Talk:Marie Antoinette

Biography assessment rating comment

WikiProject Biography Assessment

Well, it should be a GA on somebody's scale.

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 05:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC) She wasn't killed 2 1/2 weeks before her 39th birthday as stated. Based on birth and death dates given in article, she died 2 1/2 weeks before her 38th birthday. Brianjmmurphy 06:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Chou

It's long been a misconception that chou means cabbage in "mon petit chou" and other like sayings. However, chou is also a kind of cake often seen at weddings, and when the French use chou as a term of endearment, it's a reference to the cake chou à la crème, not cabbage. This is in regards to my change of the following in the Motherhood section, replacing cabbage with cake: "Speaking of her youngest son, Louis-Charles, she said, "Mon chou d'amour ("My cabbage of love," "cabbage" being a popular term of endearment even into modern times in France), is charming, and I love him madly. He loves me very much too, in his own way, without embarrassment."" RemiCogan 20:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Analysis of The Cake Quote?

One thing lacking, in this article, is an actual examination of why the dubiously attributed "let them eat cake" was allegedly so inflammatory in the first place. Especially since cake was so common in France. I'm guessing that it was simply that this would have made her seem so clueless about the masses that she didn't realize that not having bread would be any real hardship, but even if that is the reason the quote was offensive, it should be spelled out in the article. If there was any more elaborate reason, it definitely needs to be noted. --Kaz 18:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Let Them Eat Cake (TV Show)

British comedy duo French & Saunders did a television miniseries called "Let Them Eat Cake" about a fictional Baroness living in Versailles. The characterization of Marie Antoinette in this show was of a daft, dippy Austrian puritan who bumbled through her own reign. Something might be said in the "Television" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.20.173.96 (talk) 03:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Transfer of page.

I vote to transfer the Papirini page over here, or have her rewrite in the recentchanges since she made it. And let them Eat Cake is a *MISQUOTE*. Yes, a *huge* misquote. She didn't actually say it, it was another figure. And I do think Pairini's version of the page is still higher quality than the current page cause it has sources. That's far more than this page has. She also fixed some of the complaints that are addressed after she posted the request. Please post for an against. If no comments are made at the end of next Sunday, I'll request she moves it or I'll move it myself.--Hitsuji Kinno 20:05, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Coppola movie material

A substantial portion of the article appears to be based entirely on the Sofia Coppola movie; I have removed the most egregious portions, but have kept a bit in case someone can come up with sources for that. The rest was simply horribly blatant, and since nobody has managed to source it in over eight months, it's better to keep it out of the article for now. Johnleemk | Talk 22:47, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Recent major rewrite

The whole article has recently been completely rewritten by Hitsuji Kinno. A job well done on getting rid of the movie material, and providing citations for the article.

However, I have a number of concerns; first off, a minor issue: was getting rid of the succession boxes really necessary? I have heard many good arguments for reducing this template overload in the past, but surely this is going overboard? Also, we need to do some work on formatting the lists at the end; the see also section currently leads to red links (maybe someone is planning to create them?).

More pertinently, I am concerned that we are blatantly overrelying on Fraser's biography, which as outstanding as it is, is still only one source; we should be drawing on a variety of sources. I note with concern that some sources in the previous revision (a couple of which were added by me) have been excised.

As with all major rewrites, we must try to draw on the best of both revisions to make a better article. The present article is a fine piece of work, but it is, in my view, lacking in some aspects that the old article was not. Thoughts? Johnleemk | Talk 04:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit needed

Hi everyone. I just added my first page. It is "La Carmagnole" which is a song made popular during the Revolution that is particularly insulting to Marie Antoinette. I would like to add a link to this page, but would need someone else's help since this page is semi-protected. I was looking in the French Revolution section, around the phrase "The result was a decline in popularity for both the king and queen," and then maybe including "exemplified by a popular song of the time "La Carmagnole," or something to that effect. I'm not too particular about how it has to be done, but I think it would add some useful information to be linked to the La Carmagnole site. Please let me know what you think, and thanks for the help. 592KatieM 21:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

neutrality of article

I knew nothing of Marie Antoinette, so decided to come to wiki to read up on her and speaking from an unbiased point of view, after reading the article I must say that the article seems to be unfavourably in favour of her, much of the reading made me feel as if it was trying to defend her at every point. To bring this article up to wikipedia's standards of neutrality it needs to be cleaned up. (Wiki332 13:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC))

I agree with the above post. The only knowledge of Marie Antoinette that I had was from the 2006 Marie Antoinette movie. It is obvious that movies exaggerate as well as leave out important details which prompted me to investigate further on WIKI. After reading I do have a better understanding of this figure and her importance, however I also noticed the article seemed to make her into something of an innocent woman who was always wrongly accused. If this is not the case (which I assume it is not) It needs to be made more clear why the French disliked her so, and also needs more elaboration on why "Let them eat cake" was such a volitile statement to the French citizens. 74.93.57.169 19:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC) Sarawikikiwi

Well, surprisingly a lot of biographies sympathise (IMO to an unnecessary extent) with Marie Antoinette - the sympathetic view is often dominant. As I said above, I think a huge part of the problem is our reliance on Antonia Fraser's biography, though most other biographies frequently adopt sympathetic positions as well. We shouldn't be making value judgments about Marie Antoinette (as per the neutrality policy), but the fact is that a lot of allegations made against her were false, which is (again IMO) primarily why so many biographers have been keen to exonerate her. Johnleemk | Talk 11:53, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

In regards to 'Let them eat cake'

I have not read this article in its entirety, but I hope it is clear that Marie Antoinette never actually said "Let them eat cake." That is a quote wrongly associated with her, and this should be made clear if it isn't already. 20:38, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

lesbian

I don't know anything about this nor if this has been discussed before here. But this:

It was alleged during her lifetime that she was a lesbian, but there is no proof to these claims whatsoever.

seems out of place in the lead paragraph, a place for the most important facts about the figure. -- Taku 14:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

The title

This title of this article is desperate! "Marie Antoinette" is just too simple for a woman who was Queen of France. Why don't you change it to "Marie Antoinette of Austria"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.250.113.199 (talk) 13:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Desperate? In what way? The title is perfect. It is in fact her name. If you look at any other historical figure on Wikipedia, you'll see that their name is what is used for the article's title. The only time other descriptions are used is when the name is ambiguous. If you have any more questions check out Wikipedia's naming conventions. In her case I'm pretty sure there is no ambiguity. Plus the article goes into detail about her noble heritage and her marriage to Louis XVI of France. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdgjake (talk • contribs) 15:41, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

clitoris size

is there any reference for the assertion that she had a thumb-sized clitoris? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.110.223 (talk) 21:37, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Entrails?!!

What is this about people "storming the palace" for Marie's entrails?!! Is this vandalism? 65.183.135.166 (talk) 00:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

No, that's accurate. KingAndrewI (talk) 04:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)