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Her last letter, written the night before she was executed, is so tender and touching; revealing a very different person from what we were generally taught [1]. The French Revolution was no exception to "History is written by the victors."
[1] https://teaattrianon.blogspot.com/2007/05/last-letter-of-mar...
I’m French too and never read this letter before. But I don’t see much difference in the letter with who she was. She s just saying goodbye and ask for redemption as any catholic would. I don’t agree with the article who tries to focus on her personality and manner. She was wether she liked it out not a ruler, the French did not kill her and the king because of their manners and their personality (the king was a nice guy too) They did because of the course of history and because so many were suffering at the time and a greater effort was asked from them (paying debt / while Marie Antoinette kept burning cash)
It was awful and bloody and many revolutionary were awful people uneducated and prompt to bloodbath. But it soon inspired so many nations to move towards democracy that sometimes if not always history shows that awful people can build great things (pirates in New York etc..)
I remember she hated Lafayette for example to put some USA perspective she must have hated Washington too.
Rulers should be judged indeed on victory or defeat this current fashion of looking back at history to say individuals had good or bad personalities is dangerously capable of transforming the worst people into adorable ones.
Her story is the story of the Romanov in Russia or the Shah in Iran. People who loved to party and who had great education would be people You would love to hang out with today for sure.
But they did so while their own people were on the verge of collapsing... I don’t see a parallel with Hillary neither, if Hillary was burning millions of dollars when her husband was in power and partying all the time in the poorest city with people dying in the street then you would have had Marie Antoinette but Hillary acted as a ruler and worked hard to help her country (wether you like her politics or not)
How many nations became democracies specifically because of the French Revolution?
I would argue that in many cases, the French Revolution might have had the opposite effect. Everyone was so scared of another reign of terror and the devastating revolutionary and Napoleonic wars that it directly led to the conservatism of Metternich and supported the conservative crackdowns in 1848. Monarchism in much of Europe - except France - was abolished after WWI, not after the French Revolution.
In the places where democracy was later established - say, Latin America - I think the US were much more of an influence than France.
I think the french revolution turned republicanism and nationalism from fringe idea into mainstays of european political thought. I'm not sure if those trends led to democracy, but they certainly led to a democratization - even with the crackdowns and Metternich, if you count the number of states with e.g. a constitution, europe was more democratic after 1848 than it was before it, not less.
The revolutionary wars were devastating, but they also demonstrated the power of a republican state - a sort of power that even reactionaries (e.g. Bismark) wanted to harness.
For sure I don't want to diminish the importance of the French Revolution, which is probably the single most important event in the span between 1700-1900. I just question that its influence necessarily was that of establishing democracy.
As for after 1848, I don't think that Europe was much more democratic than before 1789 (except for France, and the second republic was kind of DOA anyway). More states did have a constitution (in comparison to 1789, not necessarily to before 1848), so there was maybe a little bit more protection against absolute tyranny, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there was much effective parliamentary participation.
Although I will admit that the idea of liberalism was definitely in the air and maybe it wouldn't have been without the French Revolution, but that's hard to say (as said, the USA were always more of a poster child because their republic actually lasted).
I'm not sure if the revolutionary wars demonstrated the power of republicanism as much as they demonstrated the power of nationalism to someone like Bismarck, and nationalism is definitely something that was heavily influenced by the French Revolution.
I'm French and I think I read this letter at school before, not 100% sure it's a long time ago, but I remember learning about her correctly. We do learn about the atrocities before, during, and after the revolution. And no one is only good or bad. History is not a Disney movie.
It might be that non-french learn about it less. I grew in post-communist block and French Revolution was basically "good peasants rose up for libertee fraternite and egualite, against bad aristocracy".
That is however not French victors writing history, it is more of foreign Communists writing history.
I would like to point out that we also are taught that "good peasants rose up for liberte fraternite and egualite, against bad aristocracy" (is there a good aristocracy ?), but we are taught of the massacres and other bad aspects too.
The revolution is still a founding moment of the french "identity", and apart from a few late-to-the-party 2020's monarchists, we pretty much all believe that we did the right thing by kicking out the nobility.
Her tenderness didn't stop her from exploiting peasants like every other noble at the time. Let's not forget the situation.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Also, let's please not fight the French Revolution here.
Old system was fundamentally unfair and dysfunctional, that is true. But, in what way was she personally exploiting peasants? It is not like she would do business or made decisions of this sort, she did not even picked her own husband.
I don't think beheading anyone, even a noble who benefited from serfdom, is an outcome we should all praise. Such beliefs will only lead to another horrible period of murder and senseless violence.
I don't praise the means, but the outcome should be celebrated nonetheless. I imagine this was the only way they found to make the revolution stick.
This seems like a bad take. Just because it’s slow-violence doesn’t meant it’s not violence or murder to be an exploited starving peasant.
When fighting wars, one needs enemies. And the more cartoonish villains they are, the better. Consider the propaganda against Japan by the US during the Second World War.
For the bourgeoisie of the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette became that villain. In 1789, they still needed the King, so there was some reluctance to attack him as much, as they were forming a constitutional monarchy. However, when the royal family attempted to escape Paris, all bets were off.
