#widow capet

[inky-duchess]

The Duchess's Writeable People of History #8

Maria Antonia of the House of Haspburg, Marie Antoinette, Last Queen of France and Archduchess of the Holy Roman Empire

Marie Antoinette was the last Queen of France. Hated and villified, Marie Antoinette has been centre stage of the French revolution. Known to her enemies as Widow Capet, Madam Deficit and the Austrian bitch, Marie Antoinette was slandered ever since she crossed the French border. Did history ever give her a chance? We're going to, right here.

Marie Antoinette was born as Maria Antonia, youngest daughter of the powerful Holy Roman Empress, Maria Theresa. She was one of fifteen children so there was little time for her. She wasn't educated as greatly as others and nobody bothered to teach her how to be a queen. Maria Antonia was trained from birth to become the Dauphine, the wife of the heir to the throne. In her fourteenth year, she was finally sent to go to marry her prince. This was going to be the biggest moment of her life. She was not going to ever be sidelined again. She was not Maria Antonia. She was to be Marie Antoinette.

Arriving in France was no fairytale. She did not take to her husband Louis at first (they didn't consummate the marriage for seven years) and the king turned out to be under the spell of his mistress Madame du Barry. Marie Antoinette was inducted into the intricate etiquette system of Versailles. Everything was done for her. She didn't dress without help or alone. People came to watch her get dressed and eat. Nothing was private any more.

Marie Antoinette had one big obstacle in her early years: du Barry. The mistress couldn't speak to her until Marie Antoinette spoke to her first, something she avoided. She finally spoke to du Barry with the infamous words "There are a lot of people at Versailles today." But Marie Antoinette would not suffer long. When the king died, du Barry was shoved out and Marie Antoinette became Queen.

Marie Antoinette had four children but two died young. When she was giving birth, the court crowded to watch. Nothing was private in Versailles. Once Queen, Marie Antoinette began to spend. She owned thousands of gowns, shoes and wigs. Some blame her education for her recklessness with money and some say she was greedy. I think it was because of extreme loneliness.

Because France had over taxed their people, most of the increases were due to the American War of Independence, the French revolted. They stormed the Bastille on 14th July. Yet the king and queen stayed at Versailles. A group of women stormed Versailles and drove the royal family to the smaller Tuileries palace. There the royals were arrested.

Though attempting an escape, the royals never made it out. Once King Louis was guillotined, nobody was safe. Marie Antoinette was put on trial. They claimed she had molested her own son and had said the infamous and false phrase "If they have no bread, let them eat cake." Marie Antoinette climbed the guillotine steps after her trial. She stepped on her executioner's foot by accident (maybe) and apologised before getting on her knees and dying.

Marie Antoinette was not history's villain. She cannot be overly cleared for all she was accused of but perhaps we can understand her a little bit. Marie Antoinette remains the most glamorous Queens of History.

For @slythering98

[emvidal]

January 21, Saint Agnes day, is the dies natalis of the Roi-Martyr, when two hundred and eighteen years ago, Louis XVI was taken from the Temple prison to be guillotined. The previous night he had said farewell to his family, and their reaction was so hysterical that he decided not to see them again in the morning, for fear of faltering in his own courage. His fifteen year old daughter fainted. He rode to his death in a coach accompanied by the Irish priest, Abbé Edgeworth de Firmont, who had been Madame Elisabeth's confessor and who had refused the oath to the government. Together they recited the seven penitential psalms, as described in the novel Trianon. Arriving at the scaffold, the executioner tried to bind Louis' hands behind his back but he resisted, not wanting to be treated like a criminal who might try to run away. Abbé Edgeworth, fearing the king might be struck, convinced him to submit to the indignity by saying that it was one more way in which he resembled his Master. Louis raised his eyes to the sky as if seeing beyond this world and then with hands bound he ascended the scaffold unassisted. The drummers drowned out his last words to his people.   http://teaattrianon.blogspot.com/2018/01/execution-of-louis-xvi.html

[tiny-librarian]

Detail of "The Widow Capet" at the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Source

[pretty-little-fools]

[wil5lie]

I had to write a Gothic Story for English and it's more melancholy than scary... so here ya go

Widow Capet

A bustling noise came from outside my window and I roused from my light slumber. T’was the wind, I thought, and nothing more. As I got out of bed, thunder boomed overhead so vigorously that the palace walls shook, as if to collapse upon itself. I rubbed the last remnants of slumber from my eyes and drew the lavish drapes that veiled rags and royalty. A light rain descended from the sky and a bright light blazed in the distance. As the glow moved closer and closer to the palace walls, I gasped in horror.

