March 12, 2024 • 23 mins
Today we're back at Versailles which means one thing: "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!" and with that delicious cake we'll be taking a look at one of Bad Manors most controversial figures Marie Antoinette. Joining us again is the wonderful Birgit Marie.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I would really like to know if Marie Antoinette did
have a TikTok herself, what sort of videos would she
be posting? Gosh, can she be one for doing the
TikTok dance trends?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
She enjoyed dancing a lot, but I think like, yeah,
but probably like the dancing videos would have been more
like Louis the fourteenth thing, because he was like a
ballet obsessed. So I don't know. I think she would
probably just do like makeup tutorials or something.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, I can imagine that.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, probably, and just maybe just talk videos, you know,
like these storytime videos like story.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Time of how I knows the latest scandal or thing
that she's just spent loads of money on show. Okay,
story time. I've just bought another massive painting.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, I just commissioned this fake village in my back garden.
Yeah this is how I did it.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, Welcome back to Bad Manners and Bian Venue. Back
to France. In this episode, we're returning to Versailles, that
famous eighteenth century pallace you've heard of, you know, the
one party capital of France, royal residence for not one,
but three Louise and homes lots of smelly people.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
There was no running water, there was no combing. They
didn't FaZe because they thought that was unhealthy. It was disgusting.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
It was also home to the subject of today's episode,
Mary Antoinette.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
She would stand there in her bedroom, half naked, traveling
and cold, and she just was like, can please the
highest ranking woman come in so I can put my
shirt on.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Guiding us through Mary Antoinette's life and yes, her death
as well, is this podcast's highest ranking woman.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Thank you so much. My name is Brittette. You can
find me on TikTok as Britette Mary. I have a
TikTok paint about royal history.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
When she wasn't naked and trembling, Mary Antoinette was busy
throwing parties, putting boats in her hair, spending lots of
money and oh yeah, being Queen of France. I think
you're a woman like that needs an origin story.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
So Marie Antoinette was born as the daughter of the
Empress of Austria, Maria Teresa. She was a Habsburg and
Habsburg's where they were a little bit over bread, like
they they sort.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Of overbread and overbread and in bread. Am I right?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I'm sorry? That's what I meant. Yeah, yeah, bread.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
She also had.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, you could recognize them by the chins, and she
had them. You don't really see them that well in portraits,
but if you see a bust of her, you can
kind of sort of see like, yeah, it's there. And
she was the youngest. She had like a Brazilian brothers
and sisters, and she was the youngest, and actually her
older sister was Actually they planned to marry her to
(02:54):
the French heir to the Dauphin that's like a crown
friend's title, the Dauphin and Dlphine. But she had caught
small pox, so her face was full of scars. So
they moved on to the next girl, and that was
Maria Antonia Marie Antoinette, and they would name her Antoine
at this Auestring court. And she was quite love like,
(03:17):
it was nice. She was her mother, loved her family,
and she had all these brothers and sisters. But you
can imagine, like all these sisters would like one on
to the other, they would leave. So that must have
been said. But also something she knew would eventually happen
to her, Like these girls they grew up knowing. One
day I'm going to, you know, get married off, and
(03:37):
I'm just gonna have to hope that it's going to
be a good bloke, to be honest, And she was
fourteen when that happened to her. She moved to Visi,
and in her whole life she never saw the sea,
all the ocean. She moved to Visi and that kind
of became her world. That is why Fai is such
an important place to go if you want to understand
Marie Antoinette or any of these people, to be honest,
because it was an alternative reality away from from the
(04:01):
reality of seventeenth eighteenth century France, all that poverty, you know,
Like I mean Louis the sixteenth he inherited a bankrupt France.
