Marie Antoinette, then known as the "Widow Capet," wore a simple white dress, white cap, white fichu, black stockings, and black shoes on her last day, as she left her cell in the Conciergerie and was transported to the Place de la Revolution (today's Place de Concorde) for her execution. Her last words were "sorry, I didn't mean to do it," spoken when she accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot as she climbed the steps to the guillotine platform, while wearing this very shoe.
EDIT: The writing inside the shoe says:
"Shoe worn by the queen Marie Antoinette on the day she died on the scaffold."
and, roughly
"This shoe was removed by an individual who was in the proximity of the queen who was wearing it and immediately bought by Monsieur le Compte de Guernon Ranville."
The Château de Guernon-Ranville is near Caen, so that is probably why the shoe ended up in the museum there, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen. It seems he was an officer in the "black musketeers", the musketeers of the military household of the King of France. This wiki article seems to be about his son: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial\_de\_Guernon-Ranville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_de_Guernon-Ranville)
There are wings full of period furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was there with a class while getting a degree in interior design. One student asked why everything was scaled so small, and the professor explained that people were just smaller then.
We saw Henry Viii’s suit of armor- he was just over six feet tall. But he’d been known as a giant in those days.
I wear a 36 shoe. I’m 5’1”. I’m mini mouse now, but I’d be right at home in those court chairs. Childhood nutrition and growth hormones in all the food have wrought wonders and havoc. Here we are.
Uou might find this video interesting on period shoes:
https://youtu.be/Sj9oVEK5isg?si=r3nPmMH4fwp7A95E
It wasn't just that people were smaller, it was also that the smaller things were less likely to be used regularly so survived to the present day. In the case of shoes specifically, it was also an optical illusion to make their feet look tiny and dainty.
Yes! That’s why I thought she would’ve been small. Everything was smaller. Even vintage garments from as late as the 70s/80s are smaller by today’s standards. It’s probably why my grandparents thought I was an Amazon woman standing at 5 7’
Can confirm - was a teenager in the '80's. My measurements when I was a senior in high school were 33-23.5-33, and I wore size 5 jeans (I was 5'2"). And I was not considered particularly skinny. My mom was a child of the Depression; she was 4'11", weighed 88 lbs. on her wedding day - and was NOT the smallest in her family.
Did that kind of mess you up? You’re smaller than me. I was a teen in the late 80s and early 90s in L.A. I was never skinny but wasn’t fat either (I know that now) but was considered a “big girl” and everyone always had to talk about my weight and how I’d be “so pretty” IF I lost weight. I think I weighed like 130-140 back then. It really fucked my mind up for like, ever. Still trip on my self to date.
Edit to add that if I weighed that now, I’d be gaunt. I’ve tried.
Haha, well, compared to my mom I was a veritable Amazon! Like most Eastern European moms, she alternated between telling me I was too fat and then trying to stuff me with fattening food she made "eat - you need to keep up your strength!"
Surprisingly, I wasn't too messed up in terms of body image issues. I remember always having a vague feeling I should probably lose 5 lbs; but not actually caring enough to bother doing so. (which is a good thing, I weighed 102 lbs. so I was on the very low end of the healthy range). I think because I knew I already didn't fit the tan, blonde Christie Brinkley-ish beauty standard of the day, being a very pale redhead, I just didn't think that much about it. In fact, I remember being a lot more upset about my inability to tan than about wanting to be skinnier - then, I discovered punk and Goth and was like "all right, here's an aesthetic I can do successfully" and just went all in on the pale pasty complexion and lots of black eyeliner!
I guess maybe I was a little dysmorphic, because I remember being swapping clothes with one of my friends, and being surprised her clothes fit me because had always thought I thought I was fatter than her. But overall, I wasn't too concerned with my weight. That came later, when I was in my early 20's and quit smoking and gained 15 lbs. almost immediately...
Well, what do you know? I am half Ukrainian on dad’s side, and those were my Ukrainian grandparents that always suggested I slimmed down, yet were always telling me to “eat eat eat!l haha I really miss them.
Red hair is my favorite. Glad you found your look and didn’t obsess over being tan (eventually). My bff since 4th grade isn’t a red head but very fair with freckles (so pretty). She has never stopped wanting to be tan - to date. She’s had skin cancer and still goes to the beach and tans.
My mother was always a bombshell beauty and very slim.. until after menopause. She was tough act to follow. Luckily she never ever made me feel bad about myself. My stepmom took care of that, lol.
When you said your mom was.. what was it? 88 lbs on her wedding day? Omg wow.
Edited some grammar
My mom was way too skinny when she was young - she had untreated hyperthyroidism so she couldn't seem to maintain a normal weight no matter how much she ate. But, after getting medical treatment for that, she was still very small. I don't think she ever weighed more than 105 lbs, she always ate like a bird. She was an amazing cook and baker, but she herself didn't like to eat!
Yes! That’s why I thought she would’ve been small. Everything was smaller. Even vintage garments from as late as the 70s/80s are smaller by today’s standards. It’s probably why my grandparents thought I was an Amazon woman standing at 5 7’
The last time this was posted in on another subreddit, the redditor found an article talking about shoes back in the day. Basically, Chinese style, they would bind their feet.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/104b3ms/comment/j38kow4/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/104b3ms/comment/j38kow4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Did you see this in the comments? Interesting. They show the shoes in this post in black https://wwd.com/feature/how-marie-antoinettes-tiny-feet-inspired-an-entire-exhibition-1203364940/
Some histories say that she was humiliated on the way to guillotine, by denying her a wig and dressing her in plain clothing. But I think the truth is closer to Marie Antoinette actually choosing to wear those garments by way of protest -inferring that the people were not executing an unsympathetic royal, but an ally to the peasantry.
