Preface
Born in Austria, Antoinette became queen of the Bourbon dynasty in France through a political marriage, ending her controversial life by guillotine. With Antoinette's status during her lifetime, it is difficult to imagine that her life ended tragically because of the Revolution.
From the Austrian princess to the crown princess and queen of the Bourbon dynasty, Antoinette's different identities show different images to the world, which has been evaluated differently, and the reasons behind the various images are profound and complex, which are not only the result of Antoinette's personal behavior triggering the public's impression of her, but also the reasons why she deliberately creates a specific image to the public, and is also closely related to the political background of the time.
Political form 势
France and Austria can be said to be feuding, since the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession between the two countries between the two countries were tense, the War of the Austrian Succession made the two countries even more incompatible, until the beginning of Prussia made Austria aware of the potential threat, began to form an alliance with France.
"Austria, together with her traditional enemy, France, signed a defensive treaty against Prussia, whereby if either country was attacked, the other would send an army of twenty-four thousand men to the aid. This treaty was signed shortly after Marie Antoinette's birth, and her marriage was born under the influence of this treaty.
After many travels between the two ministers representing their respective governments, Kautz and Schwartle, and the long-term trade-offs between the two kings, the consolidation of the alliance between the two countries in the form of marriage became the best option for the stability of the Franco-Austrian alliance.
Antoinette was married to France, and "preparations were in full swing...... The people of Paris were eager to meet their young princess", "Antoinette, who had just arrived in France, was regarded by the people as a noble and elegant member of the royal family, the future mother of the French, who guaranteed friendly relations between France and Austria, and who warmly welcomed the arrival of the Dauphin."
And France has always had a tradition of respecting the royal family, before meeting Antoinette, the people will consciously form a good impression of the future queen in their hearts, and after seeing herself, her external image is superior, and she will capture the hearts of the people.
Antoinette's initial attitude towards etiquette at the Palace of Versailles was incompatible, and her casual manners were incompatible with the strict hierarchy of the Palace of Versailles, and the public saw in Antoinette the characteristics of an Austrian, not a purely Frenchman.
She disregards her identity position and does not follow the French way of behaving. "In the court, those who surrounded her every day first treated her like a young princess, and then quickly attacked her when she didn't behave like their ideal queen. ”
The influence of Austrian Annovinette never ceased, and in the 70s, when her image in the hearts of the people gradually changed due to luxury, she sought too many benefits for Austria, sought positions for her cronies, and exerted too much influence on the government.
Before the Revolution, Antoinette's personal reputation had been severely damaged, and after the Revolution began, the idea that "the Revolution is the enemy" was deeply ingrained in Antoinette's mind, and she regarded the Revolution as an enemy, and the revolutionary people regarded her as an enemy, and she was no longer the queen of France.
Antoinette herself was a staunch resistance to the Revolution, and from the time it took place she began to plot how to confront the Revolutionaries and how to flee, and the Revolutionaries were dissatisfied with Antoinette's actions, and used propaganda pamphlets to make her notoriety more widely known, and after 1789 the number of pamphlets attacking her increased dramatically, and the tone of the text varied greatly, from obscurity to plainness.
The revolutionaries used the tools of the media to degrade her image more and more.
Development of the Enlightenment
In the middle of the eighteenth century, the development of the Enlightenment changed the role of the mother in French society, and the Enlightenment thinkers advocated a different model of family life from the past.
Rousseau once said, "Women are the natural judges of good behavior of men" and "the truly ideal woman can be the soul and mentor of her husband". Enlightenment thinkers believed that in the family, mothers can and should take on the responsibility of raising their children, guiding them on how to behave as a good wife and mother. Women's natural vocation is to be wife and mother, which is in line with the position given to women by nature, and all women who violate this position are immoral and naturally do not become good mothers.
In France, where the Enlightenment was in the ascendant, the standards of the Enlightenment thinkers for the ideal woman gradually entered the hearts of the people, from the early to the late stage, the ideal woman changed from having knowledge in the salon and freedom of thought and action to returning to the family and maintaining natural characteristics.
In the view of the Enlightenment thinker Rousseau, women should be gentle, forbearing, and loyal, receive a certain education, have a certain aesthetic ability, and cultivate women in the direction of "good wives and good mothers"; In love, the woman is the object party, the man is the subject in love In the family, the woman is attached to the man, and her field of activity is limited to the family, which is the arrangement of nature.
