← Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
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- [00:00]
Kate Lister
Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history, like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries plus new releases every week covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
- [00:38]
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- [01:08]
Paige Desorbo
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- [02:02]
Off Duty Podcast Narrator
Chicago 2011. A cop is murdered. Police and prosecutors swear they have the trigger man. He swears he didn't do it. How far will each side go to prove they're right?
- [02:14]
Kate Lister
Like, it's just one bombshell after another. You know, you're like, what? What?
- [02:19]
Off Duty Podcast Narrator
The story of a PlayStation, a brain eating amoeba, and the relentless pursuit of justice. Off duty. Out now. Listen wherever you get Your podcasts.
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Kate Lister
Hello, my lovely betwixters, it's me, Kate Lister. You are listening to Betwixt the Sheens. Hello. How fabulous to see you once again. But before we can go any further, I do have to tell you this is an adult podcast book of adults to other adults, about adults, things in adult away, covering ranges of subjects, newspaper adult 2. Feel safer? I certainly do. Right, let's crack on.
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Sarah Grant
Foreign.
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Kate Lister
It's 6am on the 6th of October, 1789, and we are in the palace of Versailles. The first light of the morning is beginning to reflect off the gold gilded furnishings, mirrors, crystal chandeliers and the polished parquet floors. Any other morning, the palace would be silent except for the servants. At the start of their day, they'd be setting the tables with the precious china, opening beautiful heavy curtains to views of morning mist over the gardens, and ready in fine clothes for the royal family. But on 6 October, however, the guards are on high alert. And with a crash, the Queen of France is awake. A mob has breached the palace walls, and the gilded age of monarchy in France is coming to an end. Well, hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex, scandal and society with me, Kate Lister. I am not at my computer today. I'm standing in the VA Museum in London, surrounded by the most amazing dresses and jewels and slippers. I'm here with the wonderful Sarah Grant, who is the creator of this exhibition, Marie Antoinette Style. And it has just blown my mind. The jewelry, the clothes, the furniture, her hair is here. Honestly, this place has rewired my brain chemistry. My producers are dragging us away to a quiet office to talk about how and why this doomed French queen became such a fashion icon. But we will definitely be sneaking out for a closer look, and I won't touch anything, I promise. Well, hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Sarah Grant. How are you doing?
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Sarah Grant
I'm very well, thank you for having me.
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Kate Lister
Kate, are you riding high on the phenomenal success of your exhibition?
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Sarah Grant
I am riding high. I mean, I'm also feeling sad because it closes in two weeks, so we're sort of coming down towards the end. Yeah. So just taking everything out of the cases and packing it all off. It's gonna be really sad.
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Kate Lister
You get to touch it all again. You get to put all of Marie Antoinette's things again.
- [05:35]
Sarah Grant
That's a. I get to touch everything again.
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Kate Lister
Well, thank you so much for showing us around. It's. Honestly, it's so beautiful. And this is our chance to Talk to you a little bit about, well, who was the woman at the centre of this exhibition? So just in case anyone's listening, it's wandered in accidentally and it's going, who's Marie Antoinette?
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Sarah Grant
Never heard of her.
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Kate Lister
Someone's never heard of her. Tell us, who was Marie Antoinette?
- [06:01]
Sarah Grant
So Marie Janet was Queen of France from 1774 until 1792. She came from Austria, she married the future king of France. She was 14 when she was married, she was 18 when she became queen and she was 37 when she was executed.
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Kate Lister
See, when you think about that, like, what were you doing at 14? Like, not getting married to the dauphin of France.
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Sarah Grant
Not getting married.
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Kate Lister
And she had. And she had so much responsibility on her shoulders as well, wasn't she? Because it wasn't just, oh, go and get married, which was obviously going to happen anyway because she was from a royal family, but this alliance between Austria and France.
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Sarah Grant
Yes, very important. Yeah. The classic description is that she was part hostage, part ambassador. So that is. I think that sums it up. That's Antonia Fraser, who says that in her biography. And that is very much what she was. She's sent to kind of advance her family's interests, her country's interests, her empire's interests, and then also she is stuck there. I mean, she's trapped in this kind of gilded cage. So she's not allowed to leave the country when she arrives, that's it. And she never sees her mother again, she never sees her sisters again, she never sees her home again. There is some dispute about whether she ever saw the sea, for instance, because she couldn't travel, she couldn't leave France, and so she could only move from palace to palace. She wasn't allowed to go to a private house. For instance, when one of her friends has a baby, at one stage, she asked the king's permission to visit her in her private house. Wow. So she lives this very ordered, rigid, difficult, constrained life.
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Kate Lister
When she was young, was there any hint of the fashion diva icon that she would come to be known as?
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Sarah Grant
Well, when she's young, she is still. She's already described as this really quite effervescent and lively child. And, you know, she's one of 16 children, she's one of 11 girls.
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Kate Lister
Wow.
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Sarah Grant
Yeah. And. Wow.
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Kate Lister
Go. Was it Empress Teresa?
- [07:54]
Sarah Grant
Herman Maria Theresa. Herman Teresa. Go, Go. Maria Theresa.
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Kate Lister
Laminated pelvic floor?
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Sarah Grant
Well, yeah, she. I mean, she's. When she's in labor with Mar, she's still signing official documents. Holy.
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Kate Lister
Wow.
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Sarah Grant
So she was multitasking to the, you know, all the way through her labor, which is impressive, but not to be emulated or, you know.
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Kate Lister
No, please don't do that.
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Sarah Grant
Let's not hold her up as a. As a.
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Kate Lister
Take the maternity leave.
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Sarah Grant
Please take paternity. Yeah, please, please don't work. Why? Are you in labor? Yeah, so no, she's lively and she was musical. You know, she has a graceful n dancer, all these things. And she was also, you know, really close to some of her sisters. She was a girl's girl. She becomes a woman's woman, which I think is really important, actually. She was a devoted friend to her female friends and, you know, and other things she's dressed in, in French fashions and in Austrian fashions as a child. And then once she arrives in, at Versailles, she has a beautiful wardrobe. She has an amazing trousseau, which her mother pays for. But it's really not until she becomes queen that she has the agency she needs to really assert her kind of fashion identity. Because then she has a budget. She has an annual wardrobe budget, and what a budget. It's a huge budget. It was three quarter million pounds per annum, but that was actually 50 years out of date. So that was the budget that had been set 50 years before, and they hadn't increased it with inflation. So she goes over that budget. She goes over that budget because it was, you know, it was 50 years out of date. So I think in her worst year, she spends about £1.7 million on her wardrobe. And she is very fashionable. So she says herself in this really understated way, she says, it's true, I take a little care in my adornment. So she is, you know, she's interested in fashion, she's interested in novelty. And it's the time when the fashion industry is really starting to resemble what we would recognize today, with fashions changing weekly and fashion magazines coming out and. And so the pace really accelerates. And she's interested in new things and different inspirations and she's setting the trends. And her first chambermaid says all wished instantly to have the same dress as the Queen.
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Kate Lister
Why do you think fashion was so important? I mean, I know the obvious answer to that is because she was the Dauphine and then she was the Queen. And fashion is important, but it seems to have been particularly, particularly important for Marie Antoinette.
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Sarah Grant
It's two things. So one thing, it's her. It's her personality. And I think the style would never have endured the way it has if it weren't for her remarkable and really quite astonishing personality. You Know, she was confident, she was intelligent. You know, she was a really interesting woman. But then also, that is her only outlet in a way. I mean, she has no political role, and she's not allowed to have a political role. It's written into the law. She can't leave, she can't go anywhere. But she's also expected to create a regal spectacle. And that is how, as queen, you command authority and, you know, is that you present this amazing spectacle. And then also, she is like a brand ambassador. She's supposed to support French trades and French luxury trades and industries, so the silk weaving industry, you know, Paris, all those trades that supported the wardrobe and the various aspects of it. She is supposed to be the kind of brand ambassador for them. So she does it because it's also her job.
- [10:53]
Kate Lister
It's normally. I mean, maybe it wasn't, but it's normally the job of the royal mistress to bling it up to be like, extra. I mean, Madame du Barry, the famous mistress of Marie Antoinette's not father in law. Grandfather.
- [11:06]
Sarah Grant
Grandfather in law. Yeah.
