Elena Maria Vidal in New Zealand

Interview with Elena Maria Vidal

Chemise à la reine

In the early 1780's, Marie-Antoinette abandoned the ostentatious styles which characterized her first few years as queen, substituting them with simple attire. Especially at Petit Trianon, the gowns of lawn or muslin were worn not only by the queen but by all the ladies present. As described in Rocheterie's biography:

At Trianon there was no ceremony, no etiquette, no household, only friends. When the queen entered the salon the ladies did not quit their work nor the men interrupt their game of billiards or of trictrac. It was the life of the chateau with all its agreeable liberty, such as Marie Antoinette had always dreamed, such as was practised in that patriarchal family of the Hapsburgs, which was as Goethe has said, "Only the first bourgeoise family of the empire." They all met together for breakfast which took the place of dinner afterward they played cards chatted or walked and assembled again for supper which was served early. No fine dressing no complicated head dresses whose exaggerated height had forced the architect to enlarge the dimensions of the doors and provoked the reprimands of Maria Theresa. A dress of white percale, a gauze fichu, a straw hat - such was the toilet at Trianon, a fresh and charming toilet which set off the supple figure and brilliant complexion of the goddess of place but whose extreme simplicity enraged the weavers of silk at Lyons deserted for the linens of Alsace.

Indeed, Marie-Antoinette's simple tastes drew even more criticism upon her than her former opulence. With her unpowdered hair and linen dresses, she was accused not only of trying to put the French silk merchants out of business in favor of her brother's Belgian and Alsatian weavers, but she was blamed for lowering the prestige of the monarchy by being too casual. According to an article on the queen's hairstyles by scholar Desmond Hosford:

Marie-Antoinette's excesses during the 1770s had been criticized, but when the queen curtailed such luxury she was again found to be at fault. In 1778, Marie-Antoinette gave birth to a daughter, which did not solidify her political situation, but the birth of a dauphin in 1781 meant that she had finally fulfilled her duty to France. Unfortunately, according to Léonard, "At the end of the year 1781, that is to say, when the queen had given to France the first Dauphin, who died in 1789 . .. Her Majesty was in danger of losing the charming locks whose suave color had passed into fashion under the name cheveux de la reine."⁴²

Léonard's solution to the queen's predicament was no less than to cut her hair and to abandon the imposing coiffures that he had created. Instead, he invented the coiffure à l'enfant, a simple style frisé with curls in the back, which characterized the second half of the reign (fig. 5). This simplification of the queen's hairstyle was also effected in her attire as she entered the age of maturity. However, the queen's new simplicity was as unpopular as her former extravagance. One fashion that Marie-Antoinette adopted, a loose-fitting simple gown of muslin, became known as the chemise à la reine. In 1783, Vigée-Lebrun painted the queen in such a gown, and the work was so severely criticized when it was exhibited at the Salon of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture that year that the painting had to be withdrawn (fig. 6).⁴³ One of the fundamental problems with this portrait was that Marie-Antoinette had allowed herself to appear as an individual woman, rather than as the queen of France, in a work shown to the public. This transgressed the laws of royal representation in France, destabilizing the performative elements of the queen's station. Marie-Antoinette "en chemise" lacks any external manifestation of her status as queen, and this was unnerving, because already, as l'Autrichienne, Marie-Antoinette was perceived as dangerous. Previously, the rumor had been that the queen's profligacy, dragging all French women in its wake, would ruin the country, but now the silk industry attacked the queen's simple attire. Marie-Antoinette was accused of attempting to destroy a vital part of the French economy by wearing imported fabrics including muslin and cotton⁴⁴ for a gown whose style had originated in England, another of France's traditional enemies. In this portrait, Marie-Antoinette was even accused of appearing in her undergarments,⁴⁵ and one might observe that her hair, too, is almost entirely undressed. With such importance placed upon the performative aspects of the queen's toilette, it is not surprising that this portrait, of which the queen's hair is an important element, was readily perceived as a blatant act of disrespect for French propriety concerning the external manifestation of royal dignity, a subversive rejection of queenly representation, and a national degradation which one commentator labeled "France, in the guise of Austria, reduced to covering herself with straw."⁴⁶ The responsibility for this portrait was placed squarely on Marie-Antoinette without whose authorization the work could never have been displayed.⁴⁷ Marie-Antoinette's attempt to exercise agency over her own hair and dress had failed, and the new version of the portrait painted by Vigée-Lebrun that same year is clearly a retreat. In the second version of the portrait, the queen's blue silk gown, as characterized by the baron von Grimm, is "a garment more appropriate to her station,"⁴⁸ and her hair is carefully dressed and powdered (fig. 5).

