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The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette
The Wicked Queen is not a biography of one of the most infamous queens in history. Rather, Chantal Thomas presents the history of the verbal and visual representations of Marie-Antoinette, the history of her mythification. Almost as soon as Marie-Antoinette, archduchess of Austria, was brought to France in 1771 as the bride of Louis XVI, she was smothered in images.
In a monarchy increasingly under assault, the charm and horror of her feminine body and her destructive political power as a foreign intruder turned Marie-Antoinette into an alien other ― the bestial “arch-tigress of Austria.” Working as a historian and writing like a novelist, Thomas reveals how Marie-Antoinette came to symbolize the marginalization and negation of women in French society before the French Revolution.
In a series of pamphlets written between the 1770s and her death in 1793, Marie-Antoinette was portrayed as a frivolous and extravagant spendthrift and lesbian, an incestuous and bloodthirsty libertine, a poisoner and infant murderess. “Through her wickedness,” writes Thomas, “she caused the Revolution.”
In her analyses of these anonymous pamphlets, seven of which are included here in translation for the first time, Thomas reconstructs how the pamphleteers’ mounting hallucinatory and libelous discourse culminated in the inevitable and physical destruction of what had become the counterrevolutionary symbol par excellence. The Wicked Queen exposes the complex and complicated history and power of an image, the elaborate process by which the myth of Marie-Antoinette emerged as a crucial element in the successful staging of the French Revolution.
In a monarchy increasingly under assault, the charm and horror of her feminine body and her destructive political power as a foreign intruder turned Marie-Antoinette into an alien other ― the bestial “arch-tigress of Austria.” Working as a historian and writing like a novelist, Thomas reveals how Marie-Antoinette came to symbolize the marginalization and negation of women in French society before the French Revolution.
In a series of pamphlets written between the 1770s and her death in 1793, Marie-Antoinette was portrayed as a frivolous and extravagant spendthrift and lesbian, an incestuous and bloodthirsty libertine, a poisoner and infant murderess. “Through her wickedness,” writes Thomas, “she caused the Revolution.”
In her analyses of these anonymous pamphlets, seven of which are included here in translation for the first time, Thomas reconstructs how the pamphleteers’ mounting hallucinatory and libelous discourse culminated in the inevitable and physical destruction of what had become the counterrevolutionary symbol par excellence. The Wicked Queen exposes the complex and complicated history and power of an image, the elaborate process by which the myth of Marie-Antoinette emerged as a crucial element in the successful staging of the French Revolution.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1989
2 people are currently reading
498 people want to read
About the author
Chantal Thomas
69 books36 followersChantal Thomas (born 1945 in Lyon) is a French writer and historian. Her 2002 book, Farewell, My Queen, won the Prix Femina and was adapted into a 2012 film starring Diane Kruger and Léa Seydoux.
Thomas was born in Lyon in 1945, and was raised in Arcachon, Bordeaux, and Paris. Her life has included teaching jobs at American and French universities (such as Yale and Princeton) as well as a publishing career. She has published nineteen works, including essays on the Marquis de Sade, Casanova, and Marie Antoinette.
In 2002, Thomas published Les adieux à la reine (Farewell, My Queen). The novel gave a fictional account of the final days of Marie Antoinette in power through the perspective of one of her servants. It won the Prix Femina in 2002, and was later adapted into the 2012 film Farewell, My Queen. The film stars Diane Kruger as the titular queen and Léa Seydoux as her servant Sidonie Laborde. Thomas co-wrote the screenplay,and it opened the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival. Helen Falconer of The Guardian called the work "a well written slice of history" with "evocative, observant prose," but criticized it for creating a narrator who "merely provides us with a pair of eyes to see through rather than capturing our interest in her own right." While disagreeing in its classification as a novel, Falconer did however add that Farewell, My Queen "generates in the reader a real sense of being a fly on the wall, eavesdropping on the affairs of the great and the not so good."
Thomas is currently the director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
(from Wikipedia)
Thomas was born in Lyon in 1945, and was raised in Arcachon, Bordeaux, and Paris. Her life has included teaching jobs at American and French universities (such as Yale and Princeton) as well as a publishing career. She has published nineteen works, including essays on the Marquis de Sade, Casanova, and Marie Antoinette.
