On This Day in History: October 16

The execution of Marie Antoinette

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She never said, “Let them eat cake.” Marie Antoinette was a fish out of water and a political pawn used to cement a fragile alliance between her homeland of Austria with France. She was only 14 when she was shipped off to marry the French heir to the throne, and before long became a victim of numerous lies that had the people of her new homeland despising her.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: October 16, 1793--

Marie was a homesick girl who sought escape in extravagance. In 1774, with the death of his grandfather, her husband Louis XVI ascended the French throne, and she became queen. Her husband was solitary, but Marie was a party girl. Living in luxury in the Palace of Versailles (I’ve been there, and all I can say is holy fucking shit), the royal couple was oblivious to the plight of the average French citizen.

Marie spent lavishly on dresses and jewelry and parties, but a comical scandal arose from the artificial hamlet created for her near the palace where she could escape court life by living in a fake gated village built solely for her and her close friends. Referred to as an “expensive pastoral comedy,” it caused yet another uproar when the cost became known.

She became a target of ire among the people for her spending, and of course the criticism snowballed from there. She was slut-shamed, and it was said her children were not the king’s, but bastards. Her reputation already suffering, it totally went to shit with “The Affair of the Diamond Necklace” in 1785. Marie was completely guiltless; con artists used her name to defraud the crown jewelers of an obscenely expensive necklace. But people didn’t care about the truth, her poor reputation nosedived further and never recovered. People hated her.

Then in 1789 revolution began, and two years later the royal family attempted to escape France but were captured and returned to Paris. A year later Robespierre, a lawyer and statesman, was attaining power and gonna do his Reign of Terror thing and said fuck the monarchy, let’s kill them.

The monarchy was abolished and Marie’s husband the king was executed in January 1793. After a brief show trial Marie too was sent to the guillotine for crimes of treason, on October 16, 1793. She remained composed in front of the jeering crowd, and her final words were an apology to the executioner for accidentally stepping on his foot. She was buried in an unmarked grave but exhumed in 1815 during the Bourbon Restoration and was given a Christian burial in the Basilica of St. Denis.

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