It became common theory, that they were trying to escape to Austria, so Marie Antoinette would get help from her Habsburg family, and Austria would invade France. This conspiracy theory (not true, as it turns out) effectively lead[0] to two things; the establishment of a republic and pre-emptively invading neighbouring countries, like Austrian Netherlands (modern Belgium).
There is truth in every stereotype, and there are legitimate criticism of Marie Antoinette, but her character is far more complicated than her common cartoonish perception. This is how lines like 'let them eat cake' gets added afterwards, to justify the means.
[0] Yes, I know there were numerous other factors, but it's kind of astonishing how big of factor the Austrian conspiracy was.
> Consider the propaganda against Japan by the US during the Second World War.
I suggest you familiarize yourself with WW2 history before being an apologist for Japan in that period. Whether it was the Rape of Nanking, or that of Manila, or fatal medical experiments on prisoners, they brought unbelievable horror to civilians.
Those facts don't change how cartoonish the propaganda was against the Japanese at the time.
One fact does not cancel out the other.
The US brought unbelievable horror to Japanese civilians, see the firebombing of cities and of course the only use of atomic weapons in warfare.
You don't need to be a Y apologist to criticize the behavior of X, their enemy.
I appreciate you calling attention to a somewhat neglected retelling of the Pacific Theatre, but I was only referring to the US propaganda posters against Japan during the Second World War, not the wider context. It served as a decent example, and something with which I expected a lot of people being familiar. Like the British guerilla propaganda posters against the Germans during the First World War.
Neither, however, is an attempt to excuse what either the Japanese nor the Germans did in either war. I am very familiar with the events you describe, but please don't read anything broader into my example than merely that; an example of making your enemies cartoonish.
Respectfully, have you seen the anti-Japan propaganda posters? They were extraordinarily dehumanizing, generally in ways completely unrelated to the Japanese Empire's heinous actions.
> I suggest you familiarize yourself with WW2 history before being an apologist for Japan in that period.
What makes you think the GP isn't familiar with it? The vile propaganda and sheer racism of the US against Japan and the Japanese is established fact, regardless of Japan's own actions.
Yep. The US may have been no saint, but the Japanese Empire was every bit as much of a "cartoon villain" as Nazi Germany.
Apologize for the comment out of context as it was mentionned above:
The history is always written by the victors and regardless who was the good guy or not
Why just take it all,
and coldly analysis historical facts?
Henri Kissinger's book, World order, is a great example of this approach.
this is obviously a multifaceted/multiparametric issue. I'll touch only one - nationalism. Marie Antoinette was perceived (whether it was real or not) as siding with Austria and against France through her years in France. That is not a way to gain a public support/love to say the least. Compare that with the contemporary Russian Empress Catherine the Great who also came to her future motherland as a foreign (German) teenager girl to marry the future Emperor. Russian history has her as "Great" and her rule as "Golden Age" even though, among the other things, she did put violently down a large peasant revolt and was overall a tough absolute ruler over highly unequal society - very poor and powerless majority of population under highly privileged aristocracy. Yet her policies and actions were notably pro-Russian and directed to, and very successfully at that, - using the language of today - making Russia great (especially for the most nationalism related definition of "great" like huge expansion of the Empire in all 4 directions mostly as result of successful application of military power or threat of it). Thus she is a great/popular Russian Empress despite her lifetime German accent (which she had despite her eager learning of Russian upon arrival), her famous promiscuity (be it true or not), "accidental" death of her husband Russian Emperor Peter III during her power taking coupe, etc. - i.e. it would be possible to find a lot of reasons for the hate if it were needed. The nationalism is kind of very primal overpowering force, which can bring extremes of popular love or hate.
I love how the question posed in the title is answered in the title, but the entire article tries to make it sound like a mystery.
> She could not but be guilty since she was a royalist in a republic, and her own future depended on overthrowing that republic.
Uh, yeah.
But then the article absurdly, yet somehow so unsurprisingly, drags Hillary Clinton into it.
> It is difficult to resist the parallel with Hillary Clinton, who despite her educated manner, sober clothing, and wonky intelligence was similarly dragged through the mud because she was a woman close to and possibly actually in power.
Hillary Clinton who, after Muammar al-Gaddafi was sodomized with a bayonet then shot, as Libya descended into violent anarchy: "We came, we saw, he died." Well, I'm still not sure about parallels between Clinton and Antoinette, but I can see a parallel in the author's way of interpreting politics.
A couple weeks ago an article rehabilitating Nero came through the HN front page. We know why Marie Antoinette was hated. We know why Nero was hated. But why do HN readers seem so interested in rehabilitating the most detestable monarchs?
This reminds me of a section of Slavoj Zizek's book Violence. Here he refers to Nikolai Lossky who was sent into exile by communists, the general idea can easily be attributable to Marie Antoinette as well:
>While Lossky was without doubt a sincere and benevolent person, really caring for the poor and trying to civilise Russian life, such an attitude betrays a breathtaking insensitivity to the systemic violence that had to go on in order for such a comfortable life to be possible. We're talking here of the violence inherent in a system: not only direct physical violence, but also the more subtle forms of coercion that sustain relations of domination and exploitation...