The ideas of the Enlightenment have imperceptibly influenced the French people, and naturally affect their evaluation of Antoinette.
The role of literature
If we want to talk about the shaping of a person's image, it is inseparable from the role of literature, and the image of Antoinette is inseparable from the portrayal and description of many pamphlets. Although there is a certain gap between literature and social reality, there is something in common between the two: the author takes materials from real life and expresses the characters he wants to depict in the form of words, and the reader accepts the written language that has been artistically processed, and the characters are formed in these words, leaving a fixed impression in people's hearts.
"There is a certain distance between literature and art and social reality, and the literary image is the bridge between the two. Combined with his own grasp of the objective world, the writer expresses the objective real life in a perceptual form through language and writing, and at this time, the literary image appears. "Antoinette's impression in the minds of the world is not only caused by what she did and said, but also by the portrayal of her by writers in their literary works.
Antoinette's personal character and behavior
It was only after the marriage with France that Antoinette's personality traits really caught the attention of her mother, who was a clever girl but did not use it for her studies, and both Father Vermont and her brother Joseph, who taught her, thought that Antoinette was lively and lovely, but lazy and impetuous, which made it difficult for her to move freely in the position of crown princess and queen.
She has a beautiful appearance, which is in line with the aesthetics of the French people, who respect beauty and elegance, so when she first came to France, the people showed an overall positive attitude.
Antoinette was so troubled by the cumbersome etiquette of the French court that the Comtesse de Noaille, who was in charge of guiding her, was nicknamed "Madame de Ceremonies".
Such a blatant contempt for etiquette at Versailles was undoubtedly wrong, and the French court attached great importance to it, and her disregard for etiquette made her more vulnerable to criticism.
The Count of Mersey kept an eye on Antoinette's movements, reporting to Empress Teresa from time to time, and both of them hoped that Antoinette would be interested in politics so that she could benefit her home country more when she became queen.
But Antoinette's personality was a major obstacle, as she had difficulty concentrating and rarely took the time to think about one thing, let alone what made her focus on political matters. At court, she was amiable, warm and generous to those around her, "sometimes so simple that she was even used by her three aunts against Madame du Barry."
After becoming queen, Antoinette worked hard to be a queen, she and Louis XVI often walked together, they were closer to the people than the previous kings and queens of France, and Antoinette won the popularity of the people with her graceful demeanor.
At this stage, Antoinette was a noble and elegant presence in the hearts of the people. But France's friendship with Antoinette lasted only a few years, and an important issue remained before her when she married into France: the birth of an heir to the throne.
The lack of childbirth after a few years of marriage became her fatal weakness, and it also made her gradually unpopular in France.
Pamphlets spreading her private life became popular, and since Antoinette had no children and the couple's marriage was not perfect, the pamphlets used this to promote Antoinette's mother's encouragement to have an heir through others. Lewd images appear in the pen of the author of these pamphlets.
A variety of factors influence
Under the influence of various factors, Antoinette's image at that time gradually declined, until the negative prevailed.
For Antoinette, it is necessary to see the positive side of her, but also to ignore her negative side, in the family, she is willful and naïve, after marriage, she is strong and affectionate, as a mother and tender to her children, in the social field, she leads the trend and has a wide range of contacts, in politics, as a princess, she plays a certain role in maintaining stable relations between the two countries, but can not ignore a series of negative effects that she brings.
Because of her love of costume jewelry, many women followed suit, brought huge debts to many families, violated morality in her love affair with Fersen, and brought many negative rumors about her intimate relationship with female friends.
Antoinette's extravagant corruption caused the people to resent it, so that the people gradually lost hope and trust in the royal family, and to a certain extent contributed to the outbreak of the French Revolution.
Today we should see the multifaceted image of Antoinette as a daughter, wife, and mother in the family, a fashionista, friend, and lover in the social sphere, and a princess, a noble queen, and a "demonized" queen in the political sphere.
epilogue
At a certain stage, a certain image occupies the mainstream, and several images coexist. There is no contradiction in the existence of different images of the same person, with the change of time, a person's identity will change, personality change will lead to behavior change, and people's evaluation of the same person will also be affected by various factors.
In short, when studying historical figures, we should uphold the principle of comprehensive and dynamic interpretation, understand their behavior in the context of the society at the time, and evaluate them as a whole from the perspective of today.