In 2002, Thomas published Les adieux à la reine (Farewell, My Queen). The novel gave a fictional account of the final days of Marie Antoinette in power through the perspective of one of her servants. It won the Prix Femina in 2002, and was later adapted into the 2012 film Farewell, My Queen. The film stars Diane Kruger as the titular queen and Léa Seydoux as her servant Sidonie Laborde. Thomas co-wrote the screenplay,and it opened the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival. Helen Falconer of The Guardian called the work "a well written slice of history" with "evocative, observant prose," but criticized it for creating a narrator who "merely provides us with a pair of eyes to see through rather than capturing our interest in her own right." While disagreeing in its classification as a novel, Falconer did however add that Farewell, My Queen "generates in the reader a real sense of being a fly on the wall, eavesdropping on the affairs of the great and the not so good."
Thomas is currently the director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
(from Wikipedia)
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October 13, 2025What is your favourite revolution? As Lea Ypi asked in her memoir "Free"; this book has given me pause in my hitherto direct and uncomplicated inclination towards the French revolution , perhaps that is no bad thing, after all the Haitian revolution must also be given its due in world history.
This was a very engaging, fascinating reading experience. It follows therefore that it is a hard work to come down from. What to read next is not obvious, nor is how to read in future.
This more a literary analysis of Marie-Antoinette, of the themes in and tenor of the pamphlets written against her during her lifetime and shortly afterwards than a history. Thomas' analysis makes up about half of this book, the remainder is given over to some of those pamphlets, all bar one however from 1789 or later.
These themes included that Marie-Antoinette was part of a lesbian plot, that she was polluting, disgusting, that her beauty was artificial, that she was extravagant, that she was foreign.
You might note that many of these elements were part of what an eighteenth century Europeon queen was meant to be, and indeed far from being simply foriegn, paternally Marie-Antoinette was a descendant of Good King Rene of happy memory.
Thomas' book is not about the truth or justice of such claims but explores them as literature. This was intriguing, though it unsettled me in that Marie-Antoinette was not a character in a novel and nor were the people who wrote or read these pamphlets. And the real world consequences were dramatic.
Marie-Antoinette, contre un idéal viril, essential dans l'imaginaire de la Revolution, represente un principe d'effeminisation (p.101)
Equally such an approach felt valid in that people in the public eye are their image; in part that promoted by themselves, in part, by others in response to them.
Enfin, Il y a, a mes yeux, une homologie de destin entre Sade et Marie-Antoinette. Ils furent , dans tous les sens du terme, les victimes revees. Leurs condemnations s'autorisent d'une meme indistinction entre texte et personne. (p.22)
Reading put me in mind (among other things ) of women and power,particularly because of the mention of Messelina, although Beard, maybe correctly, doesn't I think discuss Marie-Antoinette , and Fritz Stern's "gold and iron", because when I read that, I sensed that a function of anti-semetic writing or speech is to teach anti-semeticism to others. Here too, unless the pamphlets were written by the knowledgeable for the knowledgeable. Marie-Antoinette is a Messilina, a Fredegond, we are told. They are creating a sense of a tradition, of a need for men to be alert about the opaque quality of monarchy - if they're not alert, all these evil women will be exercising authority for malign purposes or something.
Feels very contemporary. It's another reminder that the internet has brought nothing new, rather it speeds up and intensifies patterns of behaviour well established in human society.
The pamphlets presented are fairly sophisticated. They might have latin mottos on the title pages, they refer to the Gods and Goddesses of ancient Rome, one is written as a play, another as an opera -if they eere ever performed is another question - several are written in verse. They strike me as the products of upper parts of society, of people who might consider themselves entitled to power, but who in French absolutism could at best only hope for administrative posts. What they were able to do though was to mock the Queen, and by extension the King.
A fertile and fascinating book for me.
This was a very engaging, fascinating reading experience. It follows therefore that it is a hard work to come down from. What to read next is not obvious, nor is how to read in future.
This more a literary analysis of Marie-Antoinette, of the themes in and tenor of the pamphlets written against her during her lifetime and shortly afterwards than a history. Thomas' analysis makes up about half of this book, the remainder is given over to some of those pamphlets, all bar one however from 1789 or later.
These themes included that Marie-Antoinette was part of a lesbian plot, that she was polluting, disgusting, that her beauty was artificial, that she was extravagant, that she was foreign.
You might note that many of these elements were part of what an eighteenth century Europeon queen was meant to be, and indeed far from being simply foriegn, paternally Marie-Antoinette was a descendant of Good King Rene of happy memory.
