This episode is part of a series on the life of Marie Antoinette. To gain access to the full archive, become a paid subscriber today:
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Marie Antoinette, to this day, remains one of the most controversial rulers in European history. Was she a heartless tyrant, or the victim of a gilded cage? A frivolous spendthrift with no care for the suffering poor, or a child bride completely out of her depth?
As we’ll see over the course of this series, Marie Antoinette was a complicated woman, and neither stereotype truly embodies who she was. In this episode, we’ll examine her childhood and the early years of her reign—and crucially, the missteps that put her on the path to ruin.
Our theme song is “Arabesque No. 1” by Claude Debussy (public domain).
