMN \/ Christophe Fouin<\/span>Marie Antoinette has been much maligned over the centuries \u2013 portrait by \u00c9lisabeth-Louise Vig\u00e9e Le Brun (Credit: Ch\u00e2teau de Versailles, Dist. Grand Palais RMN \/ Christophe Fouin)<\/p>\n Unlike a king, a queen had no official power and was meant\u00a0to\u00a0remain in the background. Marie Antoinette was\u00a0considered too prominent,\u00a0too vivacious and\u00a0too willing\u00a0to\u00a0use her charm\u00a0to\u00a0meddle in political affairs, secretly lobbying ministers and opposing the constitutional reforms the country cried out for. As far as her enemies were concerned, she needed\u00a0to\u00a0be brought\u00a0down. Libellous pamphlets circulated, some pornographic, accusing her of promiscuity (Count Axel von Fersen is, in fact, her only known lover), orgies, lesbian relations and even incest.<\/p>\n The gossip was “all driven by misogyny”, argues Grant, adding that “a lot of the myths that persisted… arose in the 19th\u00a0Century when her biographies [were] written by men”. According\u00a0to\u00a0Burrows, the queen was actually quite prudish. She rarely drank, she says, engaged in only “very mild flirtation” and “hated\u00a0to\u00a0be seen naked even by her own maids”. Yet these tropes persist. In\u00a0Marie Antoinette’s World \u2013 Intrigue, Infidelity, and Adultery in Versailles\u00a0(2020), Will Bashor speculates that her chronic uterine bleeding was caused by venereal disease. But he also argues that she was “emotionally abused”, “bored” and “neglected”, and though he finds her guilty of seeking pleasure outside her marriage, concludes that, for him at least, she was “forgiven”. \u00a0<\/p>\n In reality, “she was a devoted mother,” Dr Laura O’Brien, Associate Professor of Modern European History at Northumbria University in the UK, tells the BBC, referencing the “gentler and more emotional connection” the queen had with her children, in contrast\u00a0to\u00a0her own upbringing. She was the first French queen\u00a0to\u00a0breastfeed, and\u00a0to\u00a0dress \u2013 as seen in the rejected portrait \u2013 in a manner suited\u00a0to\u00a0parenthood and life at her rural retreat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Presented\u00a0to\u00a0the French court as a peace offering after years of hostility with Austria, Marie Antoinette had split allegiances that mired her in suspicions \u2212 not all unfounded \u2212 that she shared military secrets with Austria. She was deemed indifferent\u00a0to\u00a0the French people, and derogatory references\u00a0to\u00a0her as “L’Autri-chienne” (a wordplay on the French for both Austrian and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[1044,10331,145,1850],"class_list":{"0":"post-22192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-controversial","9":"tag-hated","10":"tag-history","11":"tag-queen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}