The French Public and the Political Marriage
Although nearly all royal marriages in Europe had been traditionally arranged around the political interests of involved families, the marriage of fifteen-year-old Louis-Auguste and fourteen-year-old Maria Antonia (better known by the French form of her name Marie Antoinette) provoked very strong and ambiguous reactions in France. As a daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa, the head of the Habsburg Empire, Maria Antonia belonged to one of the most powerful royal families in Europe. Her marriage to the heir to the French throne aimed to strengthen the ongoing, if still rather recent, union between two empires that were at the time seen as the weaker players in the European balance of power. Louis XV and Maria Theresa's common desire to destroy the ambitions of Prussia and Great Britain and to help secure a definitive peace between the two old enemies were at the foundation of the marriage but many among the French public were skeptical about the union. The alliance with Austria had pulled France into the disastrous Seven Years' War, in which it was defeated by the British, both in Europe and in North America. By the time Louis-Auguste and Maria Antonia were married, the French people were generally critical of the Franco-Austrian alliance.
The Loss of Popularity
Despite the common skepticism towards the Franco-Austrian alliance, Marie Antoinette's arrival in Paris provoked excitement. She was beautiful, personable, and well-liked by the common people. Her first official appearance in Paris in 1773 was a resounding success. However, the popularity of the queen did not last long. Her extravagant lifestyle soon discouraged many, particularly in light of the country's financial crisis and poverty of the masses. She spent heavily on fashion, luxuries, and gambling. For her, Rose Bertin created dresses, hair styles such as poufs up to three feet high, and the panache (bundle of feathers). She and her court also adopted the English fashion of dresses made of indienne (a material banned in France from 1686 until 1759), percale and muslin. By the time of the Flour War of 1775, a series of riots against the high price of flour and bread, her reputation among the general public was damaged.
Similarly, the queen's role in French politics contributed to the loss of initial popularity as Marie Antoinette was consistently accused of influencing her husband's decisions in the way that would disproportionately benefit Austria. In 1778, her brother and the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II made claims on the throne of Bavaria (the War of the Bavarian Succession). Marie Antoinette pleaded with her husband for the French to intercede on behalf of Austria. The Peace of Teschen (1779) ended the brief conflict, with the queen imposing French mediation on the demand of her mother and Austria's gaining a territory of at least 100,000 inhabitants - a strong retreat from the early French position which was hostile towards Austria with the impression, partially justified, that the queen sided with Austria against France.
Empress Maria Theresa died in 1780 and Marie Antoinette feared that the death of her mother would jeopardize the Franco-Austrian alliance but her brother assured her that he had no intention of breaking the alliance. Joseph II visited his sister in 1781 to reaffirm the Franco-Austrian alliance but his visit was tainted with rumors that Marie Antoinette was sending money from the French treasury to Austria. In the same year, Marie Antoinette gave birth to her second child, Louis Joseph Xavier François, Dauphin of France. Despite the general celebration over the birth of the Dauphin, Marie Antoinette's political influence, such as it was, continued to benefit Austria, which contributed to her growing unpopularity. During the Kettle War, in which her brother Joseph attempted to open the Scheldt River for naval passage, Marie Antoinette succeeded in obtaining a huge financial compensation to Austria. The queen was also able to get her brother's support against Great Britain in the American Revolution and she neutralized French hostility to his alliance with Russia.
Marie Antoinette dans son salon, Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty, 1774.
France's financial problems were the result of a combination of factors: expensive wars; a large royal family whose expenditures were paid for by the state; and the unwillingness of the privileged classes to help defray the costs of the government out of their own pockets by relinquishing some of their financial privileges. Yet, the public perception was that Marie Antoinette had ruined the national finances. She was even given the nickname of "Madame Déficit." While sole fault for the financial crisis did not lie with her, Marie Antoinette played a decisive role in the failure of radical reforms.
In 1782, after the governess of the royal children, the princesse de Guéméné, went bankrupt and resigned, Marie Antoinette appointed her favorite, the duchesse de Polignac, to the position. The decision met with disapproval from the court, as the duchess was considered to be of too modest a birth to occupy such an exalted position. On the other hand, both the king and the queen trusted de Polignac completely and gave her thirteen-room apartment in Versailles as well as a generous salary. The entire Polignac family benefited greatly from the royal favor in titles and positions, but its sudden wealth and lavish lifestyle outraged most aristocratic families (who resented the Polignacs' dominance at court) and also fueled the increasing popular disapprobation toward Marie Antoinette, mostly in Paris.
The queen's lifestyle continued to fuel her increasingly negative public image. Her husband's seeming approval of Marie Antoinette's choices, combined with his failed reforms and declining mental health, only worsened the already hostile attitude of both the elites and the masses (the aristocracy was angered by the king's failed attempts to impose taxes on them while the masses, already in poverty, continued to carry the unjust burden of taxation). In 1783, the queen began to create her "hamlet," a rustic retreat built by her favored architect Richard Mique. Its creation caused another uproar when its cost became widely known. A year later, Louis XVI bought the Château de Saint-Cloud from the duc d'Orléans, in the name of his wife. The decision was unpopular, particularly with some factions of the nobility who disliked the queen but also with a growing percentage of the population who disapproved the idea of the queen owning her private residence independently of the king. The purchase of Saint-Cloud damaged the image of the queen even further. In the eyes of the public opinion, the lavish spending of the royal family could not be disconnected from France's disastrous financial condition.
The portrait of Marie Antoinette and her three surviving children: Marie Thérèse, Louis Charles (on her lap), and Louis Joseph holding up the drape of an empty bassinet signifying the recent death of Marie's fourth child, Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1787).
The queen attempted to fight back her critics with propaganda portraying her as a caring mother, most notably in the painting by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun exhibited at the Royal Académie Salon de Paris in August 1787.