Queen Marie Antoinette

[helenazar]

Didn't want to start a new thread for this, but just came across this MA action figure. The head ejector feature is in somewhat bad taste, otherwise not too bad...

[russianOTMA]

"I put on my rouge and wash my hands in front of the whole world!"
Expressing her irritation at her very public life as royalty. She gave birth to her first child in her bedchamber before an audience of hundreds of courtiers. From Wikipedia.

I guess you can say she publicly displayed herself sometimes, although I doubt it would go any father than putting on rouge and bathe in front of her ladies.

[Eric_Lowe]

She was always too fond of make up and dress and not enough about statecraft like her mother or her sister Maria Carolina.

[Mari]

She gave birth to her first child in her bedchamber before an audience of hundreds of courtiers. From Wikipedia.
I guess you can say she publicly displayed herself sometimes, although I doubt it would go any father than putting on rouge and bathe in front of her ladies.

I don't think you can go any further than the first one...lets say there was no privacy at all!

[Eric_Lowe]

Yes...Versaillesis avery public space. The pressure to be royal at that time was intense. 

[Norbert]

not just Versailles....lets face it took Queen Victoria  to request privacy for her lying in

[Bourgogne]

Actually, I've asked this before, but got no answer. I read in the Royal Diaries book about Marie Antoinette that she had to take her Austrian clothes off in front of all those women and get her French clothes. She also had to take her baths in front of other women. I know those diaries aren't very accurate, so what really happened?

I'm sorry, but it's a legend. Yes, it was an old tradition for foreigner princesses who married french princes. They had to leave "even a little ribbon which was not french".
But at Marie-Antoinette's time, it was fallen into inuse.
André Castelot, in his reference biography of the Queen, explains that this story comes from Mme Campan's "Mémoires", who, about this like about other things, made a mistake.
He proves that, when she crossed the anstrian-french border, Marie-Antoinette was dressed with a dress which had been brought from Vienna, and that she conserved with her in France all her austrian "youg lady"'s jewel...

For the bathes, yes, she had to take her bads in front of her chamber maids. But there is a point: she always was wearing a long flannel gown to take these bathes...

[CountessKate]

"I put on my rouge and wash my hands in front of the whole world!"
Expressing her irritation at her very public life as royalty. She gave birth to her first child in her bedchamber before an audience of hundreds of courtiers.

The point about giving birth in public was that the baby was incontrovertibly the child of her body and not a substitute (whether it was the father's was not subject to proof).  While it was horrific, it was something all Queens and Dauphines of France had to go through, at least with their first-born and a version of this was in place for a long while in quite a lot of courts.  Queen Victoria's birthings were not subject to anything like that publicity - a few ministers waited discreetly in an adjoining room, but Victorian delicacy caused her to request that they did not attend at all. 

The court at Versailles was the creation of Louis XIV, who managed to seize power from the nobility and invest it solely in himself by making himself the centre of all patronage and benefits.  To do this, he ensured that it was much more worth the courtier's while to come to Versailles and attend all the court functions, in hopes of being noticed by the king, rather than trying to seize power by force of arms as in the Fronde.  And to make sure that the courtiers had hope, he had to be on display most of the time - at his rising from bed, the levee, his walks, meals, entertainments - all of which were inherited by Marie Antoinette.  All the courtiers hated anything their rulers did to gain more privacy since this meant patronage was cut off from all but the very few - the 'favorites'.  Louis XV had small private rooms created in Versailles to be more private, and the courtiers called these rooms 'rats nests' as a sign of their anger that they had less access to the king.  So Marie Antoinette wasn't the first to suffer from the lack of privacy, or the first to create more private retreats.  She just moaned about it more than her predecessors.

[Eric_Lowe]

Well...She was the first to go through the humiliation of having a husband who cannot perform (esprcially one from the ultra-sexed Bourbon family). 

[erzsi]

hi, i know its a little bit offtopic, but can somebody tell me facts of the life of MA lady in waiting Louise Emilie Quepee de Laborde later Madame de Jarjayes?And id somebody know if there pictures still exist from her? thanks

[CountessKate]

MA lady in waiting Louise Emilie Quepee de Laborde later Madame de Jarjayes?And id somebody know if there pictures

She was one of the twelve Premieres Femmes de Chambre of the Queen I believe, not a lady in waiting (i.e., not a Dame d'Honneur or Dame du Palais) - a sort of highly superior maid.  She was first married to a German harpist at the French Court, Philip Josef Hinner, who died in 1784, after which she married Francois-Augustin Reinier, Chevalier de Jarjayes, adjutant-general of the army. The Chevalier was one of the most prominant persons belonging to the Royalist party during the Revolution, who made many attempts to save Marie Antoinette.  Madame Jarjayes was apparently much loved by Marie Antoinette and involved in her husband's plots to save her. Before her execution, Marie Antoinette sent her a lock of her hair and a pair of earrings. After the death of the King and Queen, the Jarjayes emigrated to Turin, but returned under the Consulate and at the Restoration, Louis XVII made the Chevalier a Lieutenant General.

She was the mother of Louise Antoinette Laure Hinner, later Laure de Berny,  the friend of Honoré de Balzac. 

This is all I know - not very much.  I haven't any pictures.

[Eric_Lowe]

Did QA had correspondences with her sisters ? If so have they been published ?

[Ortino]

Did QA had correspondences with her sisters ? If so have they been published ?

I haven't seen or read any correspondence between them, but I imagine that if she wrote to anyone, it was Charlotte. They were the closest in age after all and quite fond of each other.

[Mari]

A Conspiracy Under the Terror is a great book to read and has many mentions of  Madame Jarjayes.

http://books.google.com/books?id=yjouAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA145&lpg=PA145&dq=Madame+de+Jarjayes%3F&source=web&ots=rGm7aQeWQ2&sig=iKQofTetuETbj-oOGqjVfqVvXgc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result#PPA185,M1

[Eric_Lowe]

Charlotte ? You mean Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples right ? Yes, shewas the closest. But she also written a last letter to Maria Amalia, Duchess of Parma. I don't think she like Mimi much, but still the Mesdames or Marie Therese did met this sister...