Grab your forks, friends - we're having cake! Today, we re-release Taylor's episode on our dear Marie Antoinette. Yes, we hold her dear - she was just a kid put in a ridiculous situation, YES, she cosplayed being poor, YES, she was addicted to gambling. BUT she was also a good mother. Bonus - there's a time slip in this episode that we LOVE. In the Moberly–Jourdain incident, two teachers in 1911 saw Marie at her cottage, where she shouldn't have been (since it was 1911).
Grab your forks, friends - we're having cake! Today, we re-release Taylor's episode on our dear Marie Antoinette. Yes, we hold her dear - she was just a kid put in a ridiculous situation, YES, she cosplayed being poor, YES, she was addicted to gambling. BUT she was also a good mother.
Bonus - there's a time slip in this episode that we LOVE. In the Moberly–Jourdain incident, two teachers in 1911 saw Marie at her cottage, where she shouldn't have been (since it was 1911).
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Faris: Good morning, Americans. How are you doing on Wednesday
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA096. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not.
>> Farz: What you are on Wednesday. Hi, Taylor.
>> Taylor: Hello, Faris. How are you?
>> Farz: I'm doing very, very well. It is a continuation of our Sunday, and we are going to just trot it on then.
Today we are covering the historical side of our doomed to fail relationship slash thing
Welcome to Doomed to Fail. Today we are covering the historical side of our doomed to fail relationship slash thing. And Taylor is drinking an entire slice of chocolate cake mixed within and blended with milk and ice cream.
>> Taylor: Why do you think I. Why do you think I'd be doing that?
>> Farz: Because you said you were doing that.
>> Taylor: 20 minutes ago, saying, use your context clues. Who do you think I'm talking about?
>> Farz: Oh, God. Okay, so we're talking about Chicago. Oh, we're not.
>> Taylor: We're not talking about Chicago. We're not. We're talking about cake.
>> Farz: Oh. Oh, you really threw me.
>> Taylor: Oh, I did. Oh.
>> Farz: So, okay, so it's got to be either Taft. Oh, let them eat cake. Is it Marie Antoinette?
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Farz: Wow.
>> Taylor: Really? Yeah. Good job.
>> Farz: Well, yeah, I'm good at this.
>> Taylor: So. Okay, we're going back to apparently my favorite time period, which is the Enlightenment. And we're talking Marie Antoinette and her husband, Louis xvi. This is a long and a good one, and there's so much stuff. It's pretty fun. So awesome. I. Yeah, I'm excited. So I. In 2020, I read a ton of books because I had nothing else to do, but I read Marie Antoinette the Journey by Antonia Fraser then. And then this week, I read Marie Antoinette the Last Queen of France by Evelyn lavey. And then I also watched the Sofia Coppola movie from 2006. Have you watched that?
>> Farz: 2006? No.
>> Taylor: Well, with Kirsten Dunst, I.
>> Farz: You know what's funny is whenever you mention it, I pictured Kirsten Dunst, but I think it was because I was picturing Romeo and Juliet, not Marie Antoinette.
>> Taylor: She's. She's not in that. That's Claire dance.
>> Farz: Oh, my God. That is. Wait, who's Kristen Dunson? Oh, okay. Yeah. Claire Danes.
>> Taylor: Man. What happened? She was in that show about the Middle east and stuff that everybody loved with.
>> Farz: Anyway, I hope she's doing well.
>> Taylor: I think she's fine. She's married. Married to the guy who actually. She's married to the guy who played the cop in the TV show Hannibal.
>> Farz: No way. Every story comes back together.
>> Taylor: She has nothing to. That's not true because she has nothing to do with this. You just thought that she was Kirsten Duns.
>> Farz: And yet again, yet again, I've derailed another episode.
>> Taylor: But anyway, I remember seeing it in the theater and I was. It ended and I was like, what? I was like, so mad. And like, I didn't love it. But watching it again and knowing more about Maria as a person, I like it a lot more. Kishner Dunst did a great job kind of showing her humanity and the things that she was really, really good at and kind of her situation. So I'll talk a little bit more about what that means. But I also other websites that if I told you about them right now, it would spoil. So I'll put them in the show notes. So when I'm researching, like I've said before, and getting super into things, I want to, like, think like that person for the week when I'm doing my lifetime worth of research in a week. And do you. Have you ever seen this? I've seen it on Instagram. There's like a Kurt Vonnegut quote about buying envelopes.
>> Farz: Tell me the quote and I might know it.
>> Taylor: So am I. I'm not even looking up. But the idea is that, like, he's like, oh, I need an envelope. And his wife is like, you can go buy an envelope online. And he's like, no, I want to go to the store. I want to see people. I want to, like, romanticize little things in my life, you know? Yeah, makes sense. So, like, making the small things special. And if you are Marie Antoinette, everything is special, including you, you know? Yeah, everything's a little bit magical. Everything is special. So that's sort of the vibe that she gives off.
Maria Antonia was the last daughter of Maria Theresa
So Maria Antonia was born on November 2, 1755, at the Hofburg palace in Vienna, Austria. So for reference, Louis XVI. He was born on August 23, 1754. So they're like, he's a year older than her. They're roughly similar in ages. Marie Antonia, that was her name before she was French. She was the last daughter of Maria Theresa. So Maria Theresa was a one of the last Habsburgs in, like, that line of Habsburgs who've talked about before. And she ruled over Austria in, like, a bunch of different ways. It's complicated. There was a war of Austrian secession. All these things happening. Dad isn't really in these stories because her mom is so prolific. She's just like someone who's trying to get her kids married off and she's doing all these deals and she's really interested in, like, Austria and keeping that part of Europe strong. She had 16 children, three of them died in childhood. And Marie Antoinette was the 15th, which is a lot of children. Maria Theresa said that if she was not always pregnant, she would have gone into battle herself, which is cool and fun. That's like the kind of mom that she had. Yeah. So this is similar to Catherine the Great. I'll bring her up a little bit more. But Catherine the Great's mom was very similarly trying to get her daughters married off and, you know, grow the line. And it's somehow the Holy Roman Empire and Austria, Hungary. And this is why, like, Napoleon could do things like have his sister be Queen of Naples, because there's always a Queen of Naples, which is fun. So Maria Teresa, Marie Antoinette's mom, was married to Francis, the first Holy Roman Emperor. Of all of their kids, there were several archduchesses, two Holy Roman Emperors, an archduke, and then Maria Carolina, the Queen of Naples and Sicily. There was a Duke of Berrisco, and then there was Marie Antoinette, who was the Queen of France. So she did pretty well for someone trying to get her kids to have, like, good jobs.
>> Farz: Yeah, she seems. She seemed like she had a plan for her kids.
>> Taylor: Yes, exactly. So a lot happens, and Maria Antonia is promised Louis XVI when she's 14 in 1770. So her childhood was, like, obviously very nice. She lived in these, like, palaces in Vienna, and she also met Mozart when she was a child, which is cute. They're both kids when they met. She was hard to teach and didn't really want to learn, but she could sing and dance. So she was just kind of like a spoiled rich kid for the most part, but, like, not her fault.
So Marina Rancho Net has none of the qualities that Catherine the Great had
So a little bit more about, like, why what happened to Marie Antoinette happened to Marie Antoinette, and why what happened to Catherine the Great happened to Catherine the Great. Catherine the Great was a little bit older. She was born in 1729. But it's the same idea. You send your European wife to another European Russian, whatever place to marry the. The. The monarch or the next in line to hope to, like, preserve your line and move it on. Marie Antoinette was, like, very, very young. And she didn't really have that, like, political acumen that Catherine the Great had. Catherine the Great went in and she was like, I want to be Russian. I want to learn the language. I want to upgrade the society. I want to help the people. She was smarter than her husband.
>> Farz: She was ready to roam.
>> Taylor: Catherine McGrate obviously killed. No, they didn't. Catherine the Great died when she was old.
>> Farz: Wait, who was our Nicholas's wife?
>> Taylor: No, no, that's way, way, way Way, way later.
>> Farz: Oh, okay. All right. I also don't know history. Yeah, keep going. Sorry.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God. It's our first episode. Re. Listen to our episodes. Virus. So. So Marina Rancho Net has none of the qualities that Catherine the Great had, which is fine. Like, people. If I feel like 99.9% of people in the situation would be like, fine, I'll, like, live in this palace forever and kind of be sad, but not worry about it. When Catherine the Great was like, I'm going to be the ruler, you know, she has something special that Marie Antoinette did not have.
Arranged marriages during revolutions can go either way, author says
So there's a bunch of people in this story. I'm going to bring them up. This is not in order, but I'm just going to pull out some of the interesting parts. I think the doomed to fail part is that arranged marriages during revolutions can go either way. So either you're Catherine the Great and you get your husband killed so you can rule, or you, Marie Antoinette, and you both die. This is like the time when people are, like, just sick of monarchies, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. It's. It seems like you just have to pick the right husband. Either the guy that you can seem roll and take over or the idiot who gets you and your kids killed.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah. Or you're just, like, living a boring life at court forever, which, I don't know. I'm kind of down with that. I'd like to lay around and read all day. Yeah.
