Thursday, June 15, 2006

Monument to Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI

At first I thought these were the actual tombs of Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, but I found I was quite mistaken when I found their graves in the crypt. I've been doing a lot of reading about these guys, and I've gotten to the point where I consider myself one of their biggest fans. Here's a recap of the story, I'll be way more brief than I ought. In an effort to improve relations between France and Austria, the King of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Francis I married his daughter Marie Antoine off to Louis XVII. She was 14 he was 16. They were immediately expected to have a child, but for some reason (people say Louis XVI was afraid to touch her) she didn't get pregnant until she was 21. Can you believe it? Anyhow, when Louis XVI was 20 his dad died, making him King and Marie Queen. As you know they lived at this lavish palace in Versailles, and Marie spent money like there was no tomorrow. She actually had a huge house built for her to escape the rigors of living at Versailles! Come on. Meanwhile, Louis XVI made the public irrate by sending a lot of money and soldiers to help the Americans in the revolution, and so the French decided, and rightly so, to have their own revolution. They stormed Versailles demanding the King to release the store of flour that was apparently (but not really) in the castle. Marie allegedly said, "let them eat cake", because it requires less flour to make cake than it does to make bread. To make a long story short, the mobs won out, put Marie, Louis, their son and daughter, and all the court in prison, eventually executing each one by guillotine. I don't know, there was reason to stop the vain monarchy, but no one should have to go through what Marie Antoinette did during her imprisonment. They would actually place the heads of her friends and family on spikes outside her cell window. Her poor son died of sickness at age eleven while in prison; NOT the same cell as his mother. Eventually she was paraded through the streets of Paris and guillotined in 1793 at the age of 38, although people say she looked as though she were 70. The story is much more detailed than that, but there's the longs and shorts. There was just a movie put out about Marie. Is there anyone about that might give me a critique?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

What's the name of the movie? You know me I love to watch movies, I'll give a critique, Mom

Kason said...

The title is quite creative: Marie Antoinette. It was produced and directed by Sofia Copolla, and has been in the theatres about a month or so now. Did you know that in France movies always come out on the Wednesday before the American release date? Interesting, eh?