People were not happy.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Well, yeah, didn't. Her eventual execution was sort of the
stopping point of the old France. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Look, I feel like Marie Antournade has been blamed a
lot for the failure of the French monarchy, which I
think is very unfair.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, she spent all the money, didn't she.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
She enjoyed spending money. I'm not definitely not going to
deny that. But if you compare the courts of Luida fourteenth,
Luida fifteenth, and what Luisa sixteenth spent he was definitely
like looked at the money a bit more so. They
inherited a bankrupt France, and he definitely made mistakes. I'm
not going to deny that he was not suited to
be king Louisa sixteenth, not at all. But a lot
(04:55):
of what these people are is where they lived and
how they went through life. Writing Luida sixteenth, like he
grew up at Pasai and as I just described it,
with all that ceremony and all that splendor and all
these the parties that they would host at for Zai
are ridiculous. There was just no limit on what they
could spend. That is how these people lived and that
(05:17):
is how we remember them.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Do you have a favorite party story from any of
those parties?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Not necessarily a story, But what I like most is
the Concernal, which was the biggest lake basically and if
you walk out of the palace and walk into the
garden scene, you'll eventually you'll see it like you coute this.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
This was artificially built.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
It was yeah, and that's kind of crazy if you
think about it, because as I mentioned, because I was
built on Marshland. So it was just people just kept
telling Luisa fourteenth, like, with all due respect, please build
your like your dream home, but not here because this
is Marshland. But he did it anyway, And I think
that kind of was part of why it attracted to
him so much, that it was such an impossible location,
(06:00):
because they would be like, look what I built this miracle,
but yeah, on that canal, they would literally do these
navy battles recreations. Is that right, Yeah, Like they've they've
recreate naval battles and these boats would sink and they
obviously never be able to use them again. And these
(06:21):
women are like I love these drawings of these women
they would put they would have these huge wigs and
they would add fake like miniature ships in their hair
when they went to see those.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Battles those class big like curly white yeah yeah, Marge
Simpson like yeah yeah, and then just shove a battleship
on it.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah. And I mean wigs changed a lot, to be honest, like,
especially like the female wigs, but also the male wigs
because the Luisa fourteenth kind of started the whole wig
trand because he started bulding, was.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
That his thing was it.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah. Yeah, he started the wig trand he started boulding,
and he was very proud of his lush, like curly,
beautiful hair. And then he started balding and he started
wearing wigs. And at one point, these wigs they just
could look completely out of hand because they would be
more expensive than everything else about your outfit. And even
if you had like the most beautiful hair yourself, you
(07:15):
would still wear a wig because it just became part
of I guess caught uniform.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, so many fashion bits happened because the king just
had something wrong with him, and they were like, oh,
well he's doing that now, so we've got to do well. Yeah,
turns out being cross eydes really in nowadays.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, because the huge like the March Simpson hair that
you just mentioned, kind of started because MARINEO and I
had a pretty high forehead and they yeah, so sort
of like the hairdresser was like, how are we going
to cover this up? It's not good because she also
had like braces and there was a lot she has
to be beautiful like that and the chin thing, and
how are we going to cover the chin?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Let's make the hair. The main point of turn is
out the beards became very fashionable for women.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Just unfortunately, No, that would have been good story. Yeah,
the costume dramas would have looked very different case, but no, no, yeah,
so yeah, literally, her hairdresser was like, let's just make
her hair so high that her forehead will not look
at high.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It looks proportional. That's really fun.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, because her forehead. Foreheads. High foreheads used to be
enormously in fashion. Actually, if you look for example at
well the fame very famous painting of Elizabeth Woodville. Mm
hmm is that Woodville? I think it is like the
English queen. They would shave off their eyebrows and the
like the upper pine of the hair to make Yeah,
(08:41):
and then that went out of fashion, and they were like, well,
what are we going to do about Maria.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Can you imagine the day you wake up having freshly
shaved your eyebrows and forehead and they just got, no,
we're not doing that anymore. What I've just done it?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah? No, yeah, that would have you would not be happy.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
No, ironic. They were so trend setters, considering they didn't
even dress themselves. Mary Antoinette didn't even put her own
shoes on. Imagine being that pampered. I mean, I wouldn't
know anything about that. Of course, Louis and mari Anstwett
must have actually been not very skillful people in general.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I make.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
If they don't tie their shoe, can they swim? Can
they ride a bike? They've got any skill set about.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
The quite no bikes in the eighteenth century.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I'm not a historian.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
You did, Yeah, you didn't really say it, but I.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Kind of you guess it comes through.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Now. Yeah, there were no bikes, but there were horses,
and they were very good at horse riding. But Marie
Antoinette was not allowed to ride a horse because they
were afraid that she wouldn't be able to get pregnant,
so she rode a donkey.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I just need to I just need to pick up
on that she couldn't ride a horse because it might
not get a pregnant, but a donkey's fine. Is that
because there's a less bounce in a donkey like.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Either or it's like it's not true, so it's not right. Yeah,
I think it definitely would have had to do with
the bouncer.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, you're they're worried about the queen's.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Uterus basically, Yeah, her the most vital, most important part
of the queen had to be very much protected. And
I'm quite sure that actually Marie Antoinette's mother, who was
the Empress of Austria, Maria Teresa, was very much like
a huge part of preventing Marie Antoinette from doing these
(10:31):
sort of things because she knew that if Marie Internett
just wouldn't get pregnant, then she would kind of lose
an ally in the French court. She needed for internet
to have babies. That was politically very important for her.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, protect that uterus exactly. The horses high on the
list of important things, just after the queen's uterus was
looking good, something that the people of Versailles took very seriously.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Looking good at Fazai was very important. And there was
this official rule that you could only wear one outfit
once at a party. You could not really wear and
these outfits they would have been so expensive, right, so
like this court dress, they kind of have the shape
of like a bottle because that's how wide the skirts
would be because they wouldn't be like this bar gown.