So in 1770, Marie Antoinette is on her way to France
So in 1770, Marie Antoinette is on her way to France. So she's still Maria Antonia. When she steps into France, she's Marie Antoinette. She has a little portrait of Louis xvi and he's a little one of her. So they, like, don't. They haven't met, obviously, but they have these little pictures of each other, a little paintings of each other. Louis is the next in line because his dad died and his grandfather is the king. His grandfather is like, this guy who has, like, this, like, flamboyant mistress, and he, like, loves women. And that's like a big thing. And everyone knows it, which is important. That's just the grandpa. So Maria Antoinette is taken through the woods into a literal. Like a tent in the woods between Austria and France. It's on the border. So she walks in as an Austrian and leaves French. While she's in the tent, they change her. They get rid of everything Austrian that she had on her and change her into all French clothes. And then she walks through and she is French, you know. Yeah.
>> Farz: It's very. It's very ceremonial. It sounds like, yeah.
>> Taylor: And everything is in the story. So when she walks on the tent, the king and Louis are there. They say hello for the first time. She is very formal and doing the right thing. She's like, I'm so happy to be here. Like, thank you, everyone. I'm so happy. This is amazing. And she's 14, you know, she's being told to say these things. He's a little bit indifferent, probably a little scared. But that's when they meet for the first time and they're married really quickly afterwards. So when. After they get married, they live at Versailles. Have you been to Versailles?
>> Farz: Oh, no. My cousin literally just came back from France and went to Versailles.
>> Taylor: That.
>> Farz: It was like, it was stunning. But I think you just had to say that. It's like whenever he goes to the Louvre and says, oh, my God, the Mona Lisa was life changing. Like, was it? Or is it just, like another thing that you have to say socially to be cool?
>> Taylor: I don't know. I think Versailles actually stunning. So I haven't been there either, but we should go. I. We talked about this a little bit with Lizzie Borden. I think I brought it up because Lizzie Borden, at her house, there were no hallways. Like, there are no hallways of Versailles, just like room after room after room, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah. When I was. When I was just in Seattle, I visited a co worker's house. And it was interesting because, like, his. He was doing a tour and, like, his bedroom had, like, a door to another room that had a door to the stairs. And I was like, when was this thing built? Because I remember that they built houses that didn't have hallways. It looked like it was designed, like, that looked like it was like two rooms that were supposed to be separate that you had to walk through to get from one side to the next. And then I was feeling the 1960s. I was like. I didn't know it was like, that weird of a concept to have hallways back then, but maybe it was.
>> Taylor: I don't think so. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, but. Yeah, but that's what. That's what it's like in Versailles. Everything is very public. You have to walk through everyone's stuff. So it's a. It's. It used to be a hunting lodge, which is like in air quotes, it was always like, very beautiful palace. And then kings, as they. As they were living there, they built more things on it. And it got bigger and bigger. It's 11 miles from Paris, so it's not very far from Paris. It's kind of Close. And it has 2, 300 rooms and it's 679, 784 square feet. It's very big.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: So. And it has to be big because, like, a s*** ton of people live there. There's courtiers who have small apartments that are, like, worse than their apartments in PAL in Paris, but they're, like, grateful to have them. There's dukes and such that have a larger set of rooms. Then there's an infrastructure to keep that. So if I'm like, far as Duke of Austin, come stay with me at Versailles, you're like, totally. That sounds great. Here are my 10 people I'm bringing with me, you know, like the dude who dresses me, the dude who shines my shoes, the dude who does this, you know, so there's so many people involved and you have to feed everyone and there's kids everywhere. So it's very crowded there. It's like. It's like a city.
There's pomp and ceremony in France, but it's also very beautiful
It's so wasteful in Versailles. Yeah, well, yes, exactly. So it's not like there isn't any pomp and ceremony in Austria. There totally is. It's also very beautiful. She also lived in the palace, but France is something different. It's like really, like high, high, high pomp and ceremony. So one of the people that she meets almost immediately is Anne Denoy. And listen, I'm going to try my best with these. I listened to the book, so I have like a kind of idea how they pronounce them. But Danoy is D, E N O A I, L, L, E, S. So she's the Comtesse de Denoy. Comtesse de Noy. There we go. She's the first lady in waiting for the Queen, so she knows all the rules. So in the morning when Marie Antoinette wakes up, there's like this crazy dressing ceremony where there's like 20 women in the room and they hand her each piece of clothing one by one, because it's like an honor to do that. Like, oh, some honor to hand you your sock. You know, things like that. So there was no privacy in Versailles. Everyone was there. The Comtesse de Noi was kind of a covering over. Over everything. Marie Antoinette called her Madame Etiquette because she knew all the rules and, like, really, really stood by all the rules. Just to mention later, she will be guillotined.