No matter what she did, there were those who would complain and criticize. Some criticism is par for the course when one is a public figure. In Marie-Antoinette's case, her Austrian birth made her an object of suspicion from the moment she stepped onto French soil, even among the royal family. For those who sought political power by undermining the royal regime, the queen of Louis XVI, with her beauty and youthful imprudence, was the perfect target.

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Elena Maria Vidal is the author of the historical novels Trianon, Madame Royale, and The Night's Dark Shade. Please visit Elena at her Tea at Trianon blog and on Facebook and Twitter.

Sophie Piper

Perhaps not lost in myth, but overshadowed by her brother, the famous Swedish soldier, diplomat and Marshal of Realm, Count Axel von Fersen the Younger, is his beloved younger sister and confidante, Sophie Piper. The daughter of Count Axel von Fersen the Elder and his wife, Hedvig Catherina de la Gardie, little Eva Sophie von Fersen was born on March 30, 1757. In addition to her brother, Axel, she also had an older sister, Hedvig Eleonora, who became a lady-in-waiting to Queen Sophia Magdalena of Sweden, and gained the reputation of a gifted intellectual and keen wit. As for Sophie, she matured into a handsome, proud young woman, considered to be one of the reigning beauties of the court of King Gustav III. At 17, she was courted by Prince Frederik Adolf, the King's youngest brother, but her father, a prominent parliamentary leader often in conflict with the Crown, forbad the match. Anxious to preserve his political independence, he did not want to be allied so closely to the royal family. In addition, Sophie herself apparently had doubts about the prince's mental health. Three years later, in 1777, she married Count Adolf Ludwig Piper.

Sophie was destined to witness many grand and tragic events on the national and international stage. A lady-in-waiting, close friend and confidante of the King's sister-in-law, the future Queen Hedvig Elizabeth Charlotte, she was also the confidante of her brother throughout the triumphs and tragedies of his career. Unlike his father, a stubborn proponent of aristocratic resistance to the Swedish monarchy, known for treating Gustav III with outrageous insolence, Axel von Fersen the Younger was a devoted royalist. He loyally served his own sovereign, while championing the cause of the ancien régime throughout Europe in an age of revolution.

During his long sojourns in France, as Gustav's envoy to the court of Louis XVI, Fersen developed a deep personal attachment to the doomed monarch and his consort, Marie-Antoinette, a lady of legendary charm. (Many have claimed that Marie-Antoinette and Fersen became lovers at some point. Yet, although Fersen had many mistresses, there is no proof of a liaison with the Queen.) Gustav III, also an enthusiastic admirer of the royal couple, tried his best to assist them during the French Revolution. Fersen played a central role in these secret diplomatic intrigues, designed to enable Louis XVI to regain control of his realm. Unfortunately, it was all a tragic débacle. Within a brief space of time, Fersen lost the three monarchs he had most loved. Gustav III was shot at a masked ball on March 29, 1792. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette died on the guillotine, respectively, on January 21, 1793 and October 16, 1793. Fersen poured out his sorrow, mingled with a sense of humiliating failure, to his sister, in sad and desperate letters.