(11:21):
They would only be white at the hips. And that
was French court dress that was so expensive that would
be more expensive than what a random French baker would
make all his life. Just this one dress. It's just
super expensive. And then later on, like fashions would change.
At one point, Marie Anoinnette brings in the fashion of
a chamis, a la rein and chemis. Do you know chemish?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
This is going to surprise you, but no, I am
not familiar with chemmies. Chemis is like.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
An under sort of dress most of the time made
of a linen.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I've never worn one myself, but you should try it well.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Whereas chamis, yeah, well don't don't, don't don't out of
fashion fashion sorry? Yeh yeah, yeah, wear your hair very high.
No they Sami's the m is this famous dress that
Marie Antoinette very popular popularized it, and she also got
painted in it in a portrait by Elizabeth Lebrent, which
(12:24):
is like a really a favorite painter a woman, which
was quite the thing. ELIZABETHA. Lebrn painted the Queen in
a chemise dress and shamis, like I just said, it's
kind of underwear. So this painting was enormously scandalous, so
they were not happy with that painting. And then Elizabeth
fiche Lebrn painted another painting of Marintoinette, which is kind
(12:44):
of the most famous painting. I think of ari Antoinette
in that blue dress of her holding a rose. I'm
not sure that tells you anything. And that is a
story of the chemise.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
What a scandal. I've just googled the painting and yeah,
let me tell you. It is hot. You can see
a wrists. Oh, I think I need to lie down.
(13:16):
So what eventually happened to Louis and Marie Antoinette.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Right, So I'm gonna just take you to the year
seventeen eighty nine. Storming of the Busty Rusty is like
a prison that was stormed by a mob, and we
in general see the sister beginning of the French Revolution,
the French Revolution. We have a couple of revolutions, but
this is the French Revolution of seventeen eighty nine, and
(13:44):
it really would bring us to the end of a
thousand years of monarchical rule in France that would eventually
lead to them losing their heads at plas La Revolution
with the guillotine. Guillotine was designed to make the death
more comfortable, so they were kind of lucky in that way,
but they lost their heads. And I'm not sure if
(14:05):
it's true, if it's a myth, but Mari Antoinette supposedly
said at that point because she was beheaded in seventeen
ninety three, so that's kind of a couple of years
late that she was imprisoned and all of that, like
it's not good, like her children were taken from her,
her husband was killed before her, and supposedly she said,
you've taken my crown, you've taken my husband, you've taken
(14:26):
my children. Now please just take my head, because it's
all that remains to me. It's a very tragic.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
End, and it's some good last words. Though if it
is true, I want to believe it.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I don't think though, but I loved telling them because
they're so and they describe actually probably the mindset that
she must have been in at that point very well,
because her hair had turned white. She wasn't even forty
and her hair had just turned white because of all
the stress and all the trauma. Because this is during
the time that all these nobles and all these aristocrats
were getting beheaded, right, just mass behead and going on
(15:01):
pleas la vusion. And one of the hands was of
Madame de Lamballe, which is probably Marie Anette's first friend
at Fisai, And she was beheaded and they put her
head on a stick and they waved that in front
of Mari Antonette's window. Just seeing the head of your
best friend who'd just been beheaded like that kind of traumatic.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Stuff, really awful. Yeah, let's try and describe and get
the feeling for Mary Antoinette's final moments as she is
taken from her cell. What's that like? And then the
(15:42):
walk up to the scaffolds.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So she was imprisoned in the cone really just to
sell everything was taken from her. And she writes a
letter to her sister in law, a wad the sixties
sister my Dammily Zabet and that letter is never given
to eighties events, but she writes that letter and they
cut off all her hair.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
And this has like multiple reasons, like, first to foremost,
a woman's hair as her pride, right, so we're going
to cut off her hair, but also to remove it
from the neck so.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You can get better target.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, so it's easier soon, right, So even Anne Berleyn
wore her hair in a cap during her execution.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Draw a line across the neck saying cut here because.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You lie into the you lie in this in the
guillotine and you would literally be strapped into it, so
it would just drop and it was one cut and
it was gone. Yeah, because for years and centuries and everything,
like those executions.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Could be roied brutal with a sword you get.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
In the back accidentally and like multiple times to take
it before the head would finally so the gears he
was really it was kind of a mercy death.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
If you're French. Efficiency.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, it was designed to be as painless as possible.
