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

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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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  (#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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  (#8) She Was A Bit Of A Tomboy

  Marie Antoinette had a fortunate childhood in royal terms: she grew up virtually free many of the restraints from court life and was known to be a rambunctious, active child. In fact, she was something of a tomboy and was energetic and intelligent. Marie Antoinette preferred activity and socialization to solitary study, a trait she brought to France with her. After she came to the French court, she made it clear to the current King Louis XV - and new grandfather-in-law - she wanted to join him on his famous hunts. She began a passion for hunting and horseback-riding, and even shocked the court by riding a horse astride while wearing breeches. 
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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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  (#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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  (#11) She Established A Fantasyland At Versailles To Escape From Court Life

  Marie Antoinette often became bored with the ritual of royal life at Versailles, and so she escaped in a storm of socialization. At the same time, the stiff protocol that governed court life also alienated her. So she sought refuge in her private, personal palace on the Versailles estate. It was called Petit Trianon, and it became a fantasyland in which the extravagant French queen could play the role of an idyllic, rustic nobody, far away from the rigidity of royal life.

  Her life at the Petit Trianon was not without scandal. In total, the palace cost two million francs, and the privacy of it raised questions about how - and with whom - the French queen was spending her secret time. 

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