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Kate Lister
Now she went all out. And it's the mistresses that are known for blinging it up. And then suddenly there's this young queen
- [11:15]
Sarah Grant
doing the same thing. Yes. Because there are no mistresses, so Louis XVI has no mistresses. And so Marinette's role becomes even more important. But also she becomes more targeted and more scrutinized. Because normally if you wanted to criticize the king, you would criticize his mistress. And that was an indirect way of criticizing the king. But because there are new mistresses, it' Marie Antoinette.
- [11:35]
Kate Lister
Is it true that Marie Antoinette and Madame du Barry hated one another?
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Sarah Grant
They did hate each other, yeah. And she had heard about her before she'd even arrived. You know, she was that bigger figure and she was, you know, someone whom she received as not being appropriate to be at court.
- [11:50]
Kate Lister
She wasn't an aristocrat, was she, Madame du Barry?
- [11:53]
Sarah Grant
No, she was by the end, but she was by the end. She earned that. I would say she worked hard for that. Yeah. So no, by the end she is, but no, she wasn't. And also, you know, I think for MarienJohnette, who came from a court, although her father was a philanderer, so her father, Emperor Francis Stephen of Lehern, had many affairs with Maria Theresa's Ladies in waiting, which were tolerated. And seemingly there was still a very loving marriage there despite that. So she had probably witnessed things like that before. But no, Manon du Barry was such a kind of, you know, she had so much power over the king and she was obviously a little bit suspicious of Marien Chanet, I think, and Marien Trinette, she knew that would eclipse her.
- [12:35]
Kate Lister
So I think, I wonder if that's as well about the outfits and the fashion choices is. I think all attention is on her. And it's interesting what you said there about. Well, there were no royal mistresses to
- [12:48]
Sarah Grant
kind of compete with.
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Kate Lister
So let's talk about why there weren't any royal mistresses. Because they heard Marie Luke, I'm a first name term. So Marie and Louis, her husband.
- [12:59]
Sarah Grant
Yes.
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Kate Lister
They had an odd relationship.
- [13:01]
Sarah Grant
They did have an odd relationship, yeah. So they obviously they haven't met before they get married. That's, you know, that's odd already. It's odd because she's 14 and he's 15. That's, that's really odd. And that was odd for the time. I mean the average age of marriage in France at the time, women were 24 and men were 27. So that is strange. And it's only in royal circles and aristocratic circles and it's only this idea of kind of, you know, quickly marrying people to establish a kind of stronghold and then produce lots of heirs and children and this kind of thing and create these alliances. So that was also odd. But then they're incompatible sexually. But they're also incompatible, you know, sort of personality wise as well. You know, he, they did not, they weren't interested in the same things. And he had been taught to be very suspicious of Austrians and very suspicious of Marie Janet. And so, you know, he obviously didn't let his guard down. And actually it isn't even until the revolution that he really begins to confide in her. He excludes her complet from discussions about policies and his ministers and things like that. So. Yeah, but you know, I mean he, outwardly the description of him on his wedding day, he actually sounds quite attractive. You know, he was, he was tall for his age, he was 6 foot and you know, he was, he was at that stage still, I think, you know, reasonably attractive and. But he's very nervous. And so this description which comes from this English woman who was. It's actually the only description we have firsthand description of the wedding was that Mary Janet was so little then, she looked like she was 12 years old. So she was 14, but she looked 12. She's coming up the aisle, there are thousands of people in the chapel. They put in extra seating to pack in more people and she's blushing because she's so nervous. And then Louis XVI was so shy and so timid that he can't even put the ring on her finger. He's struggling to get the ring onto her finger. So I think, you know, he was also a shy and quite withdrawn person.
- [14:49]
Kate Lister
So.
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Sarah Grant
Yeah.
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Kate Lister
And you've got a replica of her wedding dress in the. In the exhibition.
- [14:54]
Sarah Grant
We do. We have an 18th century French silver wedding gown which is almost identical to Marianne. So 200. It's the same. Same date as maritime as well.
- [15:06]
Kate Lister
So let's go over to the dresses. Let's go big. This one looks like it's good for smuggling televisions.
- [15:13]
Sarah Grant
It's perfect for a flat screen television, isn't it? Yes.
- [15:16]
Kate Lister
That's not what she's doing.
- [15:17]
Sarah Grant
Smuggling people in there as well. You could probably get away with. That's not what she's doing.
- [15:20]
Kate Lister
Next, let's describe what we're looking at here.
- [15:22]
Sarah Grant
Okay, so this is a classic royal silver wedding gown from the 18th century. And there are only two that survive, and this is one of them. And it's almost identical to Marinette's wedding gown.
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Kate Lister
Wow.
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Sarah Grant
So because Marinette's wedding gown and her wardrobe were lost during the revolution, they were looted from the palace, this is the closest we can get to her wedding gown, which was the most important gown she ever wore because she wasn't crowned, so she didn't wear a coronation gown. So her wedding gown was by far the most important dress she ever wore. And it's woven from solid silver. And then the lace is all gold.
- [15:53]
Kate Lister
It's made from silver.
- [15:55]
Sarah Grant
Yeah. So, and you have to remember this is 230, 250 years old. So it has darkened slightly, it's oxidized, so it's a bit darker than it would have been originally. Would have been very reflective, like a bright, bright silver. And then all the gilded lace. And you can see the wide pannier that you've just talked about for smuggling. Smuggling televisions, you know, that creates the classic kind of silhouette of Marinette's reign, which is the kind of the wide, you know, that wide, which accentuates the very narrow waist as well, which is tiny.
- [16:22]
Kate Lister
This dress is tiny.
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Sarah Grant
This dress is tiny. So this one was worn by the future Queen of Sweden when she was married. It was ordered from France, and she was 15, so she was one year old. And I married Tonette when she was married. So you can imagine it's probably about the same.
- [16:34]
Kate Lister
I was thinking it looked like a child's size.
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Sarah Grant
And it's on a plinth, so it's actually so it's up, it's raised up. And the glass magnifies it slightly. It makes it look even. So we have these great photos of the textile conservatives in the case mounting it and dwarfing this dress. And they just look like these giants kind of, you know, mounting it. So. So she so married to that on her wedding day, she wore a silver wedding gown. Like this was the exact same design, these scalloped laces, because we have the. We can see the original design and in a print that was done by someone who was there at the ceremony and so had these flowers as well, which is called Italian flowers. And then the train is so heavy because it is silver, that it has these massive hooks at the back that hook on. So a bit like a trailer or, you know, bridge. You're kind of towing this train behind you. So she had to sit down and take frequent breaks. And she had to also because her breathing is restricted by the bodice. Yeah.
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Kate Lister
This looks like a very, very expensive dress. Would this have been.
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Sarah Grant
This is the absolute top. Yeah, this is the absolute top. There's nothing more expensive than this. Right? Yeah, this is it.
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Kate Lister
Of course, the other thing that you've got is the letter in her own handwriting where she's talking about the fact that she isn't very compatible with Dear Audloo.
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Sarah Grant
So, Kate.
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Kate Lister
Yes.
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Sarah Grant
So this letter is written by Marian Chanet. That's her hand, that's her handwriting, that's her signature.
- [17:56]
Kate Lister
Wow.
- [17:57]
Sarah Grant
So when she was writing official documents, she'd write Marie Antoinette. And when she was just writing to friends, it's Montanette. And she says she's talking about her incompatibility, in particular her sexual incompatibility with the King. So is Louis seven years.
- [18:09]
Kate Lister
It was unconstramated, wasn't it?
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Sarah Grant
It's a very long time.
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Kate Lister
Does that letter give us any idea as to what was going on?
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Sarah Grant
Not specifically, although she does say, you know, that he's only interested in hunting and mechanical work and basically he's just not attracted to her. She says, if I were to play the role of Venus, that would bother him, you know, far more. So she's basically saying there's no chemistry and he doesn't seem very interested in her at all sexually. So that's part of the problem is she cannot actually interest him. Oh, Marie. Yeah, I know. That's pretty excruciating, really. So they did manage, as you know,
- [18:43]
Kate Lister
they did didn't have her older brother have to have a stop by the little chat with the king.
- [18:47]
Sarah Grant
Yes.
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Kate Lister
Sort of explain.
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Sarah Grant
Explain what happens?