The spirit of revolution, moreover, also spread to Sweden, with terrible consequences for the Fersen family. In 1809, Gustav IV Adolf was deposed, and his ambitious, conniving uncle, Charles XIII installed in his place. Since Charles had no living, legitimate children, the Riksdag selected the Danish nobleman, Carl August of Augustenburg, as his heir. When Carl August died suddenly in May, 1810, the old Gustavian party, including Axel von Fersen and Sophie Piper, were falsely accused of poisoning him. During the funeral ceremonies, on June 20, 1810, Axel was savagely murdered by a mob. Sophie narrowly escaped a similar fate by fleeing Stockholm in disguise. Thankfully, however, an inquest subsequently revealed that the prince had succumbed to natural causes, and the Fersen family were rehabilitated. Axel received an honorable funeral, and Sophie spent her last years at the estate of Löfstad, where she passed away on February 2, 1816. Before her death, she had erected a touching memorial to her brother, bearing the inscription: "Åt en oförgätlig broder, mannamodet uti hans sista stunder den 20 juni 1810, vittna om hans dygder och sinnes lugn" ("To an unforgettable brother, whose courage in his last moments on the 20th of June 1810, bears testimony to his virtues and clean conscience").

Marie-Antoinette the Mother

In October of 1793, when on trial for her life, Marie-Antoinette was accused by the revolutionary tribunal of sexually abusing her eight-year-old son. When the queen failed to answer, she was badgered for a response. She rose to her feet and faced the crowded courtroom, saying: Si je n'ai répondu, c'est que la nature se refuse à répondre à une pareille inculpation faite à une mère. J'en appelles à toutes celles qui peuvent se trouver ici. "If I do not respond, it is because nature refuses to answer such a charge made to a mother. I appeal to all the mothers who are here!" The spectators, especially the women, applauded the queen and hissed at the revolutionaries, who had overplayed their hand. (see Jean Chalon's Chère Marie-Antoinette)

The infamous charge elicited disgust even from those deeply committed to the Revolution. Whatever else her faults may have been, Marie-Antoinette was a devoted mother. As Maxime de la Rocheterie wrote in his biography of the queen: "There is not a letter to Marie-Antoinette's friends, not a letter to her brothers, which does not abound in details of the health and a thousand incidents in the life of her dear little ones. She goes to see them at every hour of the day and night...."

To the governess Madame de Tourzel she gave detailed instructions concerning the care of each of her children, saying:

I have always accustomed my children to have great confidence in me, and, when they have done wrong, to tell me themselves; and then, when I scold them, this enables me to appear pained and afflicted rather than angry. I have accustomed them to regard 'yes' or 'no' once uttered by me as irrevocable, but I always give them reasons for my decisions, suitable to their ages.... (from The Life of Marie Antoinette by Charles Duke Yonge)

According to Nesta Webster, Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI decided early in the Revolution never to allow themselves to be separated from their two surviving children. However, after the king's death, little Louis-Charles was taken away from his mother in August 1793 and infamously brutalized by his captors. In the fall of the year, the queen was removed from the Temple prison to the Conciergerie, away from her fifteen-year-old daughter Madame Royale, whom she never saw again. When interrogated in prison as to whom she regarded as her enemies, the queen replied: "My enemies are all those who would bring harm to my children."

In her last letter she wrote to her sister-in-law: "I feel profound sorrow in leaving my poor children: you know that I only lived for them and for you, my good and tender sister....My God, how heart-rending it is to leave them forever! Farewell! farewell!"

Likewise, she is quoted as saying: "I was a queen, and you took away my crown, a wife, and you killed my husband, a mother, and you took my children away from me. All I have left is my blood. Take it. But do not make me suffer long."

Marie-Antoinette's Gambling Addiction

I have been accused of making Marie-Antoinette into a saint because I believe, as most of the evidence indicates, that Marie-Antoinette was faithful to her husband. However, the absence of adultery does not make one a saint. There many faithful spouses who are nevertheless far from the definition of sanctity. The New Advent article presents a fairly balanced view of Marie-Antoinette:

In her private life, Marie Antoinette may justly be blamed for her prodigality, for having, between 1774 and 1777 -- by certain notorious escapades (sleigh racing, opera balls, hunting in the Bois de Boulogne, gambling) and by her amusements at the Trianon -- given occasion for calumnious reports. But she confessed to Mercy that she indulged in this dissipation to console herself for having no children; and the tales of Besenval, Lauzun, and Soulavie, about the amours of Marie Antoinette, cannot stand against the testimony of the Prince de Ligne: "Her pretended gallantry was never any more than a very deep friendship for one or two individuals, and the ordinary coquetry of a woman, or a queen, trying to please everyone." De Goltz, the Prussian minister, also wrote that though a malicious person might interpret the queen's conduct unfavourably there was nothing in it beyond a desire to please everybody. Besides, the queen continued to give edification by her regular practice of her religious duties.... 