I mean, wouldn't have been her preferred end, definitely not,
but it was better than getting an accial back. So yeah,
the kind of her hair, her hair was white, it
just turned gray because of all the trauma and all
of that happening. Cut that off and she will pretty
much nothing but a shimmis and a cap on her head,
(17:22):
and she was taken to the scaffield to place Heart
of Paris. Her hands are tight to her back and
there's this one very famous drawing of her that someone
who witnessed it happening drew of her, and you can
see that she just sits up straight, looks very proud,
kind of like you can't get to me. It's a
(17:43):
very very simple drawing, but it's very It really gives
a good impression of what she must have looked like
being taken through those streets with everyone must have been
yelling at her and just mocking her, maybe even throwing
things at her. Right, she's taken to person and take
her off the card. Her hands are still tight, which
is probably why she lost her balance, and her actual
last words are show I did not mean to do it,
(18:07):
because she's tripped over the feet of her executioner and
she tripped and she told him I'm sorry, I did
not mean to do it. Last words.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, that's sort that's sort of lovely and in a
different way to take my head, but that's sort of
show she's polite to the end.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Mm hmm. Yeah. And then they strip her in this
whole thing, this whole because the whole thing of of
a guillotine is kind of kind of a structure, right,
and it's kind of insane. Stop her in it. You
lay down on you sort of find your stomach and
still with her hands stripped to her back, and the
blade drops down had his cut off in just one go,
(18:48):
and they stick it on this Yes, sorry, just some
words I always forget.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Like a lollipop exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Wave it around. And this is also very famous painting,
like I remember this being in my high school history book,
this painting of someone waving Marie Antoinnett's head around and
her body's still lying in that whole structure of the guillotine. Wow,
and those are her last moments.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yeah, it's horrendous to feel that having gone through those
amazing views in the si outside the window of the
sprawling landscape, and then your final image just being a basket. Yeah,
(19:33):
chop thud, unexpected item in bagging area. So summing up,
what do you think is the one big takeaway from
everything that we've learned about the size, That it's at.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
The center I think of French history. If you want
to breathe in French history, this is the place to go,
because it's not just the King's it's also Napoleon that
was there, but also like the Treaty of Zai in
nineteen nineteen that was not there. Germany was declared one
nation there in eighteen seventy one. It's just so much
(20:11):
history that's just in these walls. It's pride of France.
I think if you want to really feel absolute power,
that's why you have to go.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Where is your favorite palace? Castle house?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Chateau Maison Alhambra in the south of Spain, and that
was built by the Moors and it was taken during
the Rickonquesta in the late fifteenth century by Isabelle of Spain.
That was the most beautiful place I've ever been to.
It's doing What.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Is it about it? What makes it so beautiful?
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Just the whole architecture. It's something that you wouldn't really
find anywhere else in Europe, right because it was built
by the Moors, so it was Muslim built and it
was really this last part of Muslim Spain, and it
was just the pride of that part of Spain. And
it's stunning and also has a lot of history too.
(21:09):
It's where Catherine of Aragon lived too for a part
of her life because she was a Spanish princess. So
that is really if I could live anywhere, that would
be it.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, that answers my next question, which was going to
be if you could live anywhere in any place at
any time, where would it be.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
I think about this often, like what time would I
want to live in right, what people would I be
able to meet? And most of the time I come
to the conclusion that I would not be able to vote,
and I would not be able to marry whomever I wanted,
and I'd be like never mind. But yeah, no, if
I could choose, I would probably just be like this
aristocratic sort of downs in abbe living in the countryside,
(21:52):
like maybe Blenham Palace or something duringly at Wardian era.
I would probably like survive that pretty well.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
And if you could change gender and live at any point.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Okay, that's a good that Maybe even the Automan Empire.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Oh yeah, okay, nice.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah, maybe that would be like Suliman the magnificence that time,
that would be cool, or like I can't say for
Zia because that was just too disgusting. So yeah, although
if I could visit for one day, it will be
for zi. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, it's nose plugs exactly. Thank you so much for
joining us. Remind everyone who's listening where they can find you.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah. So I'm definitely on TikTok, which is brittt Murray.
That's my TikTok, and I'm actually planning on opening some
YouTube things.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
So yeah, go exciting.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
See that.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, wish are the best of it. Well, thank you
so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That about wraps it up for this episode. I can
hear an angry mob approaching the studio, so if you'll
excuse me, I'm going to flee the country. Thanks for listening,
and until next time, protect that uterus, cover up those wrists,
and mind your manners. Thanks for listening to Bad Manners.
If you like the pod, please share it with your friends,
rate it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
(23:14):
wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, and make
sure you spill the tea on any of your favorite
bad Manners that we could feature in future episodes. This
podcast was produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio. It was
hosted by me Tom Horton. It was produced by Willem Lensky,
Rebecca Rappaport, and Chris Ataway. It was executive produced by
(23:35):
Face Steur and Zad Rogers. Our production manager is Caitlin
Paramore and our production coordinator is Bellasolini.