Recommendations for books on the French Revolution? I know very little about it.
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution - Wikipedia – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens:_A_Chronicle_of_the...
The Vendee: A Sociological Analysis of the Counter-Revolution of 1793 by Charles Tilly – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/395527.The_Vendee#
Mike Duncan's revolutions podcast section on the French revolution is incredible, even if he has gone off the deep end as of late.
I'm a little taken aback by the title. Marie Antoinette is the very image of dislikable aristocracy. Have folks these days really forgotten why she was so hated? She clearly was unable to perform in the role of arguing for the french people. She was utterly divorced from their problems due to wealth disparity. If people have forgotten why she was hated, we are due for some truly violent times. This is not good: the US ruling class is the very image of pre-revolution wealth disparity, complete with Pelosi eating ice cream out of her two massive fridges during a pandemic. I'm no particular critic of Pelosi in particular, but my jaw hit the floor when I saw her make that video. How can you be this oblivious about how you come off to people?
The book itself is excellent, btw, this is purely a question for the editor of "nybooks". Editor: stop pretending that people forgot why the rich are hated when the poor are starving. We aren't at the place where impoverished women take the streets demanding better prices for bread but we aren't far from it either.
> Have folks these days really forgotten why she was so hated? She clearly was unable to perform in the role of arguing for the french people. She was utterly divorced from their problems due to wealth disparity.
She was one of the people who was arguing for the reform of the French taxation system under the idea that maybe, just maybe, the clergy and the aristocrats ought to pay some taxes instead of levying it all on the peasantry. Truly a more despotic individual has never walked the Earth.
Pre-Revolution, a lot of the ire directed at her was driven by the fact that she was a woman who was actively engaging in politics as opposed to being a dandy who just looked pretty, hosted parties, and made babies. She was also criticized for being too extravagant with the public purse, though, so she might well have been complained about even if she did the proper societal role befitting a queen. Post-Revolution, the criticism shifts to the fact that she sided with foreign countries against Republicanism. In large part, she was made the solitary scapegoat of the failures of the ancien régime to help bolster support for the abolition of the monarchy, as she was already unpopular before the Revolution.
It's important to remember that revolutions do not produce justice - they produce change.
As Edmund Burke put it, "Those who attempt to level, never equalize."
> She was one of the people who was arguing for the reform of the French taxation system under the idea that maybe
Sources?
This is what I read in wikipedia: "Her role was decisive in urging the king to remain firm and not concede to popular demands for reforms. In addition, she showed her determination to use force to crush the forthcoming revolution".
Not the glamourous sympathetic little girl from the Coppola movie...
She was also foreigner.
Ice cream isn't really posh, classy, or out of reach.
technically true, but she was showing off her 2 industrial fridges with probably $200 worth of ice cream. quite garish, really, at a time when the working and middle classes were thrown into chaos due to the pandemic and lockdowns
The richest person in America has more wealth than the median household will accumulate in a million years of labor (literally). Are you sure that two fridges and a lot of ice cream should be the focus here?
All revolutions happen because of mass unemployment of the middle class. Not the aristocracy, working class, or decrepit poor. The middle class is the group of people of artisanal or union class. They are secured in either a specialized role or high paying job for a somewhat general labor role. If they lose their job en masse, finding a job becomes very hard. So now not only do they have time to kill, but they have influence in swaths. Aristocrats likely end up backing groups that begin to rise up. Which helps fan the flames of discontent.
We've seen it happen France in the 1700s, Germany in the 1800s and 1900s, Russia pre WWI, China in WW2, and Spain during WW2.
Imo, the US is far from this happening. The only people who often complain about radical income disparity live in one of the major cities. Granted it has merit, but there is a sizable amount of people that live outside of those HCOL areas. City people forget that there is a very wealthy, affluent, and secure America outside of cities.
Slave revolts have been common throughout history, and while largely unsuccessful they disagree with your assessment. Revolutions start at every level of society from the aristocracy, poor, military, or intellectuals. What sustains revolutions behind the initial conflict is often propaganda.
I would be hard pressed to describe rural America as affluent, wealthy, or secure. It's being ravaged by a drug crisis, underemployment, and much of it is at truly shocking levels of poverty for a first world nation.
What I can describe it as, is helpless. Instead of seizing it's political power to improve their lot, most of the people at the bottom of it are either apathetic to politics, or are politically distracted by a culture war.
Correction: The revolution happened due to starvation.
Employment and salaries are recent concepts, they have no relevance. A few hundreds years ago the largest single concern by far was to have food on the table. There was no functional markets and no long distance transportation, you couldn't buy food if there was a bad harvest or calamity, there was no food to sale and/or the price doubled overnight.
This seems to me a reflex of the times. Billionaires are celebrated as if they're making some great benefit the world, instead of pushing their monopolies around to make as much money as possible without regard for the law, as in the late 19th century. See how people seem to oppose the break up of Google, which would be a benefit for everyone.
It's been many years since I read my Kropotkin but I seem to recall him being a gentler soul than this.