Her historian, M. de la Rocheterie, says of her: "She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr.

"The "notorious" escapades of sleigh-riding, going incognito to the opera ball, hunting and watching the horse races in the Bois de Boulogne, were fairly innocent past-times for a twenty year old queen. The gambling, however, became an addiction. It must be kept in mind, however, that she was not the not the only one. Gambling was an entrenched part of court life from the days of Louis XIV. As scholar Ross Hamilton describes it:

Gambling obsessed all levels of French society during the Enlightenment. Louis XIV held appartements du roi given over to gambling three times a week at Versailles, the queen hosted a nightly game, and courtiers scheduled additional occasions for play. Hosts so frequently acted as bankers for games to entertain their guests that satirists, chroniclers, and moralists complained that compulsive gambling had destroyed other forms of social entertainment. In Paris ten authorized maisons de jeux operated games involving some degree of skill (jeux de commerce) but essentially they served as fronts for more lucrative chance-driven games (jeux de hasard). Gambling also took place at the two great Paris fairs during almost four months of the year, all year long at foreign embassies, and eventually at gambling houses at the Hotel de Gesvres and later at the Hotel de Soissons. In addition to these legal venues, the large number of clandestine Parisian gaming rooms, lighted by tripots, made one visitor comment that "flaming pots set Paris ablaze," and gambling was by no means restricted to Paris. (2) The "Age des Lumieres" was lighted by gambling. Although official prohibitions referred to both religious and sociological dangers from gambling, within the context of the period, risking large sums at play became an analogy for risking one's life in battle. Having the courage to risk and winning or losing with equal equanimity demonstrated indifference to material gain and thus served as a means of displaying hereditary status.

Author Lisa Hilton in the biography Athenais (Back Bay, 2004) explains how gambling was one of the only "honorable" ways in which the often cash-strapped aristocrats, who were forbidden to engage in trade, could make money. It also replaced the thrill of war. As Hilton says:

Psychologically, gambling can be seen as a rebellion against logic, intelligence, moderation and renunciation, amorally appealing to those who in some way feel their lives constricted, and yet containing its own penance from the guilt it provokes from the losses it entails.

It required a certain amount of discipline to gamble well; one had to have mastery over facial expressions so as not to reveal one's thoughts about winning or losing, or one's strategy. A noble had to be able to lose with grace and promptly pay debts.

Marie-Antoinette had been taught as a child by her own mother to gamble, because the Empress knew that a princess who could not play well would soon be separated from her money. Futhermore, the stakes at the court of Austria were much higher than at the court of France, which made Antoinette an intrepid player. As a teenager, she became inordinately attached to the practice. As she began to have gambling debts, Louis XVI, who was trying to save the government finances and give an example of thrift, forbade her to play anymore games of chance. She begged her husband to let her have one last game. He gave permission, and naughty Antoinette made sure the game went on for three days. Louis was disgusted.

Gambling in France did not disappear with the fall of the monarchy. The revolutionaries who replaced Louis and Antoinette had their own share of gambling debts. According to historian Russell T. Barnhart:

The mania for gambling had been transferred from defunct, monarchical Versailles to the thriving, bourgeois Palais Royal, where the five main gaming clubs throbbed from noon till midnight. During the Revolution, Prince Talleyrand won 30,000 francs at one club, and after Waterloo in 1815, Marshal Blucher lost 1,500,000 francs in one night at another. To bring the situation under control and raise taxes for the state, in 1806 Napoleon legalized the main clubs, which from 1819 to 1837 grossed an enormous 137 million francs.

Gambling took up only a short period of Marie-Antoinette's life, and yet it is something for which she is remembered, even before her numerous charities. In order for the excesses of the Revolution to be justified, the failings of a teenage queen are held up for posterity.

The King's Sister

A brief but touching tribute to Madame Elisabeth of France, the devout youngest sister of Louis XVI, a lady often neglected or trivialized in books and films about the French Revolution.