Thomas' book is not about the truth or justice of such claims but explores them as literature. This was intriguing, though it unsettled me in that Marie-Antoinette was not a character in a novel and nor were the people who wrote or read these pamphlets. And the real world consequences were dramatic.
Marie-Antoinette, contre un idéal viril, essential dans l'imaginaire de la Revolution, represente un principe d'effeminisation (p.101)
Equally such an approach felt valid in that people in the public eye are their image; in part that promoted by themselves, in part, by others in response to them.
Enfin, Il y a, a mes yeux, une homologie de destin entre Sade et Marie-Antoinette. Ils furent , dans tous les sens du terme, les victimes revees. Leurs condemnations s'autorisent d'une meme indistinction entre texte et personne. (p.22)
Reading put me in mind (among other things ) of women and power,particularly because of the mention of Messelina, although Beard, maybe correctly, doesn't I think discuss Marie-Antoinette , and Fritz Stern's "gold and iron", because when I read that, I sensed that a function of anti-semetic writing or speech is to teach anti-semeticism to others. Here too, unless the pamphlets were written by the knowledgeable for the knowledgeable. Marie-Antoinette is a Messilina, a Fredegond, we are told. They are creating a sense of a tradition, of a need for men to be alert about the opaque quality of monarchy - if they're not alert, all these evil women will be exercising authority for malign purposes or something.
Feels very contemporary. It's another reminder that the internet has brought nothing new, rather it speeds up and intensifies patterns of behaviour well established in human society.
The pamphlets presented are fairly sophisticated. They might have latin mottos on the title pages, they refer to the Gods and Goddesses of ancient Rome, one is written as a play, another as an opera -if they eere ever performed is another question - several are written in verse. They strike me as the products of upper parts of society, of people who might consider themselves entitled to power, but who in French absolutism could at best only hope for administrative posts. What they were able to do though was to mock the Queen, and by extension the King.
A fertile and fascinating book for me.
July 27, 2011
I choose a marie antoinette question for my history essay... I thought it would be easier than the politics of the french revolution. How wrong I was. To answer the question of why she was so disliked was not as easy as anticipated. I brought every biography going but it was this gem and one other book that got me through the essay. It steps away from what every body already knows and portrays a darker side the the propaganda and 'media' use of the time! Pamphlets to the revolution was like tabloid fodder to celebrities now! She was not a saint but she sure was a scapegoat...
May 18, 2018
Very interesting and well researched look at the role of propaganda and media in the downfall of Marie-Antoinette. I particularly found the last chapter interesting, where it discusses how Marie-Antoinette was often just referred to as Antoinette of Austria, and how she was seen as unworthy of bearing the name Marie. It was incredibly fascinating.
August 17, 2023
3⭐️ - Incredible sources and different things to look at. A totally new perspective on how Marie Antoinette was viewed in her own time via the media and how they dragged her through the mud as a foreigner coming to become queen so young and then shutting herself off from her new people's for whatever reasons.
July 15, 2010
Incredibly well-written. Very cool reproductions of a pamphlet written about the Queen (I've not seen this anywhere else). Very thoughtful and interesting read. Interesting even for people into women's studies, propaganda or sexual politics.
February 14, 2023
Fascinating book about the history of Marie Antoinette, not simply in terms of her real life and actions, but in terms of the history of her representation in the print world - much of it underground - and legend/myth and how that Marie Antoinette was created and took on a reality so that it was the image of Marie Antoinette created by the pamphleteers of the Palais Royale and elsewhere that was judged and condemned by the 'People' of France (who ever they might be) long before she ever faced any kind of real trial or jury. Anyone interested in the French Revolution or the collapse of the Bourbon monarchy should read this. If you are looking for dress patterns and hair styles then this is not for you.
Be warned it is not always an easy read - there is an academic slant that makes it more heavy going then it need be but its fascinating subject should carry you through.
Be warned it is not always an easy read - there is an academic slant that makes it more heavy going then it need be but its fascinating subject should carry you through.
May 24, 2025
This book was not appropriate for me. The academic study of the myth created by the pamphlets was an interesting subject. I found myself getting confused as to whether the author was discussing fact or myth. Part of the problem may be that I tend to read things as truthful and and process fiction differently. Since the discussion was primarily about the myth the pamphlets created it took a lot of concentration to remind myself that these stories had no basis in fact. As far as the text is concerned my favorite part was the introduction.
Several pamphlets ere reproduced in the appendix. There was a nice timeline of Marie-Antoinette's life and a descriptive list of characters discussed. All of these were were positive additions but there is was no index.
