Marie Antoinette playing the harp at the French Court. Painting by Jean-Baptiste Gautier Dagoty
The moment chosen for this ill-will towards Marie Antoinette was the very one when she had abandoned these faults and had become serious and exemplary….
So long as Marie Antoinette was frivolous and was guilty, not of real faults, but of imprudent actions, she was the recipient of general flattery and admiration. But so soon as she became absolutely irreproachable, she was overwhelmed with harsh judgments and ill-will. Such is the world’s justice!
The same thing may be said about the nobility. As M. Taine has justly remarked, never was the aristocracy so worthy of power as at the moment when it was about to lose it.
Portrait of Marie Antoinette by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun
Imbert de Saint-Amand, Marie Antoinette and the End of the Old Régime, trans. Thomas Sergeant Perry (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1914), pp. 6-7.
Alone, Marie Antoinette confronts the revolutionary mob
The Dauphin is wrenched from Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette: Ever majestic, though anxious as she discerns the approaching Revolution
Weak authority and unbridled liberty
Marie Antoinette organizes the rescue of a hurt postillion
Marie Antoinette took care of the sick and needy herself
While hunting, Marie Antoinette took pains not to damage the harvest
Last Letter of Marie-Antoinette
Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France and Capetian Widow
Marie Antoinette was a Good Samaritan
Marie Antoinette’s dulcimer player
Marie Antoinette saves a seat for an expecting mother who was visiting Versailles
A 14-year-old Archduchess Marie Antoinette is welcomed to France
The Dauphin’s gift to the Queen on New Year’s Day
Marie Antoinette teaches her children to sacrifice themselves for the poor
The Dauphin’s innocent description of a revolutionary riot
Marie Antoinette confronts and converts a Jacobin woman
In admiring his mother, Queen Marie Antoinette, the Dauphin learns about superlatives
Setting the record straight about Marie Antoinette
In defense of one who cannot defend herself…
Marie Antoinette reprimands the Dauphin for whistling