>> Farz: This place. This place, like, it reminds me of, like, the warmth and comfort you'd experience at the Beast Mansion and Beauty and the Beast. Like it is.
>> Taylor: It's exactly that. Yeah.
>> Farz: Stupid. Over the top, like, yes. Not cozy at all.
>> Taylor: No, it's not cozy. Absolutely. I feel like you're pretty uncomfortable because your clothes are uncomfortable. There's people everywhere. There's no place.
>> Farz: It probably smells, like, everywhere, too.
>> Taylor: It definitely smells terrible. There is. I didn't write this down, but there is one thing. That one dude goes to America and he comes back and he's like, hey, do you guys know that the women in America wash themselves with soap? He's like, they smell pretty good.
>> Farz: What on earth are you talking about? Witchery.
>> Taylor: There's, like, horses everywhere, you know? Yeah. So Versailles, crazy on their wedding night. After the wedding, like, ceremony, party itself, everyone's in the bed, in the bedroom with them. So, like, tons of people, dukes, duchesses, courtiers, everyone's there. The ceremony is the king gives a pair of pajamas to Louis the 16th, and then I guess he's not the 16th yet, but to Louis. And then the top lady in the. In the monarchy gives pajamas to Marie Antoinette. They get to change in private. Then they get to sit in the. They sit in the bed together in their PJs, and everybody sees them. And the king's like, good luck. And everybody cheers. And then they have to see them together in bed. Like, that's a huge part of it. And then they close the curtains and everybody leaves and continues to have a party. And now they're left alone, these two, like a 14 year old and a 15 year old in bed together.
>> Farz: Were they supposed to, like, do it or.
>> Taylor: Yes, they're supposed to have kids, like, immediately. And they do not. They do not have sex on that first night. They don't have sex for a while. It's weird with guys like this. Like with Peter the third with Catherine McGray's husband. Like, they also didn't have sex for a while. And it sounds like everyone around them was having sex. Like, maybe not in front of them, but, like, his friends all knew what was going on. But maybe they were, like, pretending. Maybe they embarrassed these guys and, like, they didn't ask the right questions because they just, like, don't necessarily know what to do, you know? Yeah. And, like, 14. No one. No one.
>> Farz: Yeah, they're kids.
>> Taylor: They just, like, assume that they would know how. So it sounds like there might have been. I think this is the same for Peter III than it is for Louis that, like, an operation might have helped. Like, a little bit of, like, a foreskinned operation that would have made them be able to, like, excuse me, like, actually have sex. But either way, they just, like, don't know what they're doing. So Louis, he, like, loves locks and keys. He does all this, like, nerdy stuff. He doesn't really talk to her, but he's nice to her. And he could be worse. He could be Peter iii, who's, like, actively the worst. Remember, he was a wet noodle from a long time ago?
>> Farz: Yeah.
So while she's waiting to be useful, Marie Antoinette starts partying
>> Taylor: So while she's waiting to be useful, meaning have a baby. She wants to go to Paris, so she sneaks out and goes to, like, masked balls in the city. She loves the theater. She does a little performances. So she, like, will put on a play. She put on the Marriage of Figaro sometime later in in her life. So she sings and she dances. She loves to party. She loves to gamble. So Marie Antoinette will play cards until dawn, so she'll gamble. And she has all this money, and she just has, like, jewels and stuff. And Louis okay with that? He, like. He, like, loves her in his way. He's like, this is my wife. It's not like he's sleeping with anybody else. He gives her gifts. He's just, like, not really into her or maybe anyone that way. She buys things. Like, she buys diamond bracelets that cost the same as, like, a mansion in Paris. There's a lot of diamonds in this story.
>> Farz: So crazy.
>> Taylor: This is also so stupid. And this is also when she meets Leonard atui, who's the hair guy. He's the guy who, with her together, they invented the big hair, Big hair, big hair thing, which is great. So, like, the higher and higher hair stuff that's, like, obviously that you think of when you think of her. She did it with this hairdresser guy.
>> Farz: It's called the beehive, right?
>> Taylor: No, it's, like, way more than a beehive. Like, a beehive is something you can do with, like, your own hair in the 60s. But her thing, it's like, you know, three feet above your head, this, like. And everyone's hair was, like, powdered and white, you know, because it's still the. You know, like, how, like the same time as, like, George Washington, his hair was powdered, you know, like big wigs.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah.
