“Forever dead?”
When you are like Marie-Antoinette, married at 14, Queen France at 18, is rich and considered a beauty by society, most wouldn’t think that a royal member of the court would be convicted to death on a trail without proof –but that wasn’t the case for Marie Antoinette.
Marie had been trialed for treason and incest along with other things. Though convicted to death on the guillotine by the Revolutionary Tribunal, no one had proof that Marie had done treason or the other crimes that she was trailed for. But no one hesitated to convict the Queen of France, for she was despised by the French, and especially by the poor. Marie had been hated and proves are on the daily newspaper all over France. There would be pamphlets of the Queen having affairs. The French put up with the Dauphine since she was to be the future Queen of France.
Two days before Marie’s wedding, Marie arrived at France and met her future husband, the Dauphin of France, Louis-Auguste, and the King of France. The French didn’t like the fact of having an Austrian Queen and later on also learned to dislike her lavish taste. Marie would like to do many things that weren’t proper for a Queen to do when her country was in trouble. In the end, Marie continued to shop, party and gamble while her husband quietly paid off her debts. Even though the Dauphine had belonged to the Royal Court, she didn’t try to befriend any of the court members. She just had a few bunch of royal friends, which the other court members thought rude for her to do.
By the morning after the wedding, everyone in the palace knew that the royal couple didn’t consume their marriage at the royal chamber bed. They all knew since anyone belonging in the Royal Court can enter and leave any room at pleased, so they were present at night–sitting in chair around the bed. Everyone knew and criticized the Dauphin and Dauphine –and especially the King even though the marriage hadn’t been consumed because of Louis’s physical problem. But still, Marie was blamed for not being able to bed her husband and the abhorrence against the Dauphine grew more night after night –and it went on for whole seven years of the couple’s lack of marriage. Marie’s mother, Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina –the Empress consort of the Holy Roman Empire– criticized Marie a lot in her letters to about the fact of not producing an heir. Maria Theresa act so strict to Marie since until Marie produced an heir, Marie’s post as Queen of France will never be secured. Finally, seven years later, Marie gave birth to her first child, a girl called Marie Thérèse, after Marie’s mother. Everyone in France celebrated, and wine came out of the public water fountain and bread and meat were given out to all for free.
But their came a time when Marie was put to test to see where her sophisticated ways of living reached–and it came know as the Diamond Necklace Affair. Before the King of France had died of smallpox, he had ordered to be made a custom diamond necklace for his mistress, Madame du Barry. Since didn’t plan on dying anytime soon, he didn’t plan on paying the necklace until the creation was finished. So when the designer of the necklace, Charles Bohmer, found out about the current death, he immediately panicked –for who would buy such an expensive 2800 carat necklace (540 diamond pieces). The necklace was worth 1,600,000 lives and would cost around 100 million dollars today. Bohmer thought that now with the King dead and du Barry gone for good, he could try to persuade the new queen, Marie, to buy the necklace. But the Queen never accepted, for she would never accept something that was made for du Burry, Marie’s archenemy and she even knew how lavish it was. Even though Marie refused the necklace, that didn’t stop people from gossiping about her.
One of the ways of proving Marie’s repulsion throughout France was the way Marie was killed. On the morning of October 16, 1793, two weeks before Marie’s thirty eight birthday, Marie-Antoinette was executed on the guillotine. However, before that morning, some of Marie’s family members and friends were killed. Marie’s son died in prison in 1795, her sister-in-law was executed in 1794 and Marie’s best friend was raped and then hung in a parade in front of the Queen that previous year. Before Marie’s trial and execution, Marie had been a prisoner. When the King died at age thirty-eight, Marie became known as the “Widow Capet” and languished ever since. After that day, Marie always wore a simple black cotton dress on the exception of her execution. That day she wore a white simple dress and when the priest suggested courage, she snapped back, “Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it when at the moment when my sufferings are to end?”(“Lucidcafé: Marie Antoinette”). As Marie stepped on the scaffold to get to the guillotine, she accidently stepped on the foot of the executioner, Henri Sanson. Consequently, her last words where to Henri, “Monsieur, I beg your pardon. I did not do it on purpose.”(“Lucidcafé: Marie-Antoinette”) After being sliced off, the coward cheered and Marie’s dead body was tossed in an unmarked grave behind Madeline Cemetery.
You see, the catch of being the Queen of France is title, power and being towered with luxuries–the same fate for each past Queen of France. But a twist of fate can show to be an ugly nightmare for people like Marie Antoinette. Who knows, maybe Marie Antoinette was nice and friendly or selfish and sophisticated. But that’s the mystery of life –no one ever knows anything for sure, nor their future ahead of themselves and that why you should be prepared to face the impossible…