Several pamphlets ere reproduced in the appendix. There was a nice timeline of Marie-Antoinette's life and a descriptive list of characters discussed. All of these were were positive additions but there is was no index.
September 10, 2015
An excellent book on how the concept of the print media shaped the public view of Marie Antoinette and the Royal Court. Much like Social Media today, the print media of Pre-Revolutionary France had a profound effect on the way that people viewed the Royal Family.
April 27, 2020
Took a long time for me to finish this book, considering its length, and I almost quit several times. It does seem well-researched; my rating is a reflection of my personal experience. My main issue Was it seems written for a reader who is well familiar with the history of Marie-Antoinette and all the events and players.
The focus is on the pamphlets, the fake news of the time, that established a false reputation for Marie-Antoinette as a foreigner born of the evil who sought to destroy France, and a woman with an insatiable and perverse sexual appetite. These laid the groundwork for the Revolution. One problem I had with this book is it often makes declarative statements of this propaganda and doesn’t include much about the truth. I don’t know if this is a result of translation (I seem to struggle with books translated from French in general), or if it was the style of the author’s original work. But it was hard to tell what was truth and what was repeating the propaganda as if it was truth. Combined with references to people and events I wasn’t familiar with that are never explained, it was a confusing and difficult read.
The main text comprises only about 150 pages, and the remaining 100 pages are notes and select pamphlets. It was surprising how explicit some of the pamphlets were.
Throughout the book, there are subtle explorations of the subjugation of women. Under the system of monarchy, a woman like Marie-Antoinette would be sent at a young age to a foreign country where she’d be hated as a foreigner, to marry a king she’d never met, for the purposes, essentially, of breeding an heir. They were objects of hatred, in constant danger, and only of interest when they were pregnant. The Revolution didn’t seem to improve matters for women, as the focus was on men in power. Marie-Antoinette was vilified in part because she was the daughter of a powerful woman. Though the little shared about real Marie-Antoinette that wasn’t pamphlets propaganda indicates she wasn’t actually much of a threat. She was unaware of any danger rising until it was too late, and focused on being fashionable. She would never say anything witty, and she’d often feign a trance in conversations, and then repeat the best comment someone else made, verbatim, as her own—if called out, she’d insist she hadn’t heard it said. I wish there had been more content like that, about the truth of who she was to contrast what the pamphlets claimed.
I think this book is well-suited to readers who know French history and want to dive deeper, but for casual readers like me, it’s a bit too academic and narrowly focused to be easily accessible.
The focus is on the pamphlets, the fake news of the time, that established a false reputation for Marie-Antoinette as a foreigner born of the evil who sought to destroy France, and a woman with an insatiable and perverse sexual appetite. These laid the groundwork for the Revolution. One problem I had with this book is it often makes declarative statements of this propaganda and doesn’t include much about the truth. I don’t know if this is a result of translation (I seem to struggle with books translated from French in general), or if it was the style of the author’s original work. But it was hard to tell what was truth and what was repeating the propaganda as if it was truth. Combined with references to people and events I wasn’t familiar with that are never explained, it was a confusing and difficult read.
The main text comprises only about 150 pages, and the remaining 100 pages are notes and select pamphlets. It was surprising how explicit some of the pamphlets were.
Throughout the book, there are subtle explorations of the subjugation of women. Under the system of monarchy, a woman like Marie-Antoinette would be sent at a young age to a foreign country where she’d be hated as a foreigner, to marry a king she’d never met, for the purposes, essentially, of breeding an heir. They were objects of hatred, in constant danger, and only of interest when they were pregnant. The Revolution didn’t seem to improve matters for women, as the focus was on men in power. Marie-Antoinette was vilified in part because she was the daughter of a powerful woman. Though the little shared about real Marie-Antoinette that wasn’t pamphlets propaganda indicates she wasn’t actually much of a threat. She was unaware of any danger rising until it was too late, and focused on being fashionable. She would never say anything witty, and she’d often feign a trance in conversations, and then repeat the best comment someone else made, verbatim, as her own—if called out, she’d insist she hadn’t heard it said. I wish there had been more content like that, about the truth of who she was to contrast what the pamphlets claimed.
I think this book is well-suited to readers who know French history and want to dive deeper, but for casual readers like me, it’s a bit too academic and narrowly focused to be easily accessible.
Want to read
January 15, 2010Apparently this book contains "a look at pamphlets of Marie-Antoinette's time which portrayed her as a villain".
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews