The last Queen of France before the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette is best known today for her extravagant lifestyle and controversial legacy. Initially admired for her grace and charm, as revolutionary fervour gripped her adopted homeland, she became a symbol of royal excess, and a lightning rod for public resentment.

But did she truly deserve her reputation of vain indifference? To what extent did misogyny and xenophobia shape her downfall? And did she ever utter those infamous words, ‘Let them eat cake’?

This is a Short History Of Marie Antoinette.

A Nosier Production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Laura O’Brien, Associate Professor at Northumbria University, and author of The Republican Line: Caricature and French Republican Identity, 1830-52.

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