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Paige Desorbo
Yeah,
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Kate Lister
That must have been really, I mean, after that enormous wedding and after the pressure and she's nervous and he can't put the ring on the job is have a baby. That's the job. And he's just, he wants to play with locks and he wants to go hunting and he doesn't want to make a baby.
- [19:12]
Sarah Grant
Yeah. And I think he's 15 and he was probably even less mature maybe than the average 15 year old. It's hard, so hard to know now why what was going on. But, you know, she does attempt, you know, she's been constantly told by her mother, you need to be loving and you need to be affectionate, you need to be warm, you need to be all these things. And she's trying, trying, trying, but he's just not remotely interested in her. And conversely, his younger brother who gets married, you know, they are constantly sort of trying to consummate their marriage, so it's very awkward for them.
- [19:43]
Kate Lister
That's another reason why she, she threw herself into the. I know maybe that's a bit of a cheap analysis, sexual frustration. But her position at court was quite vulnerable because she hasn't had a baby. So she's got to do something to make an impact.
- [19:56]
Sarah Grant
Yes. She's totally exposed. Yeah. And actually, and in some wedding contracts, if you could not conceive an heir, you could revoke, you could annul the wedding. And actually, interesting enough as well, if the king had died, you know, or if, when he stole Dauphin, if he had died and they hadn't had children, it was a possibility that she could have gone back to Austria. And her brother, when he comes over, he says to her, if you're really unhappy, I will let you come back. Which was not the norm. But I mean, I think, you know, eventually they do, obviously they do have a sex life eventually, and they do produce four children. But I think, you know, there's no great passion there. Her passion is for the Swedish aristocrat, Count Fashion.
- [20:33]
Kate Lister
Oh, yes, of course, Count Fashion, yeah.
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Sarah Grant
I mean, that is a. That is a great passion and that is a love story for the ages. It is really, you know, so I'm glad that she has. She has that at least. But in terms of distracting her as well, the sort of fashions and things like that. She's also a teenager.
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Kate Lister
She is, isn't she? And her fashion atelier was. Was it Rose Bettin?
- [20:53]
Sarah Grant
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [20:55]
Kate Lister
One of the first celebrity stylists. Stylists, yes. So can you talk us through sort of what was the style I mean, there are so many different styles. But what was early Marie Antoinette style,
- [21:06]
Sarah Grant
if you could describe it, both early Marie Antoinette style. So there was the formal court dress, which she had to wear for official ceremonies and audiences and things like that, which is like the wedding gown, and that is the one with a long train. So for anything like that, a big ball, a big kind of ceremony, she would wear that. And that has very wide pannier, so the widest width. And then you have what they call the petticoat over the top of that. It's a bit like an English Mantua, but not quite. And then the very rigid bodice that is corset stays that she wears, that was kind of getting that tiny, tiny waist and then the train. So that's the most formal type. Then she would wear daily as well, the robe a la francaise. So the French style, which was these box pleats that come down the back and create a beautiful sweeping train. And so she wore that, and that was again, traditional. She was wearing that in. In Vienna she was wearing that. And because, you know, Vienna was copying Paris and Versailles, and she wore that in France. And then she wears two new styles, you know, which is part of her kind of fashionable evolution. She wears the Robin l', Anglaise, which is the English style. And this is what's worn here in England. And this is. Instead of having the box pleats that create that train, it's a much more modern dress. It has a very shapely silhouette and very neat tailoring, which is what the English were known for. So you have. It's gathered at the waist, and it creates that beautiful, beautiful look. And then the fourth star was the polish one, which there are lots of different theories about why it was called the Polish style. But in any case, it was like you're drawing up the skirts like blinds or like curtains to create these little puffs of silk and reveal the ankles and the shoes and. Yeah, and it was a form of walking dress. And, you know, it was called. Actually, at one stage, it was called, you know, the uniform of Marie Antoinette's court, because everyone was wearing that style. And it's a very pretty. It's a very, you know, enchanting style. So she wears that. And then we see some of the different examples that she wears later, which are the muslin dresses and the printed cottons and, you know, and those are much, much simpler. And they're not worn with the wide pannier. And they are, you know, easier to we comfortable.
- [23:11]
Kate Lister
And you kind enough to show us some in the exhibition. So We've moved from. I know it's not the proper name for it, but the bling part of this exhibition, where the dresses are really something, the kind of thing you might wear, to the Met Gala, for example. And now we're looking at some dresses which are still incredible, still beautiful. But these feel simpler.
- [23:33]
Sarah Grant
Yes. Fresher, nicer. Yes, These are. So these are all in cotton in mind. Muslin. Muslin is a weave, so either linen or cotton. And so they're very light and they're washable. And so that was, you know, the big difference actually, between these, which was a really modern new development. It kind of democratized the wardrobe. And the ones we've been looking at, the silks, especially silver, you can't wash them. You can surface, clean them, but you can't completely wash them. So you're relying on your undergarments to do most of the work. So the chemise, the tunic that you wear between your skin and your clothing is absorbing the oils and the odors, and you're washing that. But so these are much nicer, much fresher to wear and also much more comfortable as well, because they. They really breathe. You know, silk does breathe, but this is, you know, obviously much lighter alternative. So really beautiful designs as well. Like the printed. Printed floral.
- [24:24]
Kate Lister
Absolutely stunning. Is this from her era where she was, like, cosplaying, being a milkmaid?
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Sarah Grant
This is her rustic.
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Kate Lister
Rustic shirt.
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Sarah Grant
Her kind of country style at the moment. Garden gardens and. Yeah.
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Kate Lister
Not that any milkmaids would have been wearing this.
- [24:41]
Sarah Grant
No, no. So she. Yes, she moved towards the star, gravitated towards the star. And it was also a very modern style as well. You know, it was like the latest fashion.
- [24:49]
Kate Lister
You can see that it's a real shift. It's a real upgrade. Much more modern than the. The real bling gowns.
- [24:55]
Sarah Grant
It's very dramatic, isn't it, at the same time. And hair is coming down. So you go from those high, high hairstyles, that hair is coming down and is a bit more natural, that it's still powdered and it's still toned and things like that. Yes, these were things that she wore. And muslin dresses in particular. You know, this is what's so scandalous, is that she wears one in the portrait and it looks like underwear, and it's very shocking. And so the portrait has to be removed. And then she's.
- [25:18]
Kate Lister
Oh. So they thought that famous portrait of her where she's wearing what. What looks to me like a very demure white shoe kind of a dress, was actually that was Very shocking.
- [25:27]
Sarah Grant
Well, yeah. So to us, it actually does look quite sort of pretty almost, doesn't it? It is very demure, but it's. If you see her underwear, it does resemble it, but also muslin, as. As you know, is very fine. And it clings. So even so, people have these associations with muslin as well. It clings to your form and. And when you move, it's transparent. So. So it's suggestive, shocking. So there was. In Dangerous Liaisons, there's a scene where one of the characters wants to seduce someone and he discovers she's wearing a muslin dress. And he's like, this is going to be so much easier because she's wearing muslin. She's wearing a muslin dress. So it's much more accessible. So all of these associations. So that's why when she's wearing it, it wasn't great for her shocking behavior.
- [26:08]
Kate Lister
Very amazing. And was she the one responsible for the enormous hair with the.
- [26:16]
Sarah Grant
Yeah.
- [26:17]
Kate Lister
Birds and boats.
- [26:19]
Sarah Grant
Exactly. And they come up with that. She has her. Marinette has three hairdressers on staff. They come from dynasties of hairdressers, so they normally give them their surname, but that will often be interchangeable with one of the other brothers or whatever. But the famous one, Leonard, he doesn't actually become her official hairdresser until the 1780s, late 1780s. But he's the one whom everyone remembers. Yeah. But together they concoct these kind of amazing things.
- [26:59]
Paige Desorbo
Hey, this is Paige Desorbo from Giggly Squad, and today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile. Quick question. Why are we letting our phone bills bully us? Here's a money tip. Stop paying a carrier tax when you bring your own phone and switch to boost Mobile's $25 Unlimited Forever plan. You can unlock up to $600 in savings. That's real life money, not money trapped in a pricey phone bill. $600 is a trip, a shopping spree, or paying something off. Your money belongs in your life. You get unlimited data, talk and text for $25 a month with no contracts and no minimum line requirements. Your phone, your rules. Head to boostmobile.com to switch today and unlock the savings you actually deserve. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience lower speeds. Customers pay $25 per month while active on Boost Mobile Unlimited Plan savings claim, based on a January 2026 Boost Mobile survey comparing average annual payments of major carrier customers to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan. Visit boostmobile.com for details.
