To kick things off, I'd like to point out the blogs I'm currently following and highly recommend them. Some are funny, some serious, and some are somewhere in between. All are wickedly interesting and good reads. Take a second to check them out!
Now on to the things I have been up to recently. As some of you may know, I am a big fan of doomed queens. The women who have worn the crown and fallen from grace in some of the most harrowing stories of history. In this vein, I picked up the book about one of the most famous doomed queens, "Marie Antoinette: The Journey" by Antonia Fraser.
It's such a good read, really making the life of this poor girl come to life. I know, that may seem like a contradiction, "Poor Queen" but it's true. She followed the worst advice not to acknowledge the rumor mongers and paid with her life. Vilified as an overindulged, vapid woman, the queen was actually a study of baptism by fire.
She arrived in France at the tender age of 14, from Austria which was at the time one of France's most loathed enemies, to secure a wobbly at best peace treaty. She was a child. Thanks to the Dauphin's shyness and possible medical condition, she remained a virgin (a very dangerous thing to be in a political marriage) for seven years! Without a means of securing her position, she allowed herself to dabble in the rich traditions of Versailles.
Even knowing how it ends I was still moved to tears. With such a human face, how could anyone want to demand her blood and deprive her children of a mother who was undoubtedly more involved in their health and well-being than any royal mother before her with the exception of the Medici's.
It begs the question though, what would have happened if Marie Antoinette had done as Elizabeth I had? What if she'd cut the hands from those who published slanderous materials to teach them that the power of the crown is firm and permanent?
It was customary for Kings of the period to take a mistress, and a lot of my historical novels are splattered with the pain the Queens dealt with while the King dallied with his wenches. I have always wondered, what if a King had actually been smitten with his wife? What if he took no mistress and subsequently break his wife's heart?
I got that answer from Louis XVI. He was very much in love with his Austrian bride, and adamantly refused to take a lover. Because of this, there was no Mistress to the king, depriving certain people of their stations and court intrigues. More importantly it made a scape goat of Marie Antoinette. Generally politics and controversial court policies were blamed on the influence of the Mistress. The Queen was generally just there to produce heirs and not expected to have an influence in court policy or politics.
Without this Mistress, all of the blame of the king's failures fell on Marie's shoulders. So now I must ask, what would have happened if the King had a French mistress? Would they have gotten to the point of calling for her blood? Would Marie have been so vilified? Would the Revolution have gained such momentum so fast?
Or would the fact that she was a much hated Austrian have made all roads lead to the guillotine anyway?
The undercurrent of the book though, and of the Revolution, isn't the progress of the people to abolish outdated ways of government, but a study in human cruelty. These people didn't just gather at the gates of the court and petition change, they stormed the Bastille, cut heads from nobility and placed them on pikes to parade through the city.
At what point does a mob lose it's morality and it's humanity? Did no one step back and think "Dear god, we're monsters. We are as guilty as those we intend to take down... if not more so"? Was there not a single voice of reason in their minds? The even took the Princesse de Lamballe, raped and destroyed her body, put her head on a pike and tried to get the Queen to kiss it!
Stop for just one second and imagine that the person you are the closest to has been laid to shreds and their head is now on a pike coming for you. I just can't believe so many were behind this. It really does support my theory that humans, at the base core, really are beastly. We may dress ourselves in silks and satins, speak eloquently, and pretend we're above such things, but the reality is darker. The French Revolution is a standing testament to that.
"I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you."
The point a mob loses its morality, judgement, and humanity is when it becomes a mob. Even in a crowd, some rational people have a hard time speaking up, but in a mob mentality, everything goes out the window.
ReplyDeleteTo quote the great Burgomeister from Young Frankenstein: " A riot iz an ugly zing -- and vunce you get vun started, there's little chance of stopping it short of bloodshed." Unfortunately, very apt. Another quote is, "A person is smart. People are stupid", all tying into the fact that people as individuals act differently than people in groups.
I'm still kind've surprised by the realization that it was the French government that helped out in the American Revolution... which served as a symbol to the French common people to rebel against that very same government and overthrow it. A little ironic, and makes you think.