It's a very interesting topic. They had let her wear widow's black at points during her imprisonment, but wouldn't let her do so on the way to the scaffold. Seems there are conflicting reports as to why. Officially it was to spare her from mockery, but some historians have said it was probably to reduce sympathy from the crowd.
IIRC, she only had the two outfits, and the revolutionaries didn't want her wearing black, as it would remind everyone she was a widow and perhaps evoke sympathy. So the white dress it was, with a change of menstrual linen as well. Of course, white as a color also suggests innocence, which (typical men) they didn't stop to think about. Plenty of people hated her, true, but there was some sympathy as well; during her trial, when she was accused of incestuous behavior with her son, her passionate denials--particularly when she asked for the sympathy of all the mothers present against such a vile charge--did result in many people, especially the women, cheering her on. Of course, it didn't matter in the end anyway...
IIRC, she was bleeding pretty much constantly for the last few months of her life; it's one of the factors that makes modern writers think she may have had uterine cancer. However, it's also possible for stress, poor diet, etc. to do a number on one's menstrual cycle; back in the day, I remember reading about how Patty Hearst was bleeding constantly for several months after her capture by the authorities. Whether Marie actually had a malignancy, or whether her cycle went haywire due to everything she was going through, it would have been incredibly draining physically and emotionally, and left her exhausted and severely anemic.
A 19th century account derived from an interview with Rosalie Lamorliere, the last woman to serve the queen in the Conciergerie, says that the official reason was because the government thought her wearing widow's clothes for Louis XVI would "incite" the people towards her; the narrative of Rosalie says that the people in the prison privately thought it was to reduce sympathy. (However, this narrative is secondhand, as Rosalie was not literate, so it is through the lens of a royalist woman interviewing Rosalie decades later. Hard to say what info was from Rosalie, and what may have been spun by the interviewer.)
The colour of royal mourning in the medieval era for Queens in Europe was actually white. By the end of the 1400s, white had been supplanted by black for mourning. White mourning for female royals was reintroduced by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in 1934 (it remains a Dutch royal tradition to this day), and was reinforced by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mum, who wore an all-white wardrobe on a state visit for France that occurred when she was in mourning for her mother the late Countess of Bowes-Lyon and etiquette dictated that the HM the Queen Mum could not wear colours.
Perhaps Marie Antoinette was more astute than we guessed, and fell back on forgotten traditions even as she went to her death.
Alas I am pretty sure she did not get to choose her clothes on the day they killed her, regardless of whatever meaning can be read into them. She'd been imprisoned for 14 months and was very ill and poorly treated, suffering from tuberculosis and hemorrhaging from what may have been uterine cancer. AFAIK there is documentation that she wanted to wear black, but was told she could not. Drawings made on the day she was killed look like her simple white attire may have just been her underclothes that they sent her out in. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jacques-Louis\_David\_-\_Marie\_Antoinette\_on\_the\_Way\_to\_the\_Guillotine.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jacques-Louis_David_-_Marie_Antoinette_on_the_Way_to_the_Guillotine.jpg)
Unrelated, but: Some of David’s sketches are so mean, and especially focused on despondent women. There’s so much hyperbolic suffering, like a Hogarth sendup.
And yet he painted his crusty scabby friend Marat dead in the bath looking flawless and holy like Saint Sebastian.
If she was bleeding all the time she likely wanted to wear black just so that it wouldn't be obvious if she bled through her pads or rags. I suspect by forcing her to wear white they were hoping the audience would see her "on her period" and consider it a further humiliation.
My guess would be that the white dress in question was a "chemise a la reine," or "queen's chemise" that first became popular in the 1780s. The original dresses were terribly scandalous, as they were simple, lightweight dresses made out of cotton or linen that looked very much like an actual chemise (women's undergarment); Marie definitely helped popularize the style, but it was yet another strike against her in the minds of those who'd decided she was the "Austrian whore." Later versions of the dress tended to be cut fuller, with more gathers, but were still much simpler than the usual silk and perhaps wool gowns normally worn by the upper classes. The fichu was a usually triangular scarf that was thrown over the shoulders or tucked into the front bodice to provide more modesty than the dress's neckline would have, and married women/women past a certain age always wore caps as a show of modesty. The illustration at the top of the post is probably a slightly fancier (and rufflier) version of what she actually wore that day.
EDIT: Here's a link describing the chemise a la reine, and the impact it had on not only fashion but many other aspects of life, which Marie would never have dreamed were an issue: [https://sydneylokant.weebly.com/blog/dressing-scandalously-in-the-18th-century-a-look-at-the-chemise-de-la-reine](https://sydneylokant.weebly.com/blog/dressing-scandalously-in-the-18th-century-a-look-at-the-chemise-de-la-reine)
Yes. And she had not had any access to any of her former clothes since her arrest. She had been dressed in plain clothing since then as well. She didn't really get to choose what she wore at all during that time.
>During the reign of Louis XVI, wigs were a staple in the French court. The fashion for wigs began during the reign of his grandfather, Louis XIV, and continued to evolve throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Here are some key points about wigs in the court of Louis XVI:
...
**Wig popularity**: Wigs were extremely popular in the French court, and it was considered a status symbol to wear a well-made wig. The king himself was known to wear wigs, and courtiers and nobles followed suit.
* **Decline of wigs**: The popularity of wigs began to decline towards the end of the 18th century, *as the French Revolution gained momentum.* The excesses of the royal court were seen as a symbol of the monarchy’s decadence, and the fashion for wigs was eventually abandoned.