I would really like to know if Marie Antoinette did
have a TikTok herself, what sort of videos would she
be posting? Gosh, can she be one for doing the
TikTok dance trends?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
She enjoyed dancing a lot, but I think like, yeah,
but probably like the dancing videos would have been more
like Louis the fourteenth thing, because he was like a
ballet obsessed. So I don't know. I think she would
probably just do like makeup tutorials or something.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, I can imagine that.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, probably, and just maybe just talk videos, you know,
like these storytime videos like story.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Time of how I knows the latest scandal or thing
that she's just spent loads of money on show. Okay,
story time. I've just bought another massive painting.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, I just commissioned this fake village in my back garden.
Yeah this is how I did it.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, Welcome back to Bad Manners and Bian Venue. Back
to France. In this episode, we're returning to Versailles, that
famous eighteenth century pallace you've heard of, you know, the
one party capital of France, royal residence for not one,
but three Louise and homes lots of smelly people.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
There was no running water, there was no combing. They
didn't FaZe because they thought that was unhealthy. It was disgusting.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
It was also home to the subject of today's episode,
Mary Antoinette.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
She would stand there in her bedroom, half naked, traveling
and cold, and she just was like, can please the
highest ranking woman come in so I can put my
shirt on.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Guiding us through Mary Antoinette's life and yes, her death
as well, is this podcast's highest ranking woman.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Thank you so much. My name is Brittette. You can
find me on TikTok as Britette Mary. I have a
TikTok paint about royal history.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
When she wasn't naked and trembling, Mary Antoinette was busy
throwing parties, putting boats in her hair, spending lots of
money and oh yeah, being Queen of France. I think
you're a woman like that needs an origin story.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
So Marie Antoinette was born as the daughter of the
Empress of Austria, Maria Teresa. She was a Habsburg and
Habsburg's where they were a little bit over bread, like
they they sort.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Of overbread and overbread and in bread. Am I right?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I'm sorry? That's what I meant. Yeah, yeah, bread.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
She also had.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, you could recognize them by the chins, and she
had them. You don't really see them that well in portraits,
but if you see a bust of her, you can
kind of sort of see like, yeah, it's there. And
she was the youngest. She had like a Brazilian brothers
and sisters, and she was the youngest, and actually her
older sister was Actually they planned to marry her to
(02:54):
the French heir to the Dauphin that's like a crown
friend's title, the Dauphin and Dlphine. But she had caught
small pox, so her face was full of scars. So
they moved on to the next girl, and that was
Maria Antonia Marie Antoinette, and they would name her Antoine
at this Auestring court. And she was quite love like,
(03:17):
it was nice. She was her mother, loved her family,
and she had all these brothers and sisters. But you
can imagine, like all these sisters would like one on
to the other, they would leave. So that must have
been said. But also something she knew would eventually happen
to her, Like these girls they grew up knowing. One
day I'm going to, you know, get married off, and
(03:37):
I'm just gonna have to hope that it's going to
be a good bloke, to be honest, And she was
fourteen when that happened to her. She moved to Visi,
and in her whole life she never saw the sea,
all the ocean. She moved to Visi and that kind
of became her world. That is why Fai is such
an important place to go if you want to understand
Marie Antoinette or any of these people, to be honest,
because it was an alternative reality away from from the
(04:01):
reality of seventeenth eighteenth century France, all that poverty, you know,
Like I mean Louis the sixteenth he inherited a bankrupt France.