>> Farz: I'm looking at her picture. She's really pretty. If these pictures do her justice, I think they're close.
>> Taylor: And I'll tell you how I know that later. But she.
Have you ever done a white clay face mask on your face
Another thing with the hair that I was thinking as an aside is, like, have you ever done, like, a exfoliating face mask on your face?
>> Farz: What. What do you think the answer to that what do you think the answer to that is? Just out of curiosity?
>> Taylor: Every night. Every night. So if you do ones, I've done them before, like, they come in different colors, you know, depending on what's in it. You know what I mean? But when you put on like a white clay mask and you smile, your teeth look terrible. Because you're like, my teeth? Every. Your teeth against actual pure white. Like, they're not white, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: And I'm just imagining that, like, they don't talk about this, but, like, everyone's teeth, which are just looked yellow and terrible because they have, like powdered white skin and powdered right here and these beautiful dresses, but they're like, teeth must have been, like, gross.
>> Farz: Yeah, I can imagine for the most.
>> Taylor: Part, but I'm imagining.
Louis and Marie Antoinette finally have sex after seven years of marriage
So eventually, Louis and Marie Antoinette do have sex. And it is getting awkward because his brother has a baby with his wife, the Countess de Provence, and that's her sister in law. So that baby is next in line. So everyone's really, really mad. Marie Antoinette. And she's like, I don't know what to do. I'm in bed with this man. Like, nothing's happening. And he does tell someone that he does have. He does manage to get hard and then like, be with her for like two minutes. But then he, like, pulls out and doesn't ejaculate. That's not how babies are made.
>> Farz: And he just did not.
>> Taylor: Yeah, it's not going to cut it. So whatever happens, guess how long it took them after they got married to finally have sex?
>> Farz: A week?
>> Taylor: Seven years.
>> Farz: That's not a happy marriage.
>> Taylor: No, it's a long time. So she's finally, she's super happy. She's like, writing to her mother because her mom was like, you have to have a baby. You know, so she's like, we finally had sex and she gets pregnant. She has a baby. It's a girl, her first baby, which, you know, is a bummer. But another, like, ridiculous pomp and ceremony thing is when she has a baby, everyone is there because they need to see the umbilical cord attempt attached to the baby, attached to the mom to prove that he's like, there, you know, so crazy. And like, when I had my babies, I was like, I would like the nurse and the doctor and my husband, please, like nobody else I know. But if people, like, want to have their families there, which is fine, but like 50 people crowding in the room, that's bad.
>> Farz: But if Flo was the heir to, like, California, you know, you'd have to.
>> Taylor: Then I guess.
>> Farz: I guess you'd have also.
>> Taylor: I could take a DNA test and be like, she's mine.
>> Farz: Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right.
>> Taylor: You know?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Physically see it. She does. She Brie Antoinette passes out and they make everybody leave the room. And then later Louis changes it, where you don't have to have that many people in the room, which is very nice because you don't need 50 people in the room to do that.
>> Farz: Her life seems fun, but also a nightmare.
>> Taylor: Yes, exactly. So other stuff is happening, but eventually she does have four children. So Marie Therese is her first daughter. She was born in 1778. She actually lives until 1851. So she lives to be. To be a little bit older. Then there is. She has a son named Louis Joseph Xavier Francois. He dies in childhood. Childhood. He dies when he's about 8 years old. He was very sickly. And then she has another son who's Louis xvii. And he also died when he was young. He died when he was about 10. And she had another daughter who was born in 1786 who died after a year. So two of her boys live into childhood. One infant dies, and then her first daughter does live for a long time. Okay, So a lot of babies die during this time. The French Revolution definitely had a part of this as well. So it's in the Marie Antoinette movie. It was like, wrong about the number of kids she had, which is weird because it's like a difference of 3 and 4. And the ending was also, like, oversimplified it. But still. One thing that the movie with Kirsten Dunst I think does that, like, I didn't appreciate the first time I saw it is like Marie Antoinette was a really good mother. She really wanted to be with her kids. She wanted to, you know, feed them herself and spend time with them. Usually in this time, like, you just didn't do that. So she really was a good mom.
So before and during this time is like 10 years where she's having kids
So before and during this time is like 10 years where she's having kids. Here is a non sequential list of interesting s*** that happened during this time. So the current king was a grandfather to Louis xvi. He has a mistress named Madame du Barry. And there's an interesting tension between Madame du Barry and Marie Antoinette du Barry was from a poor family. She was a sex worker. But the king liked her so much that he had her marry someone at court so that she could be around.