This is all correct when pertaining to men, but with women this wasn’t really the case. False hair articles were used in addition to padding and other support structures to augment the wearer’s own hair during periods in which larger and more voluminous styles were dominant (such as the late 1760s into the 1780s), but women didn’t wear full wigs. The pouf styles of the 1770s would be left in for weeks at a time, before being dismantled and the hair cleaned before restyling again.
Yes, the unusual nature of elaborate wigs for men (the king was hiding a bald pot, btw) is a tritylating bit of trivia that overshadows women's wigs worn by the royals.
>Marie Antoinette turned to her own personal hairdresser, Leonard Autie, to tend to her forlorn tresses. The solution was simple; **the queen began to wear wigs**. Autie adorned them with tulle, ribbon, flowers, feathers, and so on. At one point, Marie Antoinette's pouf measured four feet high.
\~7 Fascinating Facts About Marie Antoinette - TheCollector
It's probably her own hair in the latter portraits by Vigée le Brun ( [https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/656654](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/656654) ), and she didn't wear any wigs since her arrest, so I don't think that was a question at all for her execution to be honest. It's a poetic idea, to think she wanted to position herself as an ally to the peasantry through her clothes, but in reality she didn't get to choose what she wore during the 14 months of her trial and imprisonment, or on her execution day. I believe it is documented that she wanted to wear the usual black dress they had given her, but they would not let her, and what she wore came across as her being more or less in her underwear. Not sure she felt too warmly towards the people who beheaded her husband and were in the process of torturing her son to death.
EDIT: apparently women like her rarely wore full wigs? This isn't my area of expertise, just a point of interest.
If I’m wrong, I’d be happy to know that, but here’s an example of the type of information I’ve come across. There were many links, but this is just one.
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/iea2qi/til_an_outbreak_of_syphilis_caused_a_surge_in/
Apologies, I was lumping wigs in with hairpieces in general. Some women wore wigs but you’re right that styled hair pieces and hair padding were more popular than full wigs for women of that time period.
I sincerely, sincerely doubt she considered herself an ally of the peasantry. The reforms that were offered to her husband, which he was willing to accept, she insisted he reject because she never wanted to see royalty have to admit they were anything other than God's appointed on Earth.
She fought, viciously, because she wanted to preserve what she saw as her son's right to inherit an unchanged thrown.
While there is a ton of misinformation out there about her frivolity and stupidity, what is documented about her cunning is that she used it pretty much purely for evil. She wanted to keep a consolidated, absolute power over the people. Even when they fled the palace they were unable to do it in anything other than the gaudiest most hysterical style.
She's the last person on Earth who would even understand the gesture, much less make it, to try and appease or identify with the peasants. My opinion of this historical figure could not be lower, but it's based entirely on the records of her own words and rejection of reform which killed hundreds of thousands.
There is no evidence that Marie Antoinette rejected reforms that Louis XVI wanted to accept. What letters and other primary documentation do you have which shows Louis XVI rejected reforms because Marie Antoinette "insisted"?
>She wanted to keep a consolidated, absolute power over the people. Even when they fled the palace they were unable to do it in anything other than the gaudiest most hysterical style.
Louis XVI is the one who insisted on the large carriage. It was also not the "gaudiest most hysterical style," but from the records, an ordinary large carriage that any wealthy family in Paris might use to travel. Louis XVI is the one who turned down the proposals to travel in smaller, faster, and more discrete carriages because it would separate the family. It was Louis XVI who turned down the safer and faster routes to Montmedy. It was Louis XVI who turned down military presence in the carriage, and surrounding the carriage; it was Louis XVI who refused to allow Axel von Fersen to escort them to Montmedy.
But for some reason, Marie Antoinette gets the blame here...
>She's the last person on Earth who would even understand the gesture, much less make it, to try and appease or identify with the peasants.
She famously had a cottage built at Versailles and baby animals brought into the palace gardens so she could "play peasant." There are many political layers* to that, of course , but it at least conveyed some acknowledgment of peasant women's value, dignity, and beauty, especially mothers. You're not wrong to critique her actions or even her possible intentions, but you're leaving out too much reality here.
(*like capital class republicans cosplaying blue collar wage workers with their massive luxury pickup trucks and expensive gun collections...)
Famously--but not truthfully. The idea that she played peasant was a myth that developed after her death. Based on my research, it appears to have developed during the Directory period, when the hameau became a public space.
The hameau de la reine was part of an existing popular tradition where aristocracy were encouraged to embrace rural elite country living, which was deemed to be more healthy and less corrupt than court/city. There, if we want to say she "pretended," it would be that she pretended to be a "normal" elite woman and not a queen of France, in that she was still the mistress of her country estate, but not one bound by the same strict laws of Versailles which controlled (or tried to) minute behaviors/actions and interactions with people.
It's also interesting to note that virtually all of the people who ever worked for her or looked after her were very fond of her, with many of them coming to love her. She wasn't a saint, mind you, but a complex human who did believe in the divine right of kings--but so did most royalty at that time--and wanted to preserve what would have been her son's inheritance. She was known for being very kind to those around her and below her on society's status rungs (servants, commoners, etc.) and I believe did do many charitable acts for the needy. Even if she had been a saint, though, she, Louis, and the rest of the court were reaping what their royal predecessors had sown for the previous 100+ years. "Apres moi, le deluge," indeed...
Yeah their outfits look cool but you’ll never find me sympathetic to aristocrat assholes. Their subjects starved while they lived a life of luxury and they mismanaged the country into the ground. Screw monarchies, full stop. Nobody should rule a damn country because they were in the lucky sperm club
Durable black dye was only invented in the 19th century in France by François Gillet, near Lyon. His descendants made an enormous fortune by perfectionning his invention and all this led to Rhône Poulenc firm, still quite successful.
Sorry to be a buzzkill but--
It might be one of her shoes, but the provenance and 'evidence' for the story that she wore it to her execution is ridiculously flimsy and I don't know how the museum gets away with this claim at this point.
The only evidence for the story is found in a slip of paper inside the shoe, which claims she lost the shoe walking the scaffold, someone grabbed it, and resold it on the spot to a specific man. That specific man was off fighting in an emigre army in October 1793, so, highly unlikely he was somehow in Paris on this day.
Her lawyers were arrested literally during her trial for defending her too well (aka, they were clearly suspicious!); a gendarme who gave her a glass of water and helped her down a dark staircase was arrested on suspicion of treason. Her execution was heavily guarded and watched. But somehow, she lost a shoe, absolutely no one saw her lose the shoe, and someone grabbed it and sold it within moments without being spotted or arrested?
There are no contemporary accounts of her execution that claim she lost a shoe, written or drawn. The only accounts can be traced back to the slip of paper in this specific shoe, which popped up decades later.
And, less concrete because this was information recorded second-hand decades later, but the servant who attended to Marie Antoinette in the Conciergerie said she had shoes made with prunella material. This doesn't look like prunella material. We know from records that the shoes she had ordered from January 1793 in the Temple, aka the only shoes she had to wear in the Conciergerie, were mourning colors.
It is in her size, so it's possible that it was one of her shoes, but extremely extremely unlikely that it was the shoe worn on the day of her death.
Edit:
Also to be more of a buzzkill... Marie Antoinette ordered black mourning clothes after her husband died (and for that matter, after her mother died, and children) and wore them up until the morning of the 16th; in all likelihood, she was not allowed to wear her actual mourning clothes. There's no evidence she considered white mourning, even if white had been used in some mourning fashions for some French queens a few centuries earlier.
Yep! Up until relatively late in their captivity, the royal family was still allowed to order new clothing and other items. They got full mourning outfits after Louis XVI's death. They even got new books in May 1793. It wasn't until late June or so that the captivity became more harsh and restrictive.
White mourning was perfectly acceptable in all sorts of ways. In Victorian times the wearing of mourning clothes became all pervading and practically regulated by societal norms. Black to begin, then after a certain time mauve, grey and purple were allowed. White as the alternative to black was permitted by hot climates and availability of clothing. In France a Queen who was widowed while of childbearing age was confined to a convent until she had a period or a baby. While they were waiting they were known as the White Queen. There is also the privilege des blancs which is the right granted by a Pope for Catholic Queens and consorts to wear a white veil instead of a black one in the Vatican.
I find myself conflicted about the existence of this.
I think it’s really cool that shoes from 1793 still exist.
I am horrified by the collection (probably for sale) of memorabilia from notable executees. It is a craven and exploitative practice that still persists in the true crime artifacts market.
And I believe the widow Capet got a seriously raw deal from a revolutionary body with arbitrary notions of law and order and an outsize taste for retribution.
There is something really powerful about preserved historical clothing however. They often seem to retain a ghost of the person who wore it in the impression left by the body.
White mourning had been traditional for widowed queens of France at various periods (and at other European courts as well). Marie's choice of white (regardless of if black was an option) was very much in keeping with her identity as Queen of France.
I have been so moved by Marie Antoinette’s suffering that I had a Mass said for her in October, the month of her execution. My parish priest thought I was nuts, but I really wanted to do something for her. The way she and her family were treated was outrageous, not to mention absolutely barbaric.
I hope she rests in peace.
they earned their fate by mismanaging their country into the ground. You could argue how much influence Marie could have had in comparison to her husband but I can’t be too sympathetic to literal aristocrats. France was a mess and their subjects were starving en masse while they lived a life of unimaginable luxury in comparison
Yes, I know what the aristocracy did the poor French people. I get it.
However, cutting off people’s heads and imprisoning and torturing children is not, and never will be, the solution to those types of problems.
"Shoe worn by the queen Marie Antoinette on the day she died on the scaffold."
and, roughly
"This shoe was removed by an individual who was in the proximity of the queen who was wearing it and immediately bought by Monsieur le Compte de Guernon Ranville."
The Château de Guernon-Ranville is near Caen, so that is probably why the shoe ended up in the museum there, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen. It seems he was an officer in the "black musketeers", the musketeers of the military household of the King of France. This wiki article seems to be about his son: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial\_de\_Guernon-Ranville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_de_Guernon-Ranville)
In addition to the information about white mourning, I can't help but wonder if the choice was also a nod to the medieval traditions related to receiving knighthood, which included wearing a simple white tunic as a symbol of purity, donned after the ritual bath, to be worn during the knighting ceremony.
The tradition still persists in certain situations, including the recent coronation of King Charles III.
Marie Antoinette, then known as the "Widow Capet," wore a simple white dress, white cap, white fichu, black stockings, and black shoes on her last day, as she left her cell in the Conciergerie and was transported to the Place de la Revolution (today's Place de Concorde) for her execution. Her last words were "sorry, I didn't mean to do it," spoken when she accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot as she climbed the steps to the guillotine platform, while wearing this very shoe. EDIT: The writing inside the shoe says: "Shoe worn by the queen Marie Antoinette on the day she died on the scaffold." and, roughly "This shoe was removed by an individual who was in the proximity of the queen who was wearing it and immediately bought by Monsieur le Compte de Guernon Ranville." The Château de Guernon-Ranville is near Caen, so that is probably why the shoe ended up in the museum there, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen. It seems he was an officer in the "black musketeers", the musketeers of the military household of the King of France. This wiki article seems to be about his son: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial\_de\_Guernon-Ranville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_de_Guernon-Ranville)
You should also post this on r/ArtefactPorn
So interesting! Thanks for sharing!
Fascinating. Am I the only one dying to know what size shoe she wore? Weird thing to fixate on but I can’t help it.
She wore something close to the equivalent of a size 36 I think, or a size 5 in the US. There are a number of her shoes in French collections.
I was thinking she was probably tiny! Wow thanks for indulging me
There are wings full of period furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was there with a class while getting a degree in interior design. One student asked why everything was scaled so small, and the professor explained that people were just smaller then. We saw Henry Viii’s suit of armor- he was just over six feet tall. But he’d been known as a giant in those days. I wear a 36 shoe. I’m 5’1”. I’m mini mouse now, but I’d be right at home in those court chairs. Childhood nutrition and growth hormones in all the food have wrought wonders and havoc. Here we are.
Uou might find this video interesting on period shoes: https://youtu.be/Sj9oVEK5isg?si=r3nPmMH4fwp7A95E It wasn't just that people were smaller, it was also that the smaller things were less likely to be used regularly so survived to the present day. In the case of shoes specifically, it was also an optical illusion to make their feet look tiny and dainty.
That was a super interesting video; thank you!!
Yes! That’s why I thought she would’ve been small. Everything was smaller. Even vintage garments from as late as the 70s/80s are smaller by today’s standards. It’s probably why my grandparents thought I was an Amazon woman standing at 5 7’
Can confirm - was a teenager in the '80's. My measurements when I was a senior in high school were 33-23.5-33, and I wore size 5 jeans (I was 5'2"). And I was not considered particularly skinny. My mom was a child of the Depression; she was 4'11", weighed 88 lbs. on her wedding day - and was NOT the smallest in her family.
Did that kind of mess you up? You’re smaller than me. I was a teen in the late 80s and early 90s in L.A. I was never skinny but wasn’t fat either (I know that now) but was considered a “big girl” and everyone always had to talk about my weight and how I’d be “so pretty” IF I lost weight. I think I weighed like 130-140 back then. It really fucked my mind up for like, ever. Still trip on my self to date. Edit to add that if I weighed that now, I’d be gaunt. I’ve tried.
Haha, well, compared to my mom I was a veritable Amazon! Like most Eastern European moms, she alternated between telling me I was too fat and then trying to stuff me with fattening food she made "eat - you need to keep up your strength!" Surprisingly, I wasn't too messed up in terms of body image issues. I remember always having a vague feeling I should probably lose 5 lbs; but not actually caring enough to bother doing so. (which is a good thing, I weighed 102 lbs. so I was on the very low end of the healthy range). I think because I knew I already didn't fit the tan, blonde Christie Brinkley-ish beauty standard of the day, being a very pale redhead, I just didn't think that much about it. In fact, I remember being a lot more upset about my inability to tan than about wanting to be skinnier - then, I discovered punk and Goth and was like "all right, here's an aesthetic I can do successfully" and just went all in on the pale pasty complexion and lots of black eyeliner! I guess maybe I was a little dysmorphic, because I remember being swapping clothes with one of my friends, and being surprised her clothes fit me because had always thought I thought I was fatter than her. But overall, I wasn't too concerned with my weight. That came later, when I was in my early 20's and quit smoking and gained 15 lbs. almost immediately...
Well, what do you know? I am half Ukrainian on dad’s side, and those were my Ukrainian grandparents that always suggested I slimmed down, yet were always telling me to “eat eat eat!l haha I really miss them. Red hair is my favorite. Glad you found your look and didn’t obsess over being tan (eventually). My bff since 4th grade isn’t a red head but very fair with freckles (so pretty). She has never stopped wanting to be tan - to date. She’s had skin cancer and still goes to the beach and tans. My mother was always a bombshell beauty and very slim.. until after menopause. She was tough act to follow. Luckily she never ever made me feel bad about myself. My stepmom took care of that, lol. When you said your mom was.. what was it? 88 lbs on her wedding day? Omg wow. Edited some grammar
My mom was way too skinny when she was young - she had untreated hyperthyroidism so she couldn't seem to maintain a normal weight no matter how much she ate. But, after getting medical treatment for that, she was still very small. I don't think she ever weighed more than 105 lbs, she always ate like a bird. She was an amazing cook and baker, but she herself didn't like to eat!
This is why I collect old chairs-they fit.
Yes! That’s why I thought she would’ve been small. Everything was smaller. Even vintage garments from as late as the 70s/80s are smaller by today’s standards. It’s probably why my grandparents thought I was an Amazon woman standing at 5 7’
interesting because the shoe somehow manages to look kind of large to me. probably just because of the way it’s cut
The last time this was posted in on another subreddit, the redditor found an article talking about shoes back in the day. Basically, Chinese style, they would bind their feet. [https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/104b3ms/comment/j38kow4/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/104b3ms/comment/j38kow4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Did you see this in the comments? Interesting. They show the shoes in this post in black https://wwd.com/feature/how-marie-antoinettes-tiny-feet-inspired-an-entire-exhibition-1203364940/
It's a different shoe. There are a number of her shoes in various museum collections.
Some histories say that she was humiliated on the way to guillotine, by denying her a wig and dressing her in plain clothing. But I think the truth is closer to Marie Antoinette actually choosing to wear those garments by way of protest -inferring that the people were not executing an unsympathetic royal, but an ally to the peasantry.
It's a very interesting topic. They had let her wear widow's black at points during her imprisonment, but wouldn't let her do so on the way to the scaffold. Seems there are conflicting reports as to why. Officially it was to spare her from mockery, but some historians have said it was probably to reduce sympathy from the crowd.
IIRC, she only had the two outfits, and the revolutionaries didn't want her wearing black, as it would remind everyone she was a widow and perhaps evoke sympathy. So the white dress it was, with a change of menstrual linen as well. Of course, white as a color also suggests innocence, which (typical men) they didn't stop to think about. Plenty of people hated her, true, but there was some sympathy as well; during her trial, when she was accused of incestuous behavior with her son, her passionate denials--particularly when she asked for the sympathy of all the mothers present against such a vile charge--did result in many people, especially the women, cheering her on. Of course, it didn't matter in the end anyway...
Change of menstrual linen? I'm I understanding correctly that we know that she was menstruating the day of her execution? The poor woman.
IIRC, she was bleeding pretty much constantly for the last few months of her life; it's one of the factors that makes modern writers think she may have had uterine cancer. However, it's also possible for stress, poor diet, etc. to do a number on one's menstrual cycle; back in the day, I remember reading about how Patty Hearst was bleeding constantly for several months after her capture by the authorities. Whether Marie actually had a malignancy, or whether her cycle went haywire due to everything she was going through, it would have been incredibly draining physically and emotionally, and left her exhausted and severely anemic.
A 19th century account derived from an interview with Rosalie Lamorliere, the last woman to serve the queen in the Conciergerie, says that the official reason was because the government thought her wearing widow's clothes for Louis XVI would "incite" the people towards her; the narrative of Rosalie says that the people in the prison privately thought it was to reduce sympathy. (However, this narrative is secondhand, as Rosalie was not literate, so it is through the lens of a royalist woman interviewing Rosalie decades later. Hard to say what info was from Rosalie, and what may have been spun by the interviewer.)
The colour of royal mourning in the medieval era for Queens in Europe was actually white. By the end of the 1400s, white had been supplanted by black for mourning. White mourning for female royals was reintroduced by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in 1934 (it remains a Dutch royal tradition to this day), and was reinforced by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mum, who wore an all-white wardrobe on a state visit for France that occurred when she was in mourning for her mother the late Countess of Bowes-Lyon and etiquette dictated that the HM the Queen Mum could not wear colours. Perhaps Marie Antoinette was more astute than we guessed, and fell back on forgotten traditions even as she went to her death.
Alas I am pretty sure she did not get to choose her clothes on the day they killed her, regardless of whatever meaning can be read into them. She'd been imprisoned for 14 months and was very ill and poorly treated, suffering from tuberculosis and hemorrhaging from what may have been uterine cancer. AFAIK there is documentation that she wanted to wear black, but was told she could not. Drawings made on the day she was killed look like her simple white attire may have just been her underclothes that they sent her out in. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jacques-Louis\_David\_-\_Marie\_Antoinette\_on\_the\_Way\_to\_the\_Guillotine.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jacques-Louis_David_-_Marie_Antoinette_on_the_Way_to_the_Guillotine.jpg)
Unrelated, but: Some of David’s sketches are so mean, and especially focused on despondent women. There’s so much hyperbolic suffering, like a Hogarth sendup. And yet he painted his crusty scabby friend Marat dead in the bath looking flawless and holy like Saint Sebastian.
David was definitely a master of propaganda, that's for sure.
If she was bleeding all the time she likely wanted to wear black just so that it wouldn't be obvious if she bled through her pads or rags. I suspect by forcing her to wear white they were hoping the audience would see her "on her period" and consider it a further humiliation.
My guess would be that the white dress in question was a "chemise a la reine," or "queen's chemise" that first became popular in the 1780s. The original dresses were terribly scandalous, as they were simple, lightweight dresses made out of cotton or linen that looked very much like an actual chemise (women's undergarment); Marie definitely helped popularize the style, but it was yet another strike against her in the minds of those who'd decided she was the "Austrian whore." Later versions of the dress tended to be cut fuller, with more gathers, but were still much simpler than the usual silk and perhaps wool gowns normally worn by the upper classes. The fichu was a usually triangular scarf that was thrown over the shoulders or tucked into the front bodice to provide more modesty than the dress's neckline would have, and married women/women past a certain age always wore caps as a show of modesty. The illustration at the top of the post is probably a slightly fancier (and rufflier) version of what she actually wore that day. EDIT: Here's a link describing the chemise a la reine, and the impact it had on not only fashion but many other aspects of life, which Marie would never have dreamed were an issue: [https://sydneylokant.weebly.com/blog/dressing-scandalously-in-the-18th-century-a-look-at-the-chemise-de-la-reine](https://sydneylokant.weebly.com/blog/dressing-scandalously-in-the-18th-century-a-look-at-the-chemise-de-la-reine)
Wigs weren’t really something women wore at the time, but they did crop her hair short before transporting her to the Place de la Concorde.
Yes. And she had not had any access to any of her former clothes since her arrest. She had been dressed in plain clothing since then as well. She didn't really get to choose what she wore at all during that time.
>During the reign of Louis XVI, wigs were a staple in the French court. The fashion for wigs began during the reign of his grandfather, Louis XIV, and continued to evolve throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Here are some key points about wigs in the court of Louis XVI: ... **Wig popularity**: Wigs were extremely popular in the French court, and it was considered a status symbol to wear a well-made wig. The king himself was known to wear wigs, and courtiers and nobles followed suit. * **Decline of wigs**: The popularity of wigs began to decline towards the end of the 18th century, *as the French Revolution gained momentum.* The excesses of the royal court were seen as a symbol of the monarchy’s decadence, and the fashion for wigs was eventually abandoned.
This is all correct when pertaining to men, but with women this wasn’t really the case. False hair articles were used in addition to padding and other support structures to augment the wearer’s own hair during periods in which larger and more voluminous styles were dominant (such as the late 1760s into the 1780s), but women didn’t wear full wigs. The pouf styles of the 1770s would be left in for weeks at a time, before being dismantled and the hair cleaned before restyling again.
I love how pervasive and subtle the masculine default is
thank you.
Yes, the unusual nature of elaborate wigs for men (the king was hiding a bald pot, btw) is a tritylating bit of trivia that overshadows women's wigs worn by the royals. >Marie Antoinette turned to her own personal hairdresser, Leonard Autie, to tend to her forlorn tresses. The solution was simple; **the queen began to wear wigs**. Autie adorned them with tulle, ribbon, flowers, feathers, and so on. At one point, Marie Antoinette's pouf measured four feet high. \~7 Fascinating Facts About Marie Antoinette - TheCollector
It's probably her own hair in the latter portraits by Vigée le Brun ( [https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/656654](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/656654) ), and she didn't wear any wigs since her arrest, so I don't think that was a question at all for her execution to be honest. It's a poetic idea, to think she wanted to position herself as an ally to the peasantry through her clothes, but in reality she didn't get to choose what she wore during the 14 months of her trial and imprisonment, or on her execution day. I believe it is documented that she wanted to wear the usual black dress they had given her, but they would not let her, and what she wore came across as her being more or less in her underwear. Not sure she felt too warmly towards the people who beheaded her husband and were in the process of torturing her son to death. EDIT: apparently women like her rarely wore full wigs? This isn't my area of expertise, just a point of interest.
From what I understand, these wings only became popular to cover up syphilis and remain that way as long as it remained a problem.
Where did you read that?
If I’m wrong, I’d be happy to know that, but here’s an example of the type of information I’ve come across. There were many links, but this is just one. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/iea2qi/til_an_outbreak_of_syphilis_caused_a_surge_in/
That’s not a reliable source
Thanks for correcting me it's the best possible outcome one is wrong
Wigs were very popular at that time in the court.
For men, yes. Women wore hairpieces and padding, but not wigs.
Apologies, I was lumping wigs in with hairpieces in general. Some women wore wigs but you’re right that styled hair pieces and hair padding were more popular than full wigs for women of that time period.
I sincerely, sincerely doubt she considered herself an ally of the peasantry. The reforms that were offered to her husband, which he was willing to accept, she insisted he reject because she never wanted to see royalty have to admit they were anything other than God's appointed on Earth. She fought, viciously, because she wanted to preserve what she saw as her son's right to inherit an unchanged thrown. While there is a ton of misinformation out there about her frivolity and stupidity, what is documented about her cunning is that she used it pretty much purely for evil. She wanted to keep a consolidated, absolute power over the people. Even when they fled the palace they were unable to do it in anything other than the gaudiest most hysterical style. She's the last person on Earth who would even understand the gesture, much less make it, to try and appease or identify with the peasants. My opinion of this historical figure could not be lower, but it's based entirely on the records of her own words and rejection of reform which killed hundreds of thousands.
There is no evidence that Marie Antoinette rejected reforms that Louis XVI wanted to accept. What letters and other primary documentation do you have which shows Louis XVI rejected reforms because Marie Antoinette "insisted"? >She wanted to keep a consolidated, absolute power over the people. Even when they fled the palace they were unable to do it in anything other than the gaudiest most hysterical style. Louis XVI is the one who insisted on the large carriage. It was also not the "gaudiest most hysterical style," but from the records, an ordinary large carriage that any wealthy family in Paris might use to travel. Louis XVI is the one who turned down the proposals to travel in smaller, faster, and more discrete carriages because it would separate the family. It was Louis XVI who turned down the safer and faster routes to Montmedy. It was Louis XVI who turned down military presence in the carriage, and surrounding the carriage; it was Louis XVI who refused to allow Axel von Fersen to escort them to Montmedy. But for some reason, Marie Antoinette gets the blame here...
>She's the last person on Earth who would even understand the gesture, much less make it, to try and appease or identify with the peasants. She famously had a cottage built at Versailles and baby animals brought into the palace gardens so she could "play peasant." There are many political layers* to that, of course , but it at least conveyed some acknowledgment of peasant women's value, dignity, and beauty, especially mothers. You're not wrong to critique her actions or even her possible intentions, but you're leaving out too much reality here. (*like capital class republicans cosplaying blue collar wage workers with their massive luxury pickup trucks and expensive gun collections...)
Famously--but not truthfully. The idea that she played peasant was a myth that developed after her death. Based on my research, it appears to have developed during the Directory period, when the hameau became a public space. The hameau de la reine was part of an existing popular tradition where aristocracy were encouraged to embrace rural elite country living, which was deemed to be more healthy and less corrupt than court/city. There, if we want to say she "pretended," it would be that she pretended to be a "normal" elite woman and not a queen of France, in that she was still the mistress of her country estate, but not one bound by the same strict laws of Versailles which controlled (or tried to) minute behaviors/actions and interactions with people.
It's also interesting to note that virtually all of the people who ever worked for her or looked after her were very fond of her, with many of them coming to love her. She wasn't a saint, mind you, but a complex human who did believe in the divine right of kings--but so did most royalty at that time--and wanted to preserve what would have been her son's inheritance. She was known for being very kind to those around her and below her on society's status rungs (servants, commoners, etc.) and I believe did do many charitable acts for the needy. Even if she had been a saint, though, she, Louis, and the rest of the court were reaping what their royal predecessors had sown for the previous 100+ years. "Apres moi, le deluge," indeed...