People were not happy.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Well, yeah, didn't. Her eventual execution was sort of the
stopping point of the old France. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Look, I feel like Marie Antournade has been blamed a
lot for the failure of the French monarchy, which I
think is very unfair.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, she spent all the money, didn't she.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
She enjoyed spending money. I'm not definitely not going to
deny that. But if you compare the courts of Luida fourteenth,
Luida fifteenth, and what Luisa sixteenth spent he was definitely
like looked at the money a bit more so. They
inherited a bankrupt France, and he definitely made mistakes. I'm
not going to deny that he was not suited to
be king Louisa sixteenth, not at all. But a lot
(04:55):
of what these people are is where they lived and
how they went through life. Writing Luida sixteenth, like he
grew up at Pasai and as I just described it,
with all that ceremony and all that splendor and all
these the parties that they would host at for Zai
are ridiculous. There was just no limit on what they
could spend. That is how these people lived and that
(05:17):
is how we remember them.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Do you have a favorite party story from any of
those parties?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Not necessarily a story, But what I like most is
the Concernal, which was the biggest lake basically and if
you walk out of the palace and walk into the
garden scene, you'll eventually you'll see it like you coute this.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
This was artificially built.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
It was yeah, and that's kind of crazy if you
think about it, because as I mentioned, because I was
built on Marshland. So it was just people just kept
telling Luisa fourteenth, like, with all due respect, please build
your like your dream home, but not here because this
is Marshland. But he did it anyway, And I think
that kind of was part of why it attracted to
him so much, that it was such an impossible location,
(06:00):
because they would be like, look what I built this miracle,
but yeah, on that canal, they would literally do these
navy battles recreations. Is that right, Yeah, Like they've they've
recreate naval battles and these boats would sink and they
obviously never be able to use them again. And these
(06:21):
women are like I love these drawings of these women
they would put they would have these huge wigs and
they would add fake like miniature ships in their hair
when they went to see those.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Battles those class big like curly white yeah yeah, Marge
Simpson like yeah yeah, and then just shove a battleship
on it.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah. And I mean wigs changed a lot, to be honest, like,
especially like the female wigs, but also the male wigs
because the Luisa fourteenth kind of started the whole wig
trand because he started bulding, was.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
That his thing was it.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah. Yeah, he started the wig trand he started boulding,
and he was very proud of his lush, like curly,
beautiful hair. And then he started balding and he started
wearing wigs. And at one point, these wigs they just
could look completely out of hand because they would be
more expensive than everything else about your outfit. And even
if you had like the most beautiful hair yourself, you
(07:15):
would still wear a wig because it just became part
of I guess caught uniform.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, so many fashion bits happened because the king just
had something wrong with him, and they were like, oh,
well he's doing that now, so we've got to do well. Yeah,
turns out being cross eydes really in nowadays.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, because the huge like the March Simpson hair that
you just mentioned, kind of started because MARINEO and I
had a pretty high forehead and they yeah, so sort
of like the hairdresser was like, how are we going
to cover this up? It's not good because she also
had like braces and there was a lot she has
to be beautiful like that and the chin thing, and
how are we going to cover the chin?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Let's make the hair. The main point of turn is
out the beards became very fashionable for women.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Just unfortunately, No, that would have been good story. Yeah,
the costume dramas would have looked very different case, but no, no, yeah,
so yeah, literally, her hairdresser was like, let's just make
her hair so high that her forehead will not look
at high.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It looks proportional. That's really fun.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, because her forehead. Foreheads. High foreheads used to be
enormously in fashion. Actually, if you look for example at
well the fame very famous painting of Elizabeth Woodville. Mm
hmm is that Woodville? I think it is like the
English queen. They would shave off their eyebrows and the
like the upper pine of the hair to make Yeah,
(08:41):
and then that went out of fashion, and they were like, well,
what are we going to do about Maria.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Can you imagine the day you wake up having freshly
shaved your eyebrows and forehead and they just got, no,
we're not doing that anymore. What I've just done it?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah? No, yeah, that would have you would not be happy.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
No, ironic. They were so trend setters, considering they didn't
even dress themselves. Mary Antoinette didn't even put her own
shoes on. Imagine being that pampered. I mean, I wouldn't
know anything about that. Of course, Louis and mari Anstwett
must have actually been not very skillful people in general.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I make.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
If they don't tie their shoe, can they swim? Can
they ride a bike? They've got any skill set about.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
The quite no bikes in the eighteenth century.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I'm not a historian.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
You did, Yeah, you didn't really say it, but I.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Kind of you guess it comes through.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Now. Yeah, there were no bikes, but there were horses,
and they were very good at horse riding. But Marie
Antoinette was not allowed to ride a horse because they
were afraid that she wouldn't be able to get pregnant,
so she rode a donkey.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I just need to I just need to pick up
on that she couldn't ride a horse because it might
not get a pregnant, but a donkey's fine. Is that
because there's a less bounce in a donkey like.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Either or it's like it's not true, so it's not right. Yeah,
I think it definitely would have had to do with
the bouncer.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, you're they're worried about the queen's.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Uterus basically, Yeah, her the most vital, most important part
of the queen had to be very much protected. And
I'm quite sure that actually Marie Antoinette's mother, who was
the Empress of Austria, Maria Teresa, was very much like
a huge part of preventing Marie Antoinette from doing these
(10:31):
sort of things because she knew that if Marie Internett
just wouldn't get pregnant, then she would kind of lose
an ally in the French court. She needed for internet
to have babies. That was politically very important for her.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, protect that uterus exactly. The horses high on the
list of important things, just after the queen's uterus was
looking good, something that the people of Versailles took very seriously.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Looking good at Fazai was very important. And there was
this official rule that you could only wear one outfit
once at a party. You could not really wear and
these outfits they would have been so expensive, right, so
like this court dress, they kind of have the shape
of like a bottle because that's how wide the skirts
would be because they wouldn't be like this bar gown.