>> Farz: Wow.
>> Taylor: Which is ridiculous. Her husband was like, you need to be nicer to the king so that we can have more stuff. So it was definitely, like, she would be with the king and then the husband. Yeah, all the things. So eventually, she. She was presented at court as a king's mistress. And the first time they tried to present her, she was so nervous, she broke her ankle running away. But eventually, she lived in apartments with secret tunnels to the king, which happens a lot in Versailles. There's, like, secret tunnels to different people's apartments, different people's rooms. So she's living in apartments with tunnels to the king. She ends up living a really fancy life. She's friends with Voltaire. She's sort of just like, at court, having a blast. And Marie Antoinette, when she gets there, she's like, I don't want to talk to her. Like, she's like a harlot. She's not someone that I want. Want to associate with.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: And the king is like, you. You have to talk to her. She's my girlfriend. And it's, like, creating a lot of tension in the palace. So eventually, on New Year's Day, 1772, Marie Antoinette goes up to Madame du Barry and says, there are many people at Versailles today, and then walks away. But that was enough to make her happy, right? So she wouldn't be, like, as exiled. So the king, he dies in 1774. He died of smallpox. He didn't think he had smallpox because he thought he had it when he was young. So they thought that, like, he was immune to it. And then also later, like, Louis XVI gets inoculated to smallpox. They're doing that now, and he gets, like, the vaccine, quote, quote. But the king is like, gosh, if I didn't know any better, I think I had smallpox. But, like, no one tells him he has smallpox because they're, like, embarrassed because he thought that he had that when he was a kid. And he eventually dies of that. And Marie Antoinette becomes the king of France, and Louis becomes Louis xvi, the king of France.
>> Farz: So wait, you just said Marie Antoinette. Marie becomes the queen of France. Okay. Yep, got it, got it.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So King Louis has some medals and meddlesome ants. In the movie, they're like, it's Molly Shannon and then another lady who played Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter. And they're just like, I was gossiping, and, you know, tons of. Tons of gossip. They're cute, but they. One of the aunts dies having her 10th child. And they described it as, like, there was just blood everywhere, which is, wow, gross and terrifying. So politically and socially, France is falling apart. So you might remember there's been. This is a revolutionary time France gives aid to the Americans. People are starting to say things like, maybe we should share the wealth. The way the king spent money is crazy. Like, Marie Antoinette had a coffer of money that was like her allowance, but she overspent it constantly. And it was like, you know, having like a million dollars a month. It's like when you see the celebrities get divorced and the alimony is like $600,000 a month. And you're like, crazy. What?
>> Farz: Yeah. Did that.
>> Taylor: I think, yeah, that's. That's bananas. You shouldn't. That much. That's how much money she's. She's spending just so much money. There's also a weird thing which. Or surprise, surprise, rich people are not taxed. So that makes poor people really mad, because it should. The French people are starving. So there in 1775, there's a flower, War flower. Like S L O U R war. And people like, they can't. Price of bread is going up. They are just, like, literally starving in the streets. This is where they say that she said, let them eat cake. And the idea of being like, them being like, you know, your majesty, the people of France. Of France are starving. They don't have any bread. And she looked around and her room is like, full of cakes. And she's like, well, let them have cake, you know. But she didn't believe that's which.
>> Farz: Yeah, okay. I was gonna say. I heard the rumor.
>> Taylor: Yeah, she didn't really say that, but that's the idea that she's like, so just drowning in food, you know, while people are starving and, like, doesn't really understand. So people are starving and p*****. Also, just as an aside, she's very Catholic, and she's still going to mass all the time.
Marie Antoinette wants to be with her kids more than anything
She's really, like. Stays really religious. Her family from her brother's a Holy Roman Emperor. They're in Austria. They are trying to keep their power and grow their power. So there's some people that are, like, kind of scheming to have Marie Antoinette have more of a political leaning, kind of like Catherine McGregor, but she just doesn't have that, like, bone in her body this entire time. There is a man named Compste Mercy, and he has been by Marie Antoinette's side the whole time he came from Austria. He whispers things to her. She confides in him, and he is in constant contact with her mother. And so sometimes she'll, like, tell him a secret and he'll tell her mom. So there's this person who always has Austria on his, you know, on his brain. Trying to do stuff for Maria Therese. And she just trusts people because she doesn't understand these political deals and this thing that she's a part of. Like, she doesn't understand what's going on in Europe. She doesn't really, like, she doesn't really think about it, you know?
