Why Marie Antoinette Became the Most Hated Woman in France | The French Revolution | Part 1

🚨PART TWO OUT NOW:    • The French Revolution | Part 2 | The Diamo...   🚨 🚨PART THREE OUT NOW:    • The French Revolution: The Violence Begins...  🚨 The French Revolution is one of the great seismic events of global history. A devouring conflagration of bloodshed, violence and utopianism, it changed France and then latterly the whole of Europe forever. Yet, amidst the panoply of colossal, colourful names that defined this cataclysmic event, few have endured as iconically as that of Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, who has in many ways come to embody the revolution in the popular imagination. Yet, from the moment of her arrival from Austria at the tender age of fifteen, Marie Antoinette was a contentious figure in France, with rumours circulating throughout her life of her insatiable sexual appetite and frivolity, her sapphic proclivities, and even her vampirism. But who was the real Marie Antoinette - voraciously decadent 'it' girl and snob or a well-meaning but naive scapegoat? Under what circumstances did she come to marry the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, and to what extent did she truly spark the French Revolution, with her calls to “let them eat cake!”? Join Tom and Dominic for the first instalment of their magnificent sweep through the outbreak and first years of the French Revolution, as they discuss the early life and character of one of its most celebrated and lambasted figures - an icon of style, a beacon of whimsical, bucolic giddiness, a rapacious monster - Marie Antoinette. _______ The Rest Is History LIVE in the U.S.A. If you live in the States, we've got some great news: Tom and Dominic will be performing throughout America in November, with shows in San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston and New York. The Rest Is History LIVE at the Royal Albert Hall Tom and Dominic, accompanied by a live orchestra, take a deep dive into the lives and times of two of history’s greatest composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. Tickets on sale now at TheRestIsHistory.com _______ 0:00 - Marie Antoinette and the mythology of the French Revolution 03:00 - Monster or victim? The battle over Marie Antoinette’s reputation 07:00 - Marie Antoinette as a symbol of fantasy, fashion, and political storytelling 08:39 - Born a Habsburg: why being Austrian mattered so much 13:02 - The teenage princess sent to France 17:09 - Marie Antoinette becomes French 19:19 - A disastrous wedding omen in Paris 21:28 - Versailles: the palace of absolutism and suffocating etiquette 25:02 - Marie Antoinette clashes with the rituals of court life 27:57 - The death of Louis XV and the rise of Louis XVI 30:44 - Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette: an awkward royal marriage 34:31 - Louis XVI the hunter, diarist, lock-maker, and reluctant king 37:53 - The seven-year failure to consummate the marriage 41:18 - Children, fidelity, and the Petit Trianon 42:42 - Rousseau, simplicity, and Marie Antoinette’s private world 45:29 - Charity, motherhood, and the performance of royal goodness 47:21 - Marie Antoinette’s revolutionary fashion and natural style 49:31 - Hair, celebrity stylists, and the invention of modern French fashion 52:00 - The Queen’s inner circle: favourites, gossip, and scandal 55:41 - How Marie Antoinette came to be hated like a royal mistress 57:36 - Pornographic rumours, court politics, and the making of a hate figure 59:18 - The scandal that changed everything: the Diamond Necklace Affair Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett