The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette

A history of the mythification of Marie-Antoinette which must be interpreted, the author argues, as the misogynist demonization of women’s power and authority in revolutionary France. In a series of pamphlets written from the 1770s until her death in 1793, Marie-Antoinette is portrayed as a spendthrift, a libertine, an orgiastic lesbian, and a poisoner and infant murderess. In her analyses of these pamphlets, Chantal Thomas reconstructs how the mounting hallucinatory and libelous discourse culminated in the inevitable destruction of what had become the counter-revolutionary symbol par excellence. This text seeks to expose the process by which the myth of Marie-Antoinette emerged as a crucial element in the successful staging of the French Revolution.