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Speaker 1: All right, I know she's gotten a lot of hate

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Speaker 1: over the years, not to mention getting her head chopped off. Well,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about Marie Antoinette. Turns out losing her head

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Speaker 1: was only one item on the long list of adversities

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Speaker 1: she faced in her thirty seven years. I'm Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette before the guillotine. Next on the backstory. We're

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Speaker 1: back with a backstory. This isn't about Marie Antoinette losing

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Speaker 1: her head a little less bloody, but really fascinating, and

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Speaker 1: you may feel a little bit of empathy for her.

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Speaker 1: It's about where she came from and how as a

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Speaker 1: child she was a political pawn, forced to marry a

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Speaker 1: total stranger, a foreign king. And listen to this, she

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Speaker 1: was only approved by the king's advisors after a fully

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Speaker 1: nude physical exam in front of dozens of those folks

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Speaker 1: when she was just fourteen years old. Of course, Marie

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Speaker 1: Antoinette was the last of the French queen's leading up

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Speaker 1: to the seventeen eighty nine French Revolution. But how in

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Speaker 1: the heck did she get there? Okay, imagine you're the

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Speaker 1: child of the Empress of Austria. What would life be

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Speaker 1: like maybe like being Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos' kid,

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Speaker 1: incredibly fancy, wildly rich, anything you want. Well, that's where

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Speaker 1: the comparison stops. Royal kids had very little choice about anything.

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Speaker 1: They were frequently used as marriage ponds to set up

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Speaker 1: political alliances with other countries. Buri's dad was Holy Roman

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Speaker 1: Emperor Francis the First, and she was the youngest daughter

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Speaker 1: of the Emperor and Empress. They had sixteen children. She

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Speaker 1: was a social little girl. When she was seven years old,

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Speaker 1: she was pals with six year old music prodigy Wolfgang Mozart.

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Speaker 1: He told her he wanted to marry her when they

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Speaker 1: grew up. Probably would have allowed her to keep her

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Speaker 1: head right. Well, anyway, her father died when she was nine,

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Speaker 1: and at twelve, her mother, wanting alliance with France, promised

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Speaker 1: Marie as a wife for Louis Auguste, the future king.

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Speaker 1: Well that's when the fun stopped. The French court wanted

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Speaker 1: her teeth straightened, pretty painful in those days. They wanted

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Speaker 1: her curly hair tamed, and for her to learn to

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Speaker 1: speak and write in French. She had to dress, walk,

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Speaker 1: dance like a queen and become ridiculously charming. Imagine being

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Speaker 1: pushed around by tutors, stylists, doctors, mentors who want to

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Speaker 1: completely remake you, starting at the age of twelve. At fourteen,

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Speaker 1: she's actually married to Louis August by proxy, with her

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Speaker 1: brother standing in for the groom, months before she ever

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Speaker 1: met her husband in person. Next, she has to leave

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Speaker 1: her home in Vienna. She never saw any of her

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Speaker 1: family again, except one brother briefly years later. The French

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Speaker 1: royal carriage sent to fetch her was like this enormous

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Speaker 1: jewel box, tons of glass, solid gold roof, red velvet

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Speaker 1: seats embroidered with gold, pulled by eight one horses with

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Speaker 1: gold harnesses, and followed by sixty carriages holding two hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty handlers. But it was three weeks of being

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Speaker 1: in a fish bowl, stared at by locals along the way.

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Speaker 1: She's dressed exquisitely but uncomfortably. Imagine being laced into whalebone

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Speaker 1: corsets and dresses so tight you can't breathe, bouncing over

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Speaker 1: cobblestone and dirt roads well. Finally, she arrives at an

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Speaker 1: island on the Rhine River between Germany and France for

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Speaker 1: the official handover. It's a rainy night. She's brought into

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Speaker 1: a leaky wooden building built just for the handover. She's

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Speaker 1: immediately stripped naked as dozens of palace insiders check out

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Speaker 1: her fourteen year old body to see if it's good enough.

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Speaker 1: Everything she brought with her is taken away, clothing, jewelry,

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Speaker 1: even her little dog. Quickly dressed in French gowns, she

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Speaker 1: travels several days, briefly meeting Prince Louis along the way

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Speaker 1: away from the palace so he can get a peek

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Speaker 1: before the wedding. Two days later, Marie finally arrives at

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Speaker 1: Versailles at ten in the morning. By one pm, she

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Speaker 1: is dressed and signing marriage papers, then taken immediately to

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Speaker 1: the palace chapel for the ceremony. Now to get to

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Speaker 1: the chapel, she has to glide down the massive hall

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Speaker 1: of mirrors like a queen with no visible stepping in

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Speaker 1: front of five thousand judgmental members of the King's court

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Speaker 1: like you see on Bridgerton. Sort of terrifying for a

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Speaker 1: fourteen year old. Her dress was made of five hundred

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Speaker 1: yards of satin, covered with silver cloth, hundreds of diamonds

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Speaker 1: and pearls. It weighed about one hundred and eight pounds.

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Speaker 1: That's ten pounds more than Marie herself, but the dress

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Speaker 1: was based on measurements from a year earlier and she'd grown.

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Speaker 1: It was too small. It had two rows of diamonds

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Speaker 1: all the way down the back, but they couldn't cinch

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Speaker 1: the dress clothed, so there was a big gap with

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Speaker 1: her corset laces showing. But off she went. After the wedding,

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Speaker 1: lots of partying and then the going to bed ceremony.

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Speaker 1: They were led to Marie's bedroom where the bed was

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Speaker 1: blessed by the archbishop. Then, with the entire court watching,

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Speaker 1: they had to lay down to prove they shared the

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Speaker 1: same bed. Well fortunately nobody held their breath for the

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Speaker 1: deed to be done. Marie Antoinette and Louis didn't consummate

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Speaker 1: their marriage for seven years. She was interested, he not

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Speaker 1: so much. They eventually got busy since they had four

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Speaker 1: children pretty quickly. After getting the sexual hang of things.

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Speaker 1: During their twenty three years together, Marie Antoinette and Louis

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Speaker 1: actually became good friends, despite constant attacks on her over

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Speaker 1: everything from her expensive clothes and jewels to mostly false

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Speaker 1: claims of her affairs with both men and women. Those

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Speaker 1: attacks grew nastier over the years, even accusing her of

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Speaker 1: incest with her son. But she was loyal to the king,

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Speaker 1: so much so that when she had the chance to

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Speaker 1: escape from France early on, she refused to leave without Louis,

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Speaker 1: who wanted to stay and protect his throne. Of course,

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Speaker 1: as you know, it didn't end well for Marie Antoinette.

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Speaker 1: Her husband faced the guillotine, as did a ton of

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Speaker 1: her supporters, all but one of her children died in prison,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately, while staying amazingly calm, she lost her head

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Speaker 1: to the executioner October sixteenth, seventeen ninety three. Oh And,

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Speaker 1: for the record, when it came to the starving peasants

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Speaker 1: of Paris, historians agree Marie Antoinette never said let them

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Speaker 1: eat cake. That same quote had been used by revolutionaries

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Speaker 1: for over one hundred years before her, against numerous royals.

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Speaker 1: Another example of the victor's writing history. I'm Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia and Steel Trap Productions.

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Speaker 1: Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our executive producer is Steve

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Speaker 1: Goldstein of Amplified Media. With new episodes twice a week,

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the backstory, the pieces of history

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Speaker 1: you didn't know you needed to know.