- [27:54]
Don Wildman
What started the Civil War? What ended the conflict in Vietnam. Who was Paul Revere and did the Vikings ever reach America? I'm Don Wildman, and on American History Hit. My expert guests and I are journeying across the nation and through the years to uncover the stories that have made America. We'll visit the battlefields and debate floors where the nation was formed, meet the characters who have altered it with their touch and count the votes that have changed the direction of our laws and leadership. Find, Find American History hit twice a week, every week, wherever you get your podcasts. American History Hit a podcast from history Hit.
- [28:41]
Off Duty Podcast Narrator
Chicago 2011. A cop is murdered. Police and prosecutors swear they have the trigger man. He swears he didn't do it. How far will each side go to prove their right?
- [28:53]
Kate Lister
Like, it's just one bombshell after another. You know, you're like, what? What?
- [28:58]
Off Duty Podcast Narrator
The story of a PlayStation, a brain eating amoeba and the relentless pursuit of justice. Off duty out now. Listen wherever you get your podcast.
- [29:23]
Kate Lister
Should we talk diamonds? We've got to talk diamonds. Your exhibition is just glittering with diamonds. And I'm very interested in not only how many diamonds she had, but how one particular diamond necklace played its part in maybe not turning public opinion against it. But it certainly didn't help public opinion.
- [29:44]
Sarah Grant
It didn't. So she already has this reputation as a spendthrift and, you know, spending lots of money.
- [29:50]
Kate Lister
And she's spending a lot of money, like going around that exhibition. I mean, there is nothing that isn't the absolute top draw. Everything is going to cost. And she is the queen. She's allowed to do that. But you can also understand how when people are starving and there's not enough bread.
- [30:06]
Sarah Grant
Yes. You can see why that seems so terrible. I mean, I think when she arrives in France, it's almost bankrupt. France is almost bankrupt when she arrives. And she comes from a much more stable country, politically and socially as well. And there's not the same kind of level of destitution that you can get in France, in the countryside, in Austria, in England. At the same time, you know, they're much more advanced, they're more modern.
- [30:28]
Kate Lister
She just hasn't seen it then.
- [30:29]
Sarah Grant
But she does. She's aware of it because she's told. So she, when she arrives, she said, I, you know, she's surprised that they're so happy to see her because she knows that they are suffering, that the, you know, the population, the general populace suffer. But so they're already in dire financial straits. She does spend a lot, actually. What is most expensive is things like garden landscaping and Things like that and parties. That's actually more expensive than her wardrobe and jewels and those sorts of things. But ironically, you know, France is spending billions on wars. That is what is sending them off the cliff is the spending on wars, continuous wars. And they spend $11.5 billion in today's money on their role in the American War of Independence, which they do just despite the British. That's the only reason they're doing it. So, yeah, I mean, some really poor decisions by previous monarchs and they continue to make some poor decisions. But also, the King's brothers spend more than marriage. Oh, do they? Yes.
- [31:27]
Kate Lister
What have they spent their money on?
- [31:29]
Sarah Grant
I mean, the Comte d', Artois, so the younger brother, you know, who is actually, you know, one of. In marriagenet circle, and is this frivolous, kind of really frivolous, you know, man. Although he later becomes king later, I think he has a bet there's a wager that he can't build, like a palace in a week or something, or a day or. I can't quite remember the terms of it, but he's like, I'm going to do that. And so he just spends everything on that, you know, and he runs up these huge debts. And so there is this classic case where in 1789, Louis XVI buys a chateau for Marie Antoinette or for the family, because they are no longer allowed to go to Versailles at this stage, and they're not allowed to go to any of the other royal chateaus and they are being kept in the Tuileries. And he says, we need somewhere to take our children for some country air and a holiday and a break and whatever. So he buys this for her, and I'm trying to remember now how much it was, but anyway, it's literally the same year he writes off all his brother's debts and it's something like 20 times the cost of what they've just spent on this thing for Marie Antoinette, the chateau. But everyone is furious with Marie and Chanet and this chateau. The purchase of the chateau, it's not his. His brother's debts.
- [32:31]
Kate Lister
That's the patriarchy in action.
- [32:32]
Sarah Grant
It is. It is, yeah. And the patriarchy is massively in action in those. Those prints that they produce of her as well. The same prints, yeah. The kind of misogyny and targeting her and targeting her, you know, her sexuality in particular.
- [32:48]
Kate Lister
And she wasn't the worst offender. Tell me about the diamonds.
- [32:51]
Sarah Grant
What happened with the diamonds? The diamonds. The diamonds, yes, the diamonds. So she famously did not even really like diamonds that much. So she loves Pearls. Pearls she loves. And pearls appear on all her porcelain services, for instance. That's her favorite jewel. But she does have to wear diamonds. You know, that's part of the court regalia, that's part of the spectacle that I mentioned she was trying to create. And she actually brings some with her from Vienna. So her mother gives her a collection, like a sort of trousseau of jewelry to equip her for court life. And she purchases that before Marie Internet leaves Marriagenet brings it with her. And then she does make some film purchases. Louis XVI also, you know, gives her some gifts. She buys some diamond bracelets, for instance, which came up for sale a couple of years ago and went into, disappeared into a private collection. So, yes, so she does wear, you know, she does wear jewels. But the kind of, the exaggerated kind of view of Marie Antoinette is that she's so obsessed with diamonds that she puts them into the walls. You know, she's like lining the walls with diamonds, you know, and decorating the rooms of Versailles with diamonds. And that's where all France's money is going. And so when the diamond necklace affair happens, you know, the scandal, which, you know, a necklace she never wore, never even tried on, she's so unpopular by that stage and there are so many kind of myths and you know, myth has completely overtaken reality by this stage that people think, of course she's done this, you know, and when they enter the palace, when the revolutionaries storm Versailles and they, they come into her bedchamber, they are looking for diamonds, they are looking for the jewels that they think she's hiding and that she keeping there. And they discover these really quite ordinary looking rooms, I mean, her private rooms behind the formal staterooms. They are not that dissimilar from, I don't know, drawing rooms and kind of upper middle class sort of houses. So it was a very stark difference between reality and myth, definitely.
- [34:41]
Kate Lister
And we went to go and look at those diamonds. So we are approaching a case with the biggest diamond necklace I've ever seen. And then right next to it is a smaller necklace, but this one is much sparklier.
- [34:58]
Sarah Grant
Okay, so this is a replica made of real jewels. It's made of white sapphires and made of freshwater pearls of the original diamond necklace from the famous diamond necklace scandal of 1784 and 1785. So at the time, it was the largest and most expensive diamond necklace ever made in Europe. So you can get a sense of that. It's in two pieces. You have the choker section here, which you can tie around and Then you have the bit that goes around the bodice and we think. We're not entirely sure, but these, these strands here that come down, that terminate in these tassels could have come down your shoulders or could have gone down your back. Imagine wearing something like that. Very amazing. Yes, very amazing.
- [35:34]
Kate Lister
Just like nip down to Aldi. That's.
- [35:38]
Sarah Grant
I mean, you'd need a really important event, I think.
- [35:40]
Kate Lister
Oh, my goodness. Would you ever.
- [35:43]
Sarah Grant
Yeah. So. And then a beautiful silk velvet ribbon. And in the 18th century, all necklaces fastened with ribbons, so they didn't have clasps, they always fastened with ribbons. And. And yes, it was made for Melan du Barry, who was, you know, a famous beauty, but a notorious. Notorious mistress of Louis 15th.
- [35:58]
Kate Lister
So. And she liked a bit of bling, didn't she?
- [36:00]
Sarah Grant
She loved bling, yeah. So. So you were just saying how gorgeous this is. Can you imagine? Because these are the original stones. Most likely. Those are the original stones. These were in here. Because you can see the difference between a white sapphire and one of the finest diamonds in the world.
- [36:13]
Kate Lister
Oh, my. Do you know, I really can, actually, that. I'm marginally disappointed about how different they look. I was kind of hoping that you'd be like, oh, diamond schmeimans. But there is no. That is definitely so much sparklier. The originals.
- [36:25]
Sarah Grant
Yeah.
