In 1766 the empress Maria Teresa of Austria created her greatest diplomatic masterpiece. He managed to combine the wedding (which took place three years later), between his daughter Maria Antonietta and Luigi Augusto, Delfino and future King Louis XVI of France, consolidating a new alliance that would have overturned the links between the different European nations.
“The then archduchessin, to get perfect to the wedding, was therefore subjected to a real restyling, so much so that one of the most listed dentists of the time, the Frenchman Pierre Laveran, was called to court, to straighten the teeth and give the future queen a dazzling smile. However, we can say that, if from an aesthetic and stylistic point of view it was perfect for France, from the point of view of political and historical preparation, it was certainly not the most suitable daughter, despite the fact that at fourteen she spoke almost perfectly three languages, knowing how to juggle in public in an excellent way. ”
Alice Mortali, creator of the Instagram profile @Marieantoinattarisguide and the related blog “The Paris of Marie Antoinette “does not define himself as a teacher. At least it is not on paper. But the language so smooth and his way of telling us his Marie Antoinette, enchants, making you want to discover every single detail of the life of a queen painted as frivolous and capricious, when in reality, he was a woman determined to be simply what she was. Absolutely, ahead of their time and determined not to make their magnetic personality creep.
Alice, we begin to dispel a common rumor: the phrase, always attributed to Maria Antonietta “If they do not have bread, they eat brioches! “
“Absolutely: he has never pronounced it. We quietly clarify that this phrase is written in the” confessions “of Jean-Jacques Rousseau of 1741 a work written even fourteen years before the birth of Marie Antoinette. Then, we do not have the crystal sphere and none of us was present there, but as a nature, as a character, it was a language that belonged to her at all. Answer of that type, exempting a person, full of oxen intentions. “
Where does such a fervor come from for Maria Antonietta’s life?
“Everything began as passionate about history, since childhood. “The Petite Histoire” has always fascinated me, therefore uses and customs, fashion, customs. I had started reading historical biographies especially of female characters from a very young age, because they always give a cross -section of everyday life that you hardly find in classical history books. I am the daughter of Lady Oscar, and Maria Antonietta was not exactly a particularly nice character. In fact, I postponed the reading of his biography. Moreover, in general, if you ask the average user who is Maria Antoinette, the usual adjectives will come out: frivolous, spirits, bad queen. “
Until, about twenty years ago, by chance, And initially not intrigued at all, you have finally read His biography
“I read the one written by the very much Antonia Fraser, and there a world opened up: the idea that I had of this woman, of this somewhat silly queen, annoying if we want, completely overturned. It was a complex figure with a life marked by a unique tragedy. For me it was a love attentive. The more I discover it, the more fascinated me. He was certainly not a saint, he was a woman. Detractors, however, defined it magnetic, had that ability to catalyze attention and to drop the silence every time he entered a room. sufficiency the goddess.
In 2015 you published with Mursia “Guide to the Paris of Maria Antonietta”, the book that kicked off everything, also on the Instagram page.
“The guiding thread of this guide (also translated into French) is the life of Marie Antoinette: a biography marked by its Parisian places. The Instagram profile was born a year after publication, to give visibility to the book, so much so that the name of the account is nothing more than the English version of the title. Although born as a showcase, the main aspects of the page remain writing, history and dissemination. I would like to make the woman known, not the queen, beyond all the stereotypes that have given her. I like to deepen, tell, explain, so much so that my profile reached a very strong acceleration in the spring of this year, when I started doing the Sevenceentalksonline conferences (whose preparation I admit, requires months of work). This format, which has met with great success, allows you to deepen the concepts, without being held back by the limited space of a post, always accompanied by the voice of an expert. A very interesting one had as the theme “The label to Versailles.”
Versailles, the other youto Guide, this time digital.
“With Maria Antonietta I got passionate about everything that was the world around her, from that historical period and I made my first trip to Versailles. I like to touch the story with your hand: clothes, paintings, places and portraits manage to talk to me. Seeing the places where a character lived is like feeling and perceiving it directly, almost as if the weather did not exist, and some time ago I also published a digital and practical guide on Versailles, my favorite place in the world. “
Analizes and report the news in a very in -depth way. DWhere do you find all this information?
“It is a very long job, because there are often no specific and complete texts. When studying the different eras in a transversal way, you have to consult many sources, and it is tiring for that. In this period, I am focusing on the search for material relating to the childhood of Marie Antoinette. At the moment there is no volume in the world specialized in the Queen’s childhood, and considering the difficulty in research, I start to understand the reason too! I was a little while ago in Vienna: I am trying to reconstruct this so little known phase of his life, but also so fundamental. His adult nature, his character, what he then became, are born from the fourteen years spent there, in contact with the sisters, with his mother and his father. “
Aor of the most interesting aspects of the queen?
“I was struck by modernity. It was much later than her time. For example, the taste of her apartments, already in neoclassical style, which will only come twenty years later. He was a very modern mother, insisted on breastfeeding his children, in an era in which, whoever had a minimum of financial availability, used a nurse, was always wanted to be at the forefront. He made his painter in a nightfall, absolutely inconceivable for the time. of the story, which was then nicknamed “fashion minister”, had earned so much thanks to the queen. “
A very last curiosity about the sovereign that after this interview we are learning to love.
“In addition to speaking German and French correctly, Italian also spoke, and a lot of correspondence with the beloved count of Fersen, took place right in our language. It seems that in one of the most desperate moments of his life, when he had now awaited him his death, he managed to entrust the general de Jarjayes to a ring to bring to the Count.All to you guides me“, Adding that that sentence”it had never been so true“.