My heart stopped as a pounding at the door interrupted my terrified trance. I cautiously walked to the chamber door and was bombarded by my confidante, Marie Louise. Amidst the commotion, my husband, the king, awoke, startled yet eager to understand the urgency in Marie’s manner.

“The revolutionaries!” she stammered. They’re rioting outside the palace as we speak!” She heaved from weariness, nearly collapsing to the floor. My husband’s face hardened as if prepared for war.

“I shall awake our children, my love. We shall weather this storm out together.” And with that, I was off. The dark corridors stretched endlessly and the walls seemed to move closer and closer; life as I knew it was caving in. I was constantly falling and getting back up, using the luminescent flashes of lightning to guide my feet. It became a pattern: stumble, fall, and get back up. My life was a rinse and repeat: a constant fall and constant get back up.

I was frantically running with tears welling up in my eyes. No, I thought, wiping my tears, I must be strong; this family, this country needs me.

I burst through the first door, breathing heavily from the effects of such a swift outburst of energy. The room was lit only by the moonlight shining through the large windows overlooking the pavilion. The area was lined with various assortments of mirrors, large and small, simple and elegant. I pressed my hands to my temples, breathing heavily, and starting at each and every reflection of me. Those sad blue eyes stared back into my soul. The weakness emanated from her being and she screamed. The mirror directly in front of me shattered into a million, sparkling pieces.

Disoriented, I tripped over a foreign object into the empty darkness which revealed itself as my son’s room. As I regained composure I took in my surroundings. The room was vacant except for a single portrait: that of the late Dauphin, my son, Louis Joseph. The precarious chandelier glistened in the forlorn moonlight. In the corner of the room, near where my prince had slept, there stood a fireplace made of white marble infused with gold and ivory. It radiated little heat as its reign of fire came to an end and the burning embers suffocated. I stood there, helpless and hopelessly gasping for air that refused to enter my lungs. The tears suddenly gushed from my eyes, perpetually falling and staining my gown. Where are you, prince? Why have you gone and left your mother so broken? My knees buckled as I fell to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. I was powerless, my body and soul in the hands of a God who only knows pain and suffering and inflicts the same torment upon me.

Thunder roared above and lightning flashed. The bejeweled chandelier above my very head came crashing down, and I knelt there, hoping the pain would finally end.

The sunlight danced its way through the barred windows trapping me in my lonely cell. The rays glistened over my face and startled me. My eyes are still red and puffy-eyed from the previous night’s terror. It had been over a year since the peasants ransacked our Parisian palace. And it had been exactly two hundred and thirty nine days since my loving husband, Louis, was sentenced to death by beheading. Two hundred and thirty dolorous days since my heart was once whole and my spirit once hopeful and thriving. Today I will join him, and we shall watch our country, who we never stopped cherishing, prosper from our palace in the clouds.

As I lay on my cot, I reflect upon the past two days of awful damnation and accusations were hard to forebear. Denunciated for the hosting and partaking of orgies in Versailles as well as the plot to assassinate the Duke of Orléans were among the many implications I have been branded with. The worst of all, was the warping of my son to accuse me of sexual molestation. My own son, my beloved Louis Charles, manipulated to further the revolutionaries’ plans and to bring about my demise. There is no monetary wealth to me or my family, yet we are rich; rich in tragedy and rich in sorrow.

The tears started up again, creating a dewy partition. The lethargic footsteps of my guard, executioner, and another unknown person urged me to wipe my tears swiftly; they will not receive the satisfaction of my sadness. The unidentifiable footstep turned out to be a young mademoiselle who bestowed upon me a lovely, clean white dress. I thanked her before my executioner forcefully entered my cell. He wasted no time in carrying out his orders, cutting off my beautiful hair and burning it. He then bound my wrists so tightly it was as if it were under my skin. The young, handsome guard heaved with a long, heavy sigh as he opened my cell. His eyes told the story of a poor man, barely living yet barely dying. With a pained look my guard escorted me outside my prison to a scaffold surrounded by the public Parisians. Walking up, I had accidentally stepped on my executioner’s toe. *«Monsieur, je vous demande pardon. Je ne l’ai pas fait exprès» I lowered my head into the dreaded guillotine and waited for the blade to fall.

*«Monsieur, je vous demande pardon. Je ne l’ai pas fait exprès.» Marie Antoinette’s last words as she accidentally stepped on her executioner’s foot. It means, “Monsieur, I ask your pardon. I did not do it on purpose.”

[tiny-librarian]

Doll of Marie Antoinette in her widow's garb.

[dennisbudesheim-blog]

Widow Capet

              She no longer had any hope left in her heart or distinguished between life and death; sometimes she looked at us with a kind of compassion which was quite frightening-Marie Therese, daughter of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI

Charcoal on butcher paper, 2010