Customer Reviews

Biography - Marie Antoinette [VHS]

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With wonderful costumes, reenactments, political cartoons, and paintings, Marie Antoinette's biography portrayed by A&E is magnificent. The producers really wanted to give a clear and accurate account of her life and they drove it home. The Queen did have a tragic life, even though she was surrounded by wealth. She never knew true love, never saw the ocean, and was a devoted mother. Unfortunatly she saw two of her children die. Thankfully she died at the guillotine before she could realize the fate of her beloved Louis XVII. Heartfelt and touching, even those who do not like (or even hate) Marie Antoinette will not help but be touched by her tragic life. Once the lies and rumors are put to rest, you'll see that she was a normal woman in an extraordinary role.

I am still amazed at the historical inaccuracies that plague this poor woman. She was married at fifteen and became queen of France (not Empress as the editorial commentary states) at the age of nineteen, with no one to guide her, the King's three sisters plotting against her - an awkward husband who would have been better suited as a farmer than as a King, her only friend was Louis XV - until she had a disagreement (caused by her sisters in law) with Madame DuBarry, the King's mistress. She was then on her own, except for the letters her mother, Empress Maria Theresa sent to her. Who would not turn to fun and parties in Paris with elegant courtiers? She became serious after Louis XVI finally had an operation which allowed them to have children. She never said "Let them eat cake" and she was a victim in the necklace affair. LaMotte and Cardinal de Rohan were the guilty ones. She did not purchase Trianon, it was given to her by Louis XVI as a gift, although she did embellish the grounds with the creation of the Hameau. She was dragged off to Paris and imprisoned with her family in the Tuileries palace, the royal family tried to escape with the help of the only true friend she ever had, Count Axel von Fersen of Sweden. They did not reach the border and were caught and forced back to Paris, where they became prisoners in the Temple. In 1793, Louis Capet as Louis XVI was renamed by the revolutionary tribunal was beheaded. Marie Antoinette was then brutally separated from her children, her daugher and her beloved son, and taken to the Conciergerie prison, she was subjected to a bogus trial with the cruelest and most inhumane accusations made against her. When she was driven to the scaffold, she most likely welcomed the end. She died with great dignity and courage. As the guard led her to the guillotine, she accidentally stepped on his foot, and she said, I am sorry, Sir, I did not do this on purpose. Those were her last words...

This is an excellent look at the controversial life and barbaric death of Marie Antoinette. It gives a well-balanced account of her life, clearly pointing out the mistakes and failures that contributed to her own demise while, at the same time, showing her to be a remarkable woman of courage and nobility. For all of their airs, the French have a bloody, ignominious history; the French Revolution could not have been more different than the American Revolution that both inspired and contributed to it. A prisoner for a good two years, her husband beheaded, her power and influence completely stripped away, Marie Antoinette's appointment with a guillotine and the disgusting display of her severed head in front of the blood lusting masses leaves one of the most indelible stains on the pages of history.

Born an arch-duchess of Austria, Marie Antoinette's marriage to the grandson of King Louis XVI of France in her early teens was meant to cement the new alliance between France and Austria, an alliance forged in reaction to a Prussian-English alliance. Half of the French court and at least half of the country had no use for Austria, so Marie was not exactly walking into open arms when she arrived at Versailles. The future Louis XVI had a medical condition which prevented the marriage from being consummated for several years, and Marie's delight in the social life of Paris earned her a reputation for loose morals and profligate spending. There can be no argument over the fact that Marie Antoinette spent money in lavish proportions, even as the people of France suffered through great economic hardship. When things really got bad and France's economic involvement in America's Revolution put the country on the brink of bankruptcy, the young queen purchased yet another palace for herself. Not until the mishandling of a scheme involved to implicate the queen in the purchase of a fabulously expensive diamond necklace did Marie Antoinette come to realize just how much the French people hated her. She and everything she represented became the scapegoat for the nation's troubles.

Marie Antoinette faced death nobly and courageously. Some people might think the peasants rebelled and quickly put the king and queen to death, but that is not the case. The royal family languished under house arrest for over a year and a half, and the king was executed several months before Marie met her fate. She was beheaded just to satisfy the bloodlust of the people. No matter how ineffective a queen she may have been, her brutal execution at the hands of the mob was a true tragedy. This video paints a vivid portrait of a woman viewed all too often in terms of a simple caricature.

And, just for the record, she never said "Let them eat cake."

Great insight into a much maligned woman!