(11:21):
They would only be white at the hips. And that
was French court dress that was so expensive that would
be more expensive than what a random French baker would
make all his life. Just this one dress. It's just
super expensive. And then later on, like fashions would change.
At one point, Marie Anoinnette brings in the fashion of
a chamis, a la rein and chemis. Do you know chemish?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
This is going to surprise you, but no, I am
not familiar with chemmies. Chemis is like.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
An under sort of dress most of the time made
of a linen.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I've never worn one myself, but you should try it well.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Whereas chamis, yeah, well don't don't, don't don't out of
fashion fashion sorry? Yeh yeah, yeah, wear your hair very high.
No they Sami's the m is this famous dress that
Marie Antoinette very popular popularized it, and she also got
painted in it in a portrait by Elizabeth Lebrent, which
(12:24):
is like a really a favorite painter a woman, which
was quite the thing. ELIZABETHA. Lebrn painted the Queen in
a chemise dress and shamis, like I just said, it's
kind of underwear. So this painting was enormously scandalous, so
they were not happy with that painting. And then Elizabeth
fiche Lebrn painted another painting of Marintoinette, which is kind
(12:44):
of the most famous painting. I think of ari Antoinette
in that blue dress of her holding a rose. I'm
not sure that tells you anything. And that is a
story of the chemise.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
What a scandal. I've just googled the painting and yeah,
let me tell you. It is hot. You can see
a wrists. Oh, I think I need to lie down.
(13:16):
So what eventually happened to Louis and Marie Antoinette.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Right, So I'm gonna just take you to the year
seventeen eighty nine. Storming of the Busty Rusty is like
a prison that was stormed by a mob, and we
in general see the sister beginning of the French Revolution,
the French Revolution. We have a couple of revolutions, but
this is the French Revolution of seventeen eighty nine, and
(13:44):
it really would bring us to the end of a
thousand years of monarchical rule in France that would eventually
lead to them losing their heads at plas La Revolution
with the guillotine. Guillotine was designed to make the death
more comfortable, so they were kind of lucky in that way,
but they lost their heads. And I'm not sure if
(14:05):
it's true, if it's a myth, but Mari Antoinette supposedly
said at that point because she was beheaded in seventeen
ninety three, so that's kind of a couple of years
late that she was imprisoned and all of that, like
it's not good, like her children were taken from her,
her husband was killed before her, and supposedly she said,
you've taken my crown, you've taken my husband, you've taken
(14:26):
my children. Now please just take my head, because it's
all that remains to me. It's a very tragic.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
End, and it's some good last words. Though if it
is true, I want to believe it.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I don't think though, but I loved telling them because
they're so and they describe actually probably the mindset that
she must have been in at that point very well,
because her hair had turned white. She wasn't even forty
and her hair had just turned white because of all
the stress and all the trauma. Because this is during
the time that all these nobles and all these aristocrats
were getting beheaded, right, just mass behead and going on
(15:01):
pleas la vusion. And one of the hands was of
Madame de Lamballe, which is probably Marie Anette's first friend
at Fisai, And she was beheaded and they put her
head on a stick and they waved that in front
of Mari Antonette's window. Just seeing the head of your
best friend who'd just been beheaded like that kind of traumatic.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Stuff, really awful. Yeah, let's try and describe and get
the feeling for Mary Antoinette's final moments as she is
taken from her cell. What's that like? And then the
(15:42):
walk up to the scaffolds.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So she was imprisoned in the cone really just to
sell everything was taken from her. And she writes a
letter to her sister in law, a wad the sixties
sister my Dammily Zabet and that letter is never given
to eighties events, but she writes that letter and they
cut off all her hair.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
And this has like multiple reasons, like, first to foremost,
a woman's hair as her pride, right, so we're going
to cut off her hair, but also to remove it
from the neck so.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You can get better target.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, so it's easier soon, right, So even Anne Berleyn
wore her hair in a cap during her execution.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Draw a line across the neck saying cut here because.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You lie into the you lie in this in the
guillotine and you would literally be strapped into it, so
it would just drop and it was one cut and
it was gone. Yeah, because for years and centuries and everything,
like those executions.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Could be roied brutal with a sword you get.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
In the back accidentally and like multiple times to take
it before the head would finally so the gears he
was really it was kind of a mercy death.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
If you're French. Efficiency.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, it was designed to be as painless as possible.
