Tag: instead of solely as a capricious queen w/ an useless husband lmao

Marie Antoinette, unlike her popularizers, unlike even her husband, knew exactly what she was about. And this was, in the end, the absolute and divine right of kings to rule their subjects. Perhaps she was vain and capricious. But by 1789, Marie Antoinette was also one of the only assertive voices at court for the monarchy. She saw the National Assembly as illegitimate and she despised its deputies. And as Louis XVI dithered, she suggested, on more than one occasion, that what remaining force the king had be urged to suppress the uprising – even if it meant spilling the blood of “our subjects.” Surely, people like Caroline Weber [author of Queen of Fashion] who locate Marie Antoinette’s transgression in her “rebellion…to establish her own royal style and seduce the public,” do her a disservice. The queen seduces us, but only in death. In life, Marie Antoinette represented pure reaction; she can be damned for her sins.