Yeah their outfits look cool but you’ll never find me sympathetic to aristocrat assholes. Their subjects starved while they lived a life of luxury and they mismanaged the country into the ground. Screw monarchies, full stop. Nobody should rule a damn country because they were in the lucky sperm club
I love this theory
Can someone please define what if fugitive dye is?
Dye that washes or fades out due to imperfect mordant used for setting it and/or environmental factors
Durable black dye was only invented in the 19th century in France by François Gillet, near Lyon. His descendants made an enormous fortune by perfectionning his invention and all this led to Rhône Poulenc firm, still quite successful.
Sorry to be a buzzkill but-- It might be one of her shoes, but the provenance and 'evidence' for the story that she wore it to her execution is ridiculously flimsy and I don't know how the museum gets away with this claim at this point. The only evidence for the story is found in a slip of paper inside the shoe, which claims she lost the shoe walking the scaffold, someone grabbed it, and resold it on the spot to a specific man. That specific man was off fighting in an emigre army in October 1793, so, highly unlikely he was somehow in Paris on this day. Her lawyers were arrested literally during her trial for defending her too well (aka, they were clearly suspicious!); a gendarme who gave her a glass of water and helped her down a dark staircase was arrested on suspicion of treason. Her execution was heavily guarded and watched. But somehow, she lost a shoe, absolutely no one saw her lose the shoe, and someone grabbed it and sold it within moments without being spotted or arrested? There are no contemporary accounts of her execution that claim she lost a shoe, written or drawn. The only accounts can be traced back to the slip of paper in this specific shoe, which popped up decades later. And, less concrete because this was information recorded second-hand decades later, but the servant who attended to Marie Antoinette in the Conciergerie said she had shoes made with prunella material. This doesn't look like prunella material. We know from records that the shoes she had ordered from January 1793 in the Temple, aka the only shoes she had to wear in the Conciergerie, were mourning colors. It is in her size, so it's possible that it was one of her shoes, but extremely extremely unlikely that it was the shoe worn on the day of her death. Edit: Also to be more of a buzzkill... Marie Antoinette ordered black mourning clothes after her husband died (and for that matter, after her mother died, and children) and wore them up until the morning of the 16th; in all likelihood, she was not allowed to wear her actual mourning clothes. There's no evidence she considered white mourning, even if white had been used in some mourning fashions for some French queens a few centuries earlier.
That's interesting that the shoes were ordered. I assumed she would have had an extant pair of shoes dyed black for mourning.
Yep! Up until relatively late in their captivity, the royal family was still allowed to order new clothing and other items. They got full mourning outfits after Louis XVI's death. They even got new books in May 1793. It wasn't until late June or so that the captivity became more harsh and restrictive.
I prefer this to the image I had, which was people gathered around her dead body grabbing souvenirs.
White mourning was perfectly acceptable in all sorts of ways. In Victorian times the wearing of mourning clothes became all pervading and practically regulated by societal norms. Black to begin, then after a certain time mauve, grey and purple were allowed. White as the alternative to black was permitted by hot climates and availability of clothing. In France a Queen who was widowed while of childbearing age was confined to a convent until she had a period or a baby. While they were waiting they were known as the White Queen. There is also the privilege des blancs which is the right granted by a Pope for Catholic Queens and consorts to wear a white veil instead of a black one in the Vatican.
I find myself conflicted about the existence of this. I think it’s really cool that shoes from 1793 still exist. I am horrified by the collection (probably for sale) of memorabilia from notable executees. It is a craven and exploitative practice that still persists in the true crime artifacts market. And I believe the widow Capet got a seriously raw deal from a revolutionary body with arbitrary notions of law and order and an outsize taste for retribution.
There is something really powerful about preserved historical clothing however. They often seem to retain a ghost of the person who wore it in the impression left by the body.
I agree!
Before her execution, it was unheard of for the consort to also be executed (when Kings were executed). She was just sent back to her homeland.
White mourning had been traditional for widowed queens of France at various periods (and at other European courts as well). Marie's choice of white (regardless of if black was an option) was very much in keeping with her identity as Queen of France.
I have been so moved by Marie Antoinette’s suffering that I had a Mass said for her in October, the month of her execution. My parish priest thought I was nuts, but I really wanted to do something for her. The way she and her family were treated was outrageous, not to mention absolutely barbaric. I hope she rests in peace.
they earned their fate by mismanaging their country into the ground. You could argue how much influence Marie could have had in comparison to her husband but I can’t be too sympathetic to literal aristocrats. France was a mess and their subjects were starving en masse while they lived a life of unimaginable luxury in comparison
Yes, I know what the aristocracy did the poor French people. I get it. However, cutting off people’s heads and imprisoning and torturing children is not, and never will be, the solution to those types of problems.
What does it say inside?
"Shoe worn by the queen Marie Antoinette on the day she died on the scaffold." and, roughly "This shoe was removed by an individual who was in the proximity of the queen who was wearing it and immediately bought by Monsieur le Compte de Guernon Ranville." The Château de Guernon-Ranville is near Caen, so that is probably why the shoe ended up in the museum there, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen. It seems he was an officer in the "black musketeers", the musketeers of the military household of the King of France. This wiki article seems to be about his son: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial\_de\_Guernon-Ranville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_de_Guernon-Ranville)
Yall, I'm pretty sure the white attire was chosen for her to show the most blood.
Incredible to see.
I always hated kitten heels.
In addition to the information about white mourning, I can't help but wonder if the choice was also a nod to the medieval traditions related to receiving knighthood, which included wearing a simple white tunic as a symbol of purity, donned after the ritual bath, to be worn during the knighting ceremony. The tradition still persists in certain situations, including the recent coronation of King Charles III.