drinkyourfuckingmilk:

she was my idol through high school. that sounds weird but hear me out. she spent most of her life in the court of Versailles which was just a notorious snake pit of cruel gossip and she was relentlessly bullied and shamed for either her Austrian heritage (xenophobia was rife in France at the time, particularly for Austria), her inability to provide an heir for a time (due to Louis xvi’s incompetence in the bedroom), her sexuality and sex life was consistently attacked, she was chided by her mother via letters constantly for not living up to these ridiculous expectations of perfection – basically scrutinized for everything essentially. she was just a teenager who’d been thrown into this marriage of convenience for an alliance with France and had to deal with these cruel gossipy adults.

and at the time I read biographies on her I was at an all-girl high school that was just merciless with bullying and gossip and shaming etc. and so the way marie antoinette coped and dealt with that onslaught of bitchiness in Versailles was actually incredibly inspiring and comforting to me at the time. she just held her head up and kept strutting around, doing her thang. she had the petit trianon built so she could get away from the haters and go hang out with her friends and be herself – she pulled a bender and was like, “I WILL HAVE MY OWN PARTY, WITH BLACKJACK AND HOOKERS” essentially.

and another reason why I fell in love with her is that marie antoinette was very different to this image even modern historians and culture have painted her as. she’s ridiculously misunderstood and misconstrued, even in history classes. she never actually said “let them eat cake” (the phrase was originally shoved onto a Spanish princess who may or may not have even said it). on the day of the bread shortage when she supposedly said that harsh line, she had actually written in her diary that she and the king must work harder than ever to help the people of france. despite being called madame deficit and being paraded as an icon of excess and selfish disregard for the impoverished, she frequently helped people and had so much compassion for everyone; stopping her carriage to help the less fortunate, going out of her way to assist someone in trouble, insisting on bringing town children in to the palace to have food, rest, and play with her or her own children, she taught her children to give their toys and privileges to the poor, had numerous charities she donated to, and out of the entire royal family at the time, she actually spent the least amount of money on frivolous shit. I mean she was the one who scrapped the excessive and expensive fashions of the time and insisted on more modest and simple and inexpensive fashion with muslin gowns and simpler hairstyles – that all came in to fashion when she was in her late 20s – early 30s. 

she had no way of knowing the extent of the suffering of the people of france because the situation was so censored and hushed up around her but when she did find out, and saw the unrest, she actually worked really hard to go above and beyond her duty as a figurehead (as queen she had no real political power and louis XVI was way too indecisive and timid for leadership) and began studying the history of france, engaging in politics, trying to develop changes for the country that would help fix the levels of inequality and poverty etc. it didn’t amount to much, because as I said, she had very little power in the end. and by the time she actually found out what was going down, it was too little too late. 

when the revolution did break out, marie antoinette showed insane bravery and intelligence through all of it. she saw her best friends head on a pike held outside her window, but she carried on; she had her children ripped away from her and had to listen to her son being abused and taunted every night for months in prison and she carried on; she was offered chances to escape prison herself but she absolutely refused to leave her children behind KNOWING that she and her entire family would most likely be executed, during her trial she showed remarkable intelligence and insight – she even turned the angry mob in that court around on to her side just with her words and disposition. and when Versailles was stormed by a horde of people armed to the teeth and demanding her blood, she greeted them on the balcony, bowed to them, and immediately had them cheering for her. when she was taken to be executed, she sat in the cart with her head held high, didn’t cry, didn’t scream, didn’t beg, and she practically skipped up the stairs to the guillotine – stepped on the executioners foot and apologized profusely for hurting him before facing her death. she was so much more than she is given credit for – in a lot of ways she reminds me almost of a sansa stark type hero. she didn’t need to be a full-blown aggressive badass warrior woman in order to be heroic and strong. and more feminists need to take note of her; she was so unfairly bashed simply for being a woman but she never wavered and never broke down over it. 

the tragedy of her situation was that she was really just a normal young woman who received no training or guidance whatsoever on what it takes to be a queen; she was only taught to look pretty, be graceful, obedient, delicate and refined. and yet she frequently rose to every hardship thrown at her with an elegant “fuck you” attitude and I just think marie antoinette is really really great and actually a hero in her own way. she helped me keep my head up and maintain some fucking dignity during the bullying I had thrown at me in high school.

i love the shit outta her. oh! and if you want to look at a badass female ruler in her own right, just look at marie antoinette’s mother maria teresa who was the empress of austria-hungary at the time. woman was so dedicated and efficient as a ruler she used to do paperwork while GIVING BIRTH. she was like lady olyenna from game of thrones; nobody wanted to mess with her. her only failure was she didn’t pass on her skills as a ruler to her children for the most part.