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: She's kind of being used by a lot of people. Her brother, Emperor Joseph ii is the Holy Roman Emperor. He's very involved in, like, her and Louis not having sex. He's like, you have to do this. You have to have a baby. And he needs to do things for Austria. There's a war of Austrian secession in this time. But he visits Marie Antoinette at Versailles and she's always really happy to see him. So he's like the sibling that she sees, like, again after this. I don't think she sees maybe any of her others. She also has a couple girlfriends like her ladies in waiting. So there's the Princess Stellenbol, who's her best friend. Lady in waiting there. She's always around. They're partying together. They're gambling they're going to Paris. They're creating their plays and musicals. They're like, always together. She also has a friend named the Duchess of Polignac. And so she's a little bit sassier. People don't really love her being with. Being with her, but she's like, no, she's so fun. I, like, love to be around her. So she's one of her favorite friends as well. So she has these friends. She has her family kind of meddling in her business. She does really, really love her kids. I think I said this before I jumped my gun, but she wants to be with her kids more. A lot of the tradition in this time was like, you'd have a child and you kind of like, give it to tutors until it was like 10, you know, and then you would, like, take it and get to know it. But she really wanted to be with them. She also adopted some kids to be with her kids. Adopted in air quotes as well.
>> Farz: So, like, she stole a poor person's.
>> Taylor: Child, basically, a hundred percent. She had, like, a poor girl follow her, her daughter around. And they would do all the same things. They would, like, wear the same clothes and learn the same things that keep her humble, which is weird. She also had an enslaved child named Jean Milcar, and she really. He was from Senegal, and she sent him to boarding school and paid for him to go to boarding school until when she died. Then they couldn't pay for that anymore. And he ended up, like, on the streets and he became an artist. And he died pretty young, but so she had like a bunch of kids around. Her daughter did not like her. She's, like, very, very haughty and, like, not very nice to her. So there's like a story where someone was like, oh, your mother, like, she's, you know, could be something could happen and she could die. And the daughter was like, I wouldn't care, you know, and they were like, do you know what death is? And she's like, yeah, it means you don't see them again. I wouldn't care. My dad loves me more than my mom, so even though. Yeah, I think that she, you know, really, I truly believe she wanted to be a good mother, so. But her daughter was kind of a brat. So her first son, he died when he was like five or. No, he was eight. But when he was eight, he weighed 16 pounds, which is huge.
>> Farz: No, big. Oh, when he was eight years old.
>> Taylor: No. Yes.
>> Farz: Wow.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: My eight year old weighs 50 pounds and she's small. You know, like he was super sick, like, super wasting away. And he passed away when he was young. So she's, you know, she has another son who, who's going to be her son for who's going to be around until he's 10, but he does, like, later, so she's still spending money at one point. This is fun.
Ambassadors from India come to visit. And Louis buys a chateau for her
Ambassadors from India come to visit. And so they never really seen, like, they've never seen people dress like this. The people ever say, have never, like, smelled Indian food cooking before and, like, no one will try it. They're scared, which is fun. Yeah. And so she really, really, like, loves the way these ambassadors from India look. And so she has Madame Tussaud, like, of the wax museum, make like wax mannequins of them so she can keep them at Versailles and always see them.
>> Farz: It's pretty cool.
>> Taylor: Like, the real Madame Tussauds is in the story.
>> Farz: Yeah. I didn't know she was that old.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So it seems like everything was pretty hectic. She gets at one point. I mean, people in France are starving. And Louis buys a chateau for her, which is like, you know, a bigger house than like, you've ever seen. So she can, like, go somewhere and be calm and get away from Versailles with her kids. She also, on the grounds of Versailles, makes a fake French village in 1777. It's part of the gardens. Yeah. They built houses and had farms. There were real gardeners, real animals. She would wear simple dresses and kind of, like, walk around her little town. There's, like, defense that she wasn't, like, pretending to be poor, but she was, like, trying to have, like, the simplicity of it. I don't know. And it definitely wasn't real. Like, there was a barn, but inside the barn, it was a ballroom, you know, and she would, like, be like, oh, let's get some goats. Let's have them all be brown with one dot. You know, she could, like, pick things that, like, a farmer can't pick. You know what I mean?
>> Farz: I thought the reason why she did that was because that was her only way to try and experience what normal life was like.
>> Taylor: I don't know if she was trying to, like, experience life for a person. I think she was trying to simplify her life, but maybe that's the same thing.
>> Farz: Yeah, maybe.
>> Taylor: I don't know. So she spent a lot of time there. I now have a side quest for us. This is one of my favorite side stories. Did you say boo to a side quest?
