Random Facts That Prove Marie Antoinette Remains An Extremely Controversial Figure (13 items)

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  (#4) She Probably Never Said, "Let Them Eat Cake"

  Perhaps one of the best known Marie Antoinette quotes probably never happened. When the queen was told that peasants across France were starving, so the story goes, she vapidly responded, “Let them eat cake.” The story was meant to highlight just how out-of-touch and dismissive French royals were. There is no evidence to suggest that Marie Antoinette ever said this.
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  (#12) She Attempted To Escape Paris During The Revolution

  As the French Revolution progressed, Marie Antoinette convinced her husband the best option for the royal family was to escape their imprisonment at the Palace of the Tuilieries and flee to the countryside in Montmédy where they could find safety with royalist troops. Von Fersen himself oversaw the details of the 200-mile escape in June 1791: the royal family would pose as a Russian noble family, with the king and queen playing roles of valet and governess. The family was ultimately discovered in Varennes and unceremoniously sent back to Paris.
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  (#5) The Love Of Her Life Was A Dashing Swedish Officer

  Though her relationship with her husband worked for both of them, it did not give her romantic fulfillment. For that she turned to a dashing, young Swedish officer. Hans Axel von Fersen first met Marie Antoinette at a masquerade at Versailles in 1774, when they were both 19 years old and von Fersen was in the midst of a Grand Tour across Europe. But their relationship did not begin in earnest until a few years later, when the Swedish nobleman returned to France. Their close friendship ignited rumors, and von Fersen escaped to America to fight with French forces to spare the queen a scandal. 

  By the time von Fersen returned to Versailles in 1783, their attraction had only grown. Though historians remain divided on the nature of their relationship - was it platonic love or a sexual affair? - it is widely accepted that Marie Antoinette and von Fersen had strong affection for one another that may have been romantic love.

  Whether or not Marie Antoinette and von Fersen engaged in a passionate affair, he remained loyal to her until the end. He helped Marie Antoinette’s family in their unsuccessful attempt to escape France in 1791 and even mortgaged his estates to pay for the carriages that were meant to take the royal family to safety.

  Though von Fersen survived the revolution, he returned to Sweden and never married. Like Marie Antoinette, he had a violent end: a Swedish mob murdered him in 1810.
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  (#1) She Got Married At The Painfully Young Age Of 14

  Her Austrian mother and the French king brokered the marriage between Marie Antoinette and Louis, the Dauphin and future King of France. It was a brilliant match for a younger daughter of an Austrian empress, and one that intended to bring peace between France and Austria. But the participants were quite young: Louis was only 15 and Marie Antoinette was 14. Despite their young age, their marriage was celebrated by the two families.

  The couple did not actually meet until after their marriage - they married by proxy in April 1770. The new Dauphine of France then began a multi-week journey from Austria to her new home in the French court. She would never see Austria or her mother again.
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  (#6) The 18th-Century Version Of Tabloids Always Attacked Her

  Courtiers and non-courtiers alike loved to criticize Marie Antoinette. As an Austrian-born queen, she was an obvious candidate for critiques, as French men and women considered her to be a foreigner. Her extravagant spending on fashion and real estate certainly did not help matters, and Marie Antoinette was routinely depicted in caricatures and pamphlets as greedy, corrupt, and unnatural in her tastes - she was accused of adultery, lesbianism with her close friends, and every other manner of behavior that would have shocked 18th Century society. She was even personally blamed for the country’s poor state of finances.
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  (#13) She Died With Dignity

  Though the French often ridiculed their foreign-born queen and revolutionaries mocked her extravagant lifestyle, virtually everyone had to admit she met her death with dignity. As she prepared for death in prison, she told her priest, “Courage? The moment when my ills are going to end is not the moment when courage is going to fail me.”

  As she rode to the guillotine in an open cart through the streets of Paris, spectators would have seen her prematurely white hair that had been cut short for the guillotine. They jeered at her, but their words did not disturb her dignified, stoic composure. 

  One story suggests that her finally words were an apology to the executioner. After stepping on his foot as she walked up to the guillotine, she supposedly said to him, “I beg your pardon, monsieur.” She was executed in the early afternoon on October 16, 1793.

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