Tragedy of Royal France

I was very touched to read Elena Maria Vidal's novels, Trianon and Madame Royale. In these painstakingly researched, beautifully written and deeply felt works, she paints a compelling portrait of the tragedy of the French royal family in the wake of the Revolution. Drawing heavily on first-hand accounts of the period, told through vignettes and reminiscences, the story is incredibly (indeed, painfully) vivid. It is a tale of Christian fortitude amidst dynastic downfall and national apocalypse.

In Trianon, correcting many misconceptions (such as the King as feeble idiot and the Queen as decadent airhead), Miss Vidal provides a moving and intimate portrayal of the tragic Louis XVI and the viciously maligned Marie-Antoinette. Their love for God, each other, their children and the people of France are all conveyed with poignant intensity. Ultimately, they are killed for the ideals they represent as Catholic monarchs, facing their doom with the charity and magnanimity of martyrs.

Madame Royale tells the story of Marie-Thérèse, Duchesse d'Angoulême, only surviving child of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. It centers on the Bourbon Restoration (1814-1830), a period simmering with secret warfare between revolution and reaction. In Trianon, faith gives the King and Queen the courage to face death; in Madame Royale, faith gives their daughter the courage to face life. Marie-Thérèse's story is truly one of bloodless martyrdom. Severely traumatized by the terrible experiences of her youth, trapped in an unhappy, barren marriage, surrounded by plots, intrigues, and political upheavals, she perseveres in faith and good works. Her struggle to restore the Catholic monarchy is ultimately a losing battle, and an immense sense of loss and weariness pervades the book. Particularly poignant are the passages describing Marie-Thérèse's haunting doubts regarding the fate of her little, lost brother and her fruitless search for him. Nonetheless, the novel ends on a hopeful note...

I have read several reviews claiming that the books are too religious and/or over-idealize the protagonists. The devout faith of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and Madame Royale, however, is well-documented, and it would not be realistic to ignore or to downplay the role of Catholicism in their lives. Nor do I think that the royal family are over-idealized. Their spiritual journeys are presented as hard and painful and they struggle with human failings along the way. Against his conscience, for instance, the King signs the Civil Constitution of the Clergy under duress, an action he later bitterly regrets. Before maturing gracefully into a noble wife and mother, Marie-Antoinette is portrayed as a kind, charming, but imperfect young girl, apt to be headstrong and rash. Marie-Thérèse's rigidity and refusal to compromise the divine right of kings, coupled with her cold manner (although these are understandable results of her early traumas), contribute to alienating many from the cause of the Catholic monarchy. Nonetheless, the fact remains that she, like her parents, ultimately attains a high degree of spiritual heroism.

An Old Post on a New Blog

This post was originally written on one of my other blogs but it seemed appropriate to place it here to begin this new blog! I read a Primary School article today about the French Revolution. It said more or less that Louis XVI was tyrant who incarcerated anyone who disagreed with him in the Bastille; and Marie Antoinette was a heartless woman who said, when people were starving, "Let them eat cake." The revolutionaries, on the other hand, according to this article for children, wanted people to be free and to be fed and cared for.

Of course, being an article for children, it didn't say that Robespierre was utterly paranoid and a megalomaniac who was so tyrannical he even knew what 'happiness' meant for everyone, and no one else's idea of happiness was valid. It didn't mention, being an article for children, that The Terror led to the bloody mass slaughter of countless innocent people (rich and poor) or that some of the revolutionaries were so intoxicated by their own power that they thought they were suddenly kings...and, in the case of Robespierre, that vile, vile man, ended up going to the guillotine with half a face (the other half having been shot away by the same rabble that he had created).

Nor did it mention - which would have been more accurate - that Louis XVI was a man who ardently loved his country; a man who had no desire for power but would have been far happier among his clocks and clockwork mechanisms; a family man (like Nicholas II) and nothing like the tyrants who came afterwards. Nor did it mention that Marie Antoinette was first officially married to him when she was still an infant; was actually married to him when she was still a child, was sent from her home to a foreign place and was stripped of her clothes on the border in order to symbolise that passing and was then at so tender an age thrown into a completely different world with a husband she didn't know. It didn't mention the way in which she, like Alexandra of Russia, suddenly was treated as an enemy simply because of where she was born, nor how, later, she might have escaped from France but chose to stand by her husband...