>> Farz: No, I said, ooh, let's see. Oh, okay.
>> Taylor: So. Okay, perfect.
Two British teachers claim they saw ghosts at Versailles in 1901
So I'm gonna tell you about the time skip of the Moberly Jordan incident. Have you ever heard of this? Probably not.
>> Farz: It sounds like a haunting, but doubt.
>> Taylor: It is, kind of. So on August 10, 1901, two British teachers, Charlotte Ann Moberly and Eleanor Jordan, went to Versailles. They were living in. They were British schoolteachers. One of them was living in Paris. And they were like, you guys should get to know each other because you're going to work together. So she went to visit. They went to Versailles itself. And it was. There were like. Like you said, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it. It's pretty. They didn't love it, and they decided to go to another building, but it was closed. So they're kind of wandering around the gardens of Versailles. And then one of them said, quote, everything suddenly looked unnatural, therefore unpleasant. Even the trees seemed to become flat and lifeless, like woodworks and a tapestry. There were no effects of light and shade, and no wind stirred the trees. So they're walking and things are, like, kind of feeling weird. Then they see a little cottage, and a woman is in the window waving a handkerchief at them. They see two men dressed, like, really, really nicely. And they told them to, like, oh, continue on, walk down this path. They ended up in a part of a garden, and there was a bench. And on the bench was a man, and he had, like, a face that was pockmarked from smallpox. And he looked at them, and they felt like crazy terror. Like, he was evil. And then they kept walking past him, and they walked over a bridge, and there's another man with another fancy hat, and he showed them a way to the house they were looking for. On their way over the bridge, one of them saw a woman with, like, big blonde hair and a white dress sketching in the garden. So when they got back, they, like, kind of talked about it. Like, that was weird, you know, like, what. What was all that? What did we see? And they went back to Versailles again, and they couldn't find the bench, and they couldn't find the bridge. So they. They wrote a book about it called An Adventure, and they published it, like, under pseudonyms. But they said that, like, they saw ghosts. Like, that was Marie Antoinette, and that was, like, people from the 18th century like, being there. And so obviously, people, like, critique them and thinks that they're lying or they accidentally walked into a costume party or something. But I think it's fun to think that maybe they, like, accidentally walked into Marie Antoinette, like, in her little village. One of the critiques called it a lesbian folia do, which made me laugh because, like. Like, I don't even know who knows if they're lesbians, but, like, a lesbian fall I do is hilarious. And I'm gonna go like, two women do together that I was like, where the lesbian people are, like, it's just like they're two, like, spinsters living together. So maybe they were, you know, like, they were roommates. That means they were lesbians. But either way, that's not the point. The point is that it's funny to call people that. It could have been a fancy dress party. But anyway, I hope it's true.
>> Farz: That's so fun. That'd be fun. That'll be really cool.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I love it.
There's an affair with a diamond necklace where everyone's mad
Anyway, so that's that time Skip. So the French people are getting mad. They're seeing all this money that she's spending. There's an affair with a diamond necklace where there's this really, really, really expensive necklace. It has, like, 600 diamonds on it. It's, like, more expensive than anything ever. Madame Dubarry had wanted it at one point, but someone dressed like a fancy person goes to these jewelers and says, marie Antoinette wants this necklace, but it has to be a secret. So she could pay you in installments, but she definitely wants it. But don't tell anyone, because everyone's mad. And then that woman also gets a cardinal from the church who Marie Antoinette does not like to help her with that. So the woman is like, Cardinal, let's go meet the Queen in the garden. He meets this woman who says she's Marie Antoinette in the garden and says, please get this necklace for me. I promise I'll, like, help. I'll pay for it. But it's not her. It's all like a scam.
>> Farz: Know what anybody looks like? Really?
>> Taylor: Yeah. And it's, like, dark and like, whatever. It could have anyone, you know, so everyone loses money. The jewelers are like, what do we do? Like, we have to be paid for this, you know? And they, like, go to the Queen and she's like, I don't know what you're talking about. And there's a trial, and she's really mad because she's, like, going to ruin my reputation. And it totally does. People, like, think that she did this thing to, like, try to discredit this cardinal and all these things. It's not good. Turns out terribly so. Sentiment is bad because of that, because of the village, because of the chateau, because of all these things. Another thing that's happening is, is she does have an affair with a Swedish dude. Dude. But he's like a. A military guy named Axel von Fersen the Younger, AKA Fount Ferson, Count Fersen. Some call him Fernando. He had been to America from. To help in the Revolutionary War in 1774, he went to Versailles