I mean, wouldn't have been her preferred end, definitely not,
but it was better than getting an accial back. So yeah,
the kind of her hair, her hair was white, it
just turned gray because of all the trauma and all
of that happening. Cut that off and she will pretty
much nothing but a shimmis and a cap on her head,
(17:22):
and she was taken to the scaffield to place Heart
of Paris. Her hands are tight to her back and
there's this one very famous drawing of her that someone
who witnessed it happening drew of her, and you can
see that she just sits up straight, looks very proud,
kind of like you can't get to me. It's a
(17:43):
very very simple drawing, but it's very It really gives
a good impression of what she must have looked like
being taken through those streets with everyone must have been
yelling at her and just mocking her, maybe even throwing
things at her. Right, she's taken to person and take
her off the card. Her hands are still tight, which
is probably why she lost her balance, and her actual
last words are show I did not mean to do it,
(18:07):
because she's tripped over the feet of her executioner and
she tripped and she told him I'm sorry, I did
not mean to do it. Last words.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, that's sort that's sort of lovely and in a
different way to take my head, but that's sort of
show she's polite to the end.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Mm hmm. Yeah. And then they strip her in this
whole thing, this whole because the whole thing of of
a guillotine is kind of kind of a structure, right,
and it's kind of insane. Stop her in it. You
lay down on you sort of find your stomach and
still with her hands stripped to her back, and the
blade drops down had his cut off in just one go,
(18:48):
and they stick it on this Yes, sorry, just some
words I always forget.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Like a lollipop exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Wave it around. And this is also very famous painting,
like I remember this being in my high school history book,
this painting of someone waving Marie Antoinnett's head around and
her body's still lying in that whole structure of the guillotine. Wow,
and those are her last moments.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yeah, it's horrendous to feel that having gone through those
amazing views in the si outside the window of the
sprawling landscape, and then your final image just being a basket. Yeah,
(19:33):
chop thud, unexpected item in bagging area. So summing up,
what do you think is the one big takeaway from
everything that we've learned about the size, That it's at.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
The center I think of French history. If you want
to breathe in French history, this is the place to go,
because it's not just the King's it's also Napoleon that
was there, but also like the Treaty of Zai in
nineteen nineteen that was not there. Germany was declared one
nation there in eighteen seventy one. It's just so much
(20:11):
history that's just in these walls. It's pride of France.
I think if you want to really feel absolute power,
that's why you have to go.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Where is your favorite palace? Castle house?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Chateau Maison Alhambra in the south of Spain, and that
was built by the Moors and it was taken during
the Rickonquesta in the late fifteenth century by Isabelle of Spain.
That was the most beautiful place I've ever been to.
It's doing What.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Is it about it? What makes it so beautiful?
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Just the whole architecture. It's something that you wouldn't really
find anywhere else in Europe, right because it was built
by the Moors, so it was Muslim built and it
was really this last part of Muslim Spain, and it
was just the pride of that part of Spain. And
it's stunning and also has a lot of history too.
(21:09):
It's where Catherine of Aragon lived too for a part
of her life because she was a Spanish princess. So
that is really if I could live anywhere, that would
be it.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, that answers my next question, which was going to
be if you could live anywhere in any place at
any time, where would it be.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
I think about this often, like what time would I
want to live in right, what people would I be
able to meet? And most of the time I come
to the conclusion that I would not be able to vote,
and I would not be able to marry whomever I wanted,
and I'd be like never mind. But yeah, no, if
I could choose, I would probably just be like this
aristocratic sort of downs in abbe living in the countryside,
(21:52):
like maybe Blenham Palace or something duringly at Wardian era.
I would probably like survive that pretty well.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
And if you could change gender and live at any point.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Okay, that's a good that Maybe even the Automan Empire.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Oh yeah, okay, nice.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah, maybe that would be like Suliman the magnificence that time,
that would be cool, or like I can't say for
Zia because that was just too disgusting. So yeah, although
if I could visit for one day, it will be
for zi. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, it's nose plugs exactly. Thank you so much for
joining us. Remind everyone who's listening where they can find you.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah. So I'm definitely on TikTok, which is brittt Murray.
That's my TikTok, and I'm actually planning on opening some
YouTube things.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
So yeah, go exciting.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
See that.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, wish are the best of it. Well, thank you
so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That about wraps it up for this episode. I can
hear an angry mob approaching the studio, so if you'll
excuse me, I'm going to flee the country. Thanks for listening,
and until next time, protect that uterus, cover up those wrists,
and mind your manners. Thanks for listening to Bad Manners.
If you like the pod, please share it with your friends,
rate it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
(23:14):
wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, and make
sure you spill the tea on any of your favorite
bad Manners that we could feature in future episodes. This
podcast was produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio. It was
hosted by me Tom Horton. It was produced by Willem Lensky,
Rebecca Rappaport, and Chris Ataway. It was executive produced by
(23:35):
Face Steur and Zad Rogers. Our production manager is Caitlin
Paramore and our production coordinator is Bellasolini.
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