- [36:25]
Kate Lister
Would that have been considered such a stupid question to ask of Marie Antoinette? Would that have been considered quite gaudy for the time? I wonder if that's maybe why she. Because, I mean, there's nothing subtle, remotely subtle about that.
- [36:36]
Sarah Grant
It's not subtle, it's very ostentatious. Yes. And I think for her, even for her, I think it was too much. I mean, she doesn't actually. She didn't like diamonds that much. She'd have. She had a lot of diamonds, but she actually preferred pearls. I mean, there are pearls in it, I suppose you would say. But yes, it was definitely very over the top for the time.
- [36:52]
Kate Lister
How many, many carrots is this? Me and my producer, we've got absolutely no sense of scale with this. We don't even know what a carrot is. But could you tell us how many carrots is and maybe what is a carrot?
- [37:03]
Sarah Grant
A carrot refers to the weight of the stone rather than the size of the stone. But often there is a correlation. You know, obviously the. The heavier it is, the larger the stone is. So this is 28, 42 carats.
- [37:14]
Kate Lister
That's a lot of carrots.
- [37:15]
Sarah Grant
It's a lot of carrots. And I think for comparison, I think the average Engagement ring is in, in the UK is probably one carat, maybe. Yeah. So there's 2,842 carats. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stains. There are a lot of diamonds in that. I think it was worth 10 million in today's money at the time, I think. Or maybe more than that, actually. So very, very, very, very expensive. Very, very, very sparkly. But, you know, this is the age of the diamond. So this is an age when they had really improve diamond cuts and faceting and they call Mary Schnetz period, the age of the diamond, because diamonds were much more sparkly than they had been previously. So suddenly, instead of just these big kind of, you know, rocks, they really sparkle, as you can see. So. So these come from the Golconda mine in India, which produce the finest diamonds in the world. And, you know, you heard that Bridgeton thing of diamonds of the finest water, which is what this means. It means the are diamonds of the finest water. Wow. So they are. These ones are 15 carats. There's one pink, I know there's only 15 and then there's a pink one there. Can you see that little rectangular one? There's pink and then all the others are white. Absolutely beautiful. So they are very, very dazzling.
- [38:32]
Kate Lister
Can you tell us a bit what this affair of the diamonds was and how Marie Antoinette even ended up in the centre of this?
- [38:38]
Sarah Grant
This is the worst scandal of her reign. So this is the reign that is one of the triggering acts for the revolution. So 1784, 1785 is when the scandal occurs. But the necklace was actually commissioned in 1772, so, you know, a decade before. And not commissioned for her and not commissioned for her. So it's commissioned by Louis xv, her grandfather in law, and it's commissioned for his mistress, Mandy Barry. So he thinks she's the most beautiful one in the world. He wants to give her the most expensive diamond necklace in the world and so he commissions it. And we talked about how many carats it weighs. It's huge and it's elaborate and et cetera, and very, very expensive. And then he dies of smallpox, which was unexpected. And Louis XVI and Marinette become king and Queen, aged 18 and 19, which they weren't expecting. And so the jewelers now have to shift this necklace, which only a royal person could purchase. Yes.
- [39:29]
Kate Lister
You can't just market that to anyone, can you?
- [39:31]
Sarah Grant
No, no one else can afford to buy it. So they go to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and they offer the necklace to Them, and they refuse it. And they say, no, it's too expensive, it's too vulgar, it's too outdated in style. It's associated with Mandibarry. We don't want it. We don't want it. So they are really stuck. But the stories of this have circulated throughout Paris and France. And so the con artist, the Comtesse de la Marche, and her husband, the Comte de la Marche, they hatch this plan to steal the necklace. And so it's a very elaborate plan. And they go to the senior member of the Church at Versailles, the Cardinal. He's the one who, you know, he. Who sort of presides over all the official kind of religious ceremonies and everything. Very important role. And he has fallen out with Mariannette. So he had previously been in Strasbourg and he had previously known her mother, and he was unpopular with Marinette's family. So he wants a way in to kind of win her back in a way. And so they come to her and they say, well, you know, if you purchase the necklace for her in secret, if you just pay the first instalment, then she will pay off the rest, you know, then she will be very grateful to you. And they arrange this meeting in the gardens at midnight, and they hire a prostitute to impersonate Marie Chanette. And, you know, I mean, all kinds of things. Like, it's a very elaborate plan. And so he is taken in and he pays for the first installment, and they take the necklace and they steal it and they bring it to London and they bring it to the jewellers. They take all the stones. It's a little bit like the Louvre heist. They take all the stones out. Those are reset by English jewellers. We don't know if the jewellers knew, but they must have suspected.
- [41:00]
Kate Lister
Plausible. Someone's turning up with a necklace with stones like this.
- [41:06]
Sarah Grant
Yeah, it comes from anywhere else. Exactly. And it's deeply suspicious. But anyway, whatever. So it's reset them for English aristocrats. And those are the ones you see in the exhibition, which are, you know, which reveal just the beauty of those diamonds. They are so extraordinary. And then, you know, what happens is they get. It catches up with them. So they come and they arrest them. And the Comtesse d' Amos is brought back to Paris and she's imprisoned and she's branded with a V for Volos, for thief. And so all. But she somehow manages to garner all the sympathy. People are sympathetic for her.
- [41:38]
Kate Lister
How is Marie Antoinette involved in this? Like, what did the people of Paris think have happened?
- [41:42]
Sarah Grant
Nothing. So she's Doing nothing at all. So the king orders the arrest of the cardinal, and the cardinal is arrested. And this is. This is a bad decision. He's arrested while he's in the middle of conducting some kind of religious service or ceremony or something, which probably wasn't a great, great idea. And so he's arrested and he's, you know, and there is a trial, and they are put on trial, but for some reason, the Comtesse de la Motte, she just, you know, people are very sympathetic to her. And the cardinal, in the end, is exonerated. And Marriagenet is following the affair very closely. And in her letters and everything, you know, she's talking about it with her friends, and she's hoping that the cardinal will be convicted. She's hoping that he will be held responsible for this, even though arguably he is also a duke in this too. You know, he's actually innocent, present. And then the Comte de escapes from prison. So she comes. So all this is happening. The trial's happening. And the trial was an attempt by Louis XVI to make it really transparent. So a king has no. He doesn't have to give anyone a trial. He can just throw them in prison. And that was one of the. Actually, the most notorious and most despised rules of France was that the king had what we called lettres de cachet, which was immediate arrest, imprisonment. You don't have to question anybody. You don't have to give them a trial. You can just imprison them for life if you want to, as kids.
- [42:52]
Kate Lister
King.
- [42:52]
Sarah Grant
And that's one of the things that the revolutionaries overturn, actually. Is that right? Even though I think Louis XVI never used it. Anyway, so the trial happens and then she escapes and she comes to London and she writes this pamphlet, which was published in English and in French, where she says Marriagenet was behind this whole thing and she was responsible for this and we were having an affair.
- [43:10]
Kate Lister
No.
- [43:10]
Sarah Grant
Yes. Yes. So she completely tears marriage apart. She, you know, badmouths her. She says she's duplicitous. This, she's scheming, she's conniving. And people read this in their thousands and believe it. So, again, she had nothing to do with it. But this is so, so damaging. But if I can reassure you about the contest, Lamart, because she ends badly. I mean, whether you feel sympathetic, if you feel sympathetic towards.
- [43:37]
Kate Lister
Not really. Not at the moment, no.
- [43:39]
Sarah Grant
Okay. I admire the Hustle, but the Hustle is like next level. It's incredible. She falls out of a window and dies because she is running from the bailiff. To whom she owes money here in London. In London. So it's in Lambeth, and she's buried in Lambeth cemetery because she dies here. And meanwhile, her husband conducts a duel with one of the jewelers and kills him. So clearly, I think the jewelers must have known because there was something going on. There must have been known. Yeah. But there's yet more scandal and yet more scandal upon scandal. And so the point is, it never goes away. The story never goes away. And Marinette is constantly faced with new accusations, and it never goes away. And Napoleon, he later says, I think in 1804 or something, probably when he becomes emperor. He talks about how he attributes Marinette's death to the diamond necklace affair. He felt that if the diamond necklace affair had never happened, she probably wouldn't have been executed.
- [44:32]
Kate Lister
Wow.
- [44:51]
Bleacher Report Host
The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.
- [45:22]
Don Wildman
What started the Civil War? What ended the conflict in Vietnam? Who was Paul Revere? And did the Vikings ever reach America? I'm Don Wildman, and on American History hit. My expert guests and I are journeying across the nation and through the years to uncover the stories that have made America. We'll visit the battlefields and debate floors where the nation was formed, meet the characters who have altered it with their touch, and count the votes that have changed the direction of our laws and leadership. Find American History hit twice a week, every week. Wherever you get your podcasts. American History hit. A podcast from history hit.
- [46:20]
Kate Lister
Thing is, is that for people to that ready to believe that that tells me that she was already disliked.
- [46:27]
Sarah Grant
Yeah.
- [46:28]
Kate Lister
Because that it's such a weird story that the fact that they must have. It must have already seemed plausible to them that this woman for some reason was behind all of this.
- [46:38]
Sarah Grant
Yeah.
- [46:39]
Kate Lister
Why do you think that she attracted as much hatred as she did? I mean, you can. I completely understand why the revolution happened as people were starving, the system sucked, and you do have these aristocrats spending ridiculous amounts of. And that's something that, you know, we can even relate to today when you see billionaires who seem vastly out of touch with, with just normal people talking complete nonsense. And it's, it does make people really angry. Like when you see influencers online with doing like Louis Vuitton hauls and there are people that go, I can't afford food this month. You can see why.
- [47:13]
Sarah Grant
You can see why.
- [47:14]
Kate Lister
Yeah, she's such a lightning rod for it. Why her? Because we've already said there were worse offenders there.
- [47:21]
Sarah Grant
Worse offenders. But I think it's the culmination of everything has been leading to this. You know, as you said, there is massive and widespread discontent anyway, there is a population who are suffering. There is a totally archaic form of government essentially, which is completely unjust, you know, and the taxation laws in particular are punitive. So all those things are there so that people are already ill disposed towards someone, but they give the King a light kind of, you know, they don't really blame him very much at all until the end. So they need someone to do direct their animosity towards. And then Marie and Jeanette, because she's not in the background, because there is no other person, no other woman at court to kind of fix on. And then because she does a few things that probably are not sort of well judged, so she elevates her female courtiers, which she gives them more money and more power. And that's seen as very, you know, that's very unpopular. And then also she has a circle of friends and she withdraws from public. So, you know, to be a king and a queen in France that time, you have to be highly visible. People need to see you, they need to see you often. You need to be conspicuous. People feel like they own you, you belong to them. And then she doesn't give them heirs, you know, she takes seven years to consummate the marriage. So what's wrong with her? You know, what is wrong with her? She's obviously some debauched, terrible creature, wicked monster kind of thing. That's another strike against her. And then, yes, she, you know, she gives favors to her friends and then she gradually begins to withdraw from the public eye. So she hates the life at Versailles and she's on display all the time. She has to dine in public every day, she has to perform her public toilet every single day in public midday. And obviously she gives birth in public, though to a more select audience, so she hates that. And so she creates these private rooms behind the formal rooms to withdraw to. And only a select number of people are allowed to go there, so then everybody else feels left out, including the courtiers the courtiers are, like, so enraged by it. So then that means she also loses the support of the Court, not just France, but the courtiers whom they need behind them. She goes to the Petit Trianon, she has these parties that only certain people are invited to. People feel excluded. So all of this contributes to it. I think some of these decisions she makes were really poorly considered and ill timed. But I think it's interesting that she comes into her own when they are imprisoned and during the revolutionary years and Louis the Sixth, people, historians agree, probably had a mental breakdown at this stage. Yeah. And the stress was huge. And also their child dies during the revolution. So in 1789, their child dies of this excruciating and debilitating disease. So they are watching their child die and the revolution is occurring. So he has this breakdown and she has to take over. And so previously he'd excluded her, but now she's in control and she's negotiating with revolutionary politicians. And one of them says Mirabeau, he says, there's only one man behind the king, and that is the queen. And that was his way of saying she is stoic and she is highly intelligent and she is capable.
- [50:27]
Kate Lister
And one of the things we looked at in the exhibition, of course, was the guillotine. The vibe has changed dramatically. Now we are walking through a red corridor.
- [50:39]
Sarah Grant
Yes, yes. We are walking through a corridor, through to this room that's a bit like her cell, her prison cell. That's kind of what we've evoked a bit here. And there's the very deep red walls that you can see. And then we just have these three cases with, on the one side, her prayer book and her last note and her hair. And then in the middle, the guillotine blade. And then on the right, her underwear from when she was in prison.
- [51:02]
Kate Lister
And this is the guillotine blade.
- [51:04]
Sarah Grant
This is the Gillettishing blade. So they used three, three blades during the revolution, and this is one of them. So there's a one in three chance that this is the blade that killed Marinette. It was certainly used on thousands of people and it was sold by the executioner's son to Madame Tussaud's son. So. And then came and just stayed here in this country for hundreds of years.
- [51:24]
Kate Lister
Oh, my God.
- [51:25]
Sarah Grant
Exactly. Yeah.
- [51:29]
Kate Lister
I don't know why I thought it'd be wider.
- [51:31]
Sarah Grant
I know it looks smaller, doesn't it?
- [51:33]
Kate Lister
It looks oddly like. And I don't know why I. I was hoping for it to be, like, massive, massive, like a meter long. But it's not. It's like. How long would you say it is?
- [51:42]
Sarah Grant
I mean, it only has to be a little bit wider than your neck. Yeah. And there is this story as well, that it was actually Louis XVI who suggests the oblique angle of the blade as well, because it was introduced, you know, it's the first time it's being used. It's a new form of execution and it's introduced as a humane form of execution. And supposedly he said, actually it would be more efficient if the angle is oblique instead of straight, like cutting, like, you know, like an axe. And then, you know, it's used on them.
- [52:09]
Kate Lister
How long was she in prison for? Because it's really stout. When you go around the exhibition, when you're starting with dresses made of silver and diamonds, like piles of diamonds, and these amazing clothes and even the ones that are supposed to look, you know, kind of more humble are still incredible. And then you finish with this shift that she was wearing and it's really stark. It's just like the real, real fall from grace. This is a very, very simple chemise. After seeing everything we've seen, dresses made of silver and hair piled high with ships on and diamonds of 2,000 carats, and now we've kind of ended with this really simple chemise.
- [52:53]
Sarah Grant
Yes. So very humble kind of item of clothing. And this was hers and this was her hers. And she wore it in prison and she had three of them. And when she was taken to be executed, these were, you know, removed from her cell and they were kept by the prison superintendent and then they kind of descended through his family and then he decides to give them to the museum in Paris.
- [53:14]
Kate Lister
Wow.
- [53:14]
Sarah Grant
So he. He saw it even, you know, then they saw them as a relic of her. And it looks, you know, it's. It's actually, again, magnified a bit by the glass. So when it was out our conservation studio and we were looking at it, it looked even smaller and it just looked very sad and kind of does. There's something very poignant about it.
- [53:31]
Kate Lister
She wasn't well when she was in prison, was she? I mean, who would be? But she wasn't. She wasn't a. Well, lady. Can you talk to us a bit about her time in prison?
- [53:43]
Sarah Grant
Yes. I mean, it's. It is a fall from grace because she goes from having in. In her wardrobe every year around 105 to 108 gowns, gowns, new gowns every year, to having just two dresses when she's in prison. So she has two dresses, one pair of shoes and three chemise. You know, underwear, because men and women didn't wear the underwear we wear, they just wore those. Men and women wore those. You know, that was the layer that you wear next to your skin and you wash. So, yes, it's the most intimate item of dress belonging to her. It's her underwear. That's it. And her time in prison, I mean, she evolves gradually towards it. Because they're forcibly brought from Versailles in 1789, that's when the Paris palace is stormed and they are brought back to Paris. The people want the King and Queen in Paris where they can see them. So they're put in the Trinity Palace. So they live under house arrest there until 1791. So, you know, two, three years until they try to escape. And that's the escape that goes really wrong. And when they're brought back from that, this time they are put in prison. And so then they are imprisoned up until their death in 1793. So Mariannette's son, who's 7 when he's put in prison and is 10 when he dies in prison, he was in prison for three. Three years. Oh, dear.
- [54:54]
Kate Lister
It's such a. It's such a tragic end. I wonder if they ever thought that this was even on the cards for them. It must have seemed extraordinary that it happened.
- [55:03]
Sarah Grant
I think it would have been so hard for them to even contemplate. Yeah. To imagine. And actually, I think that's something that's done so beautifully in Sofia Coppola's film. You know how she finishes it? She doesn't show any of that period. She just finishes with them leaving Versailles, being taken from Versailles, and she shows her, and they're looking totally like, ravaged and care worn in their carriage. And the sun is rising and she's looking out the carriage window and she's saying goodbye. And that's partly what's so difficult with their negotiations, because they could have gone for in a constitutional monarchy. And that is something that they do actually end up suggesting, but it's too late, you know, so I think they, they can't believe, you know, he believes, he's been taught to believe that God has appointed him. Yeah.
- [55:43]
Kate Lister
Where's he gone? Yeah.
- [55:46]
Sarah Grant
Where's God? Why is he not helping us? Yes. So they believe that and they've been groomed for this and raised to. They're indoctrinated, you know, so they find it so difficult to believe any other life but that. But I think she would have been absolutely happy to escape and leave it all behind if she could have. You know, there are Many points. And there is one final attempt where they could have, they could have probably have gotten her out, but they couldn't get the children out as well. And so she said no because she didn't want to leave them behind.
- [56:16]
Kate Lister
Why do so few of her items survive? I mean, you have some incredible ones in the exhibition, but they're quite precious and rare. Why, considering how much stuff she actually did have, why does so little of it survive?
- [56:32]
Sarah Grant
So there are some things that do survive actually in large numbers. So in terms of the furniture and the furnishings and portraits and paintings and porcelain and things like that, that, that survives in large numbers. And, you know, it was dispersed. So in 1793 and 1794, after the king, Queen are executed, the revolutionaries, they strip the palaces and they sell everything in all of the royal palaces. And there is this great series of sales where people come and bid on these things that belong to the king and queen and et cetera, and they buy them and lots of it ends up here in this country. So because those things were hugely valuable and they were works of art and they were Masterpieces of 18th century French furniture and people recognized the craftsmanship and the value and people collected them and held onto them and, you know, and so those things are still with us. And actually there was so much more that we could have put in the exhibition, but we just didn't have space. But in terms of the personal objects belonging to her, her wardrobe is looted, so that is looted in 1792 from the Trinnery Palace. So she had moved her wardrobe from Versailles to Tuileries where they have a semi functioning court. And then the palace is attacked and 700 people are killed and the family have to drop everything and run, which they do. So then everything there is picked over and cut up and se sold and you shouldn't disperse. So that's why that does not survive in great numbers, because everything was dispersed. And if you think about it as well, you know, textiles, dresses, these sorts of things, they are far more fragile than a chair or arguably a porcelain service and a picture in a massive frame sort of thing. So those things, you know, they deteriorate and they disappear. But shoes survive in the largest numbers, actually. Yeah. Because you can't repurpose a shoe. So unless you fit the shoe. That's true, you can't. All you can do is just kind of hang onto it, whereas, you know, dress, you can cut it up and you can use the silk for something else or you can, you know, whatever, you can repurpose it. So there are more shoes belonging to Marie Internet than anything else. So we are looking at two of Marie Internet's shoes. This is a formal style of shoes. This is the court mule. This is what she.
- [58:32]
Kate Lister
They are tiny.
- [58:34]
Sarah Grant
Tiny, Tiny.
- [58:35]
Kate Lister
Small.
- [58:36]
Sarah Grant
They are small. They are small shoes. A 36 and a half. That was her size. What's that in which is a UK 3.5. So small. But also, if you think about her heel would have gone over the end of that.
- [58:47]
Kate Lister
Yes.
- [58:47]
Sarah Grant
And these are very forgiving because they're in silk, so silk yields, you know. It has.
- [58:51]
Kate Lister
Of course it does. I've never had a silk shoe. So you can tell.
- [58:54]
Sarah Grant
Yeah. So there's lots of space in there. But also she was 165cm tall, about. So she was a bit shorter than you. Yeah. So. But she was tall for. For the 18th century. But. So. Yes. So these are two of the shoes and this is one informal style. So this is an everyday style with that beautiful pleated silk trimming there. But she. It's. Shoes are such an interesting part of Magent's story in a way, because there's a moment in sort of an episode in every sort of, you know, chapter of her life where you can bring shoes or feet into it in some way. And also this is the. This is the period of the foot fetish. The 18th century.
- [59:27]
Kate Lister
Yeah.
- [59:27]
Sarah Grant
It's when the foot fastest begins. So she originally purchased around four pairs of shoes a week when she first arrived, which was. But she was still growing because she was 14 when she arrived, so she was still going. And apparently she grew about a foot not long after she arrived. Thirteen months. The ambassador was reporting back on, like, her growth and things like that to her mother. But she also had to master the Versailles glide, so she had to master the way of walking in the French style and skimming the surface of the parquet floor so that you don't kind of come clump around, you just skim and float. So. And also in those gowns you like in that one there with the train, you want to create this kind of seamless, floating kind of.
- [60:04]
Kate Lister
That's actually quite a skill that is like to walk in these shoes, very delicate with a heel. To walk in that dress with that fabric that is going out, feet behind you and it's so wide. And to do that gracefully and not fall over is an art form that. Really an art form. Actually it is.
- [60:21]
Sarah Grant
And she. She had many deportment and dancing lessons. I mean, she had to dance and gowns like that. So. Yeah, So, I mean, that's even more sort of crazy. But so. So she did have this beautiful walk, and apparently she had a really lively gait as well. She had a nice kind of attractive, attractive walk.
- [60:36]
Kate Lister
So.
- [60:36]
Sarah Grant
Yes. And then there is this story, which is apocryphal, that when she was going up the scaffold, she dropped a shoe off her foot, like Cinderella, you know, that one of the shoes fell off of it. But that's definitely not true. But what is true, probably, is that she did step on the executioner's foot. And then she said, I'm so sorry. And that's the last thing she said before she was killed. So feet and shoes kind of really play a role in her story.
- [60:57]
Kate Lister
And these were absolutely hers. She wore these.
- [60:59]
Sarah Grant
These are absolutely hers. These have an uncontested provenance. So everything in the exhibition has a monogram on the label, like a gilded ma is an object that belonged to Mary. Internet, without a shadow doubt. But there are actually many shoes that come up for sale that purport to belong to her. So it's one of those items that comes up every now and then. So you have to be very careful. Yeah, but the jewels is another. There's another story. So the jewels, for a long time, actually for 230 years, no one knew where they were. So these are her private jewels, the French crown jewels. They stayed there. They actually. They tried to steal them in 1792, but they managed to get them back. So fingers crossed. Crossed that this time they come back, too. Mariannette's Jules. She tries to get them out, and she manages successfully to get them out because they belong to her. They're her personal property. She wants them for her children. So she packs them in a box that looks like one of her hairdresser's boxes to get them out. And he takes them out, he gives them to Fashion, then gives them to the Austrian ambassador, and they are kept in Brussels and then Vienna for her children. But, of course, as we know, only one child survives. So that child, Marie Therese, when she's raised, released at age 17 in 1795, she makes her way back to Vienna and she's reunited with her mother's jewels, and then the jewels disappear. So we didn't know where they were. And it was literally during the course of planning this exhibition that we discovered where they were. Yes. So it is only in our lifetime that they have resurfaced.
- [62:22]
Kate Lister
Where were they?
- [62:23]
Sarah Grant
So Marinette's daughter is reunited with the jewels, and she has no children. She marries, but she has no children. So she leaves them to her nephew, and they descend all the way through the Italian branch of the royal. Of French royal family. And they never sold any of them. You know, I mean, it's common, obviously, to sell things as they become no longer, you know, wearable and those sorts of things. But they didn't. And so people started to think that these had never existed. And even though there was this story, you know, by her first chambermaid recalling Marion Jeanette packing them up and getting them out, people would start to believe that they just didn't exist. And so then the family decided to sell them, and they came to auction, and it was this unbelievable revelation. It was this incredible, sensational revelation. And so the jewels were there. The inventory that was discovered matched the jewels. So. Yeah, so those survive. And that's actually also not common because jewels are constantly reset in history. You know, as jewels become outdated in terms of their design, people take the stones out and they put them into a modern, updated setting. And that happens in the 18th century, too. So actually it's unusual that her jewels survive. And some of them have been updated. You know, some of them have additional. But, you know, it is incredible that they.
- [63:35]
Kate Lister
And we did have a look at some in the exhibition, didn't we?
- [63:37]
Sarah Grant
Yes. Yeah.
- [63:39]
Kate Lister
What do you think Marie Antoinette's legacy has been? I mean, as we were walking around, me and my producers were chatting and saying, do you think that Marie Antoinette would be happy with this exhibition? I think that she would have loved it, not only for the fact that it's just. It's beautiful and she's. But the fact that she's being celebrated because she went to her death feeling like the most hated woman. Woman in the world, but she clearly wasn't. Her impact on fashion has been profound.
- [64:06]
Sarah Grant
Yeah. Gosh, that's so beautifully said. Yes, she did go to her death as the most hated woman in the world, I think, arguably. And she knew it. Yeah. And, you know, and people were jeering and people were throwing things at her and all those sorts of things. And I. But I think also that's probably why she was ready to die. And her sister says that Maria Carolina says, you know, everything that ends her torture is good because she felt at this stage, there was just no. There was no coming back. And you mentioned as well that she was ill.
- [64:31]
Kate Lister
Yes. Yeah. They think it was a cancer of some. She was bleeding quite a lot, wasn't she?
- [64:36]
Sarah Grant
Yes, she was hemorrhaging.
- [64:36]
Kate Lister
Yeah.
- [64:37]
Sarah Grant
So she did. But I think it takes some time to have some distance from the political events. And she is effectively cancelled. You know, no one wants to have anything to do with her after her death. No one wants to even be associated with her. Her staff are pretending they never worked for her. Her clothes are destroyed, jewels are destroyed. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And things are defaced. So, for instance, her book bindings, which have her coat of arms the revolutionaries would like, cancel out even her coat of arms. Was that kind of terrible to them that they would have to destroy it? So, yes, so she is. And she's hated for some time. But then they have the Napoleonic era and they see an emperor who arguably comes on an even more epic scale than the royal family that they've just gotten. You know, so times change, memories fade and you get more perspective. And I think people then start to look back on her reign and they see how exquisite her taste was and how beautiful the objects were. And this was a time that, you know, in France when the industries that were making these dresses and making the furniture and the porcelain was at its very peak in terms of skill and imagination and creativity, like the animal print things that she loved and all those sorts of things. And that's the other thing, is that the aspects of her style that we can still see today, I think there is this link. So I think that's why. I think it's also the mesmerizing personality of Marie Antoinette, too. We have to give her her due, I think.
- [66:06]
Kate Lister
So we are now in a room with gowns. How many gowns? 20. That have all been inspired by Marie Antoinette. This is incredible.
- [66:18]
Sarah Grant
It's very colourful.
- [66:18]
Kate Lister
It's very, very colorful. This is. Oh, I could. I was just trying to mentally think, which one would I pick out and
- [66:27]
Sarah Grant
which one would you wear? Oh, just the Valentino one's amazing.
- [66:32]
Kate Lister
This couture Valentino, the ones that look like cakes.
- [66:34]
Sarah Grant
Oh, you'd wear the cake crumbs.
- [66:36]
Kate Lister
I don't know if I would you. But they're amazing. I think if I was going to choose. Oh, what would I go for? I might be a sucker. I might go. The ones. The ones that you've got over here that were made for the. The. The film for the Sofia Coppola film.
- [66:46]
Sarah Grant
I think that's called Coupler. Yeah, I think that's one.
- [66:48]
Kate Lister
Just because I'd like to put a ship on my head.
- [66:51]
Sarah Grant
And also the Let Them Eat Kate dress with the beautiful pink tulle coming out of it. It's so gorgeous, too.
- [66:56]
Kate Lister
Oh, my goodness. It's incredible. Oh, there's one over here. Inspired by the diamonds.
- [66:59]
Sarah Grant
Yes. Yeah. I mean, this is probably the most famous dress inspired by Marianne. This is by Gian Galliano for Dior. And it's called the Angie Angie gown. Although we've never, we asked you why. They don't seem to remember or know. Anyway, so it's called the Ange gown, but it's got scenes from Marinette's life embroidered on it by one of the finest embroidery workshops in Paris that makes all the couture embroidery for all the fashion houses. And then it's in the style with the pannier as well. It's a Robert le Polonaise, which was one of Marechart's favorite styles, which is that style where it's kind of, you know, drawn up a bit, almost like a bustled sort of effect. And so you can see on the right here, the guillotine with one of the knitters. You know, those women used to knit by the guillotine as they watched all the executions. And then on the other side, you can see marriage net with sheep in the petty triangle. And then you can see sheep being guillotined here, and then the heads, the decapitated heads of lambs and sheep here. And as you said, the diamond necklace of the scandal, which they created a replica of. And then you've got her wig with the feathers, but also crawling in and out of her wig are mice, which you can't probably see. See, you can see the tails when you come around the back, she has mice crawling in and out of her hair. And then at the back she has this wind up mechanism. So it's suggesting Maragenet was this puppet, this wind up doll. And there's also straw coming out as well. So whether that's a reference to the hamlet and the village that she had and the kind of the rustic farm, or whether it's supposed to be like a doll whose stuffing is coming out. It's not quite clear, but so it's a really elaborate and really kind of rich symbolism sort of dress. So definitely the most famous, inspired by Marian Church.
- [68:34]
Kate Lister
So if I was to ask you an unfair question, then as somebody that you put the exhibit together, which means that you personally handled the items here.
- [68:42]
Sarah Grant
Yes.
- [68:43]
Kate Lister
Was there. I'm not gonna ask you what your favorite was, but was there anything that when it arrived, you got like a real chill down the spine, like something that was just like, oh my God,
- [68:52]
Sarah Grant
I can't be believe this is here. I have, honestly, almost everything I have to say, almost everything was like that. I mean, her hair, you know, and the medallion, the last note that she wrote, which is so heart wrenching and extraordinary. And then, you know, things like her portrait with the rose, which is the most famous portrait of her in the world, which you see everywhere and you see on, like tea towels and cards and chocolate boxes and everything, just to have that. And also, you know, her jewels as well, this incredible story behind them and how she tried to sort of keep them. And what's, I think, remarkable about Marriagenet is not just the incredible stories when they were being made, but also the kind of. The second lives of so many of these objects are incredible. The drama at every turn in her story is so. Is so interesting to me. But I did feel particularly moved when we unpacked the portrait of her with the rose because she loved Engden and she always wanted to come here. And she was a total Anglophile. She was learning English. Louis XVI spoke fluent English and they were reading English books. And actually, to your point about the execution, they were so interested in the execution of Charles I as this kind of cautionary tale which they were sort of keeping in the back of their minds, you know, we must not end up like this. So she was so interested and fascinated in England, but she could never come here. And her courtiers were traveling here in large numbers during peace times. They were crossing the Channel, they were coming to London. They were like going all around the country. They're going to York and Bath and all the different places, you know, Cambridge, Oxford. And they were sort of seeing all the kind of sights of England and coming back and telling her, but she could never come. And so then when this portrait comes of her, which is the most famous portrait of her in the world, which has never left France before, and it crossed the Channel and it came here because it literally did cross the Channel. It was in a truck and it crossed the Channel and we unpacked it at midnight. It felt incredible. It felt. Felt so moving. She finally made it. That she finally made it. Yeah. And that she was here. So that really was quite moving.
- [70:47]
Kate Lister
Sarah, thank you so much. Your exhibition is just. It's incredible. Honestly. She would have loved it.
- [70:54]
Sarah Grant
Let's hope so. Let's hope so. Thank you very much. Thank you.
- [71:00]
Kate Lister
Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to the VA for welcoming us to the exhibition and to the rather fabulous Sarah Grant for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to, like, review and follow along whatever it is you get. Your podcasts coming up. We have got the Truth about Charlie Chaplin and we're heading into the dark murky world of sex trafficking in the Victorian era. And if you would like us to explore a subject, if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us@betwixtistoryhit.com this podcast was edited by Hannah Theodore of and produced by Sophie G. The senior producer was Freddie Chicken. Join me again. Betwixt sheets the history of sex scandal in society. A podcast by History hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.
- [71:50]
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Kate Lister
Like, it's just one bombshell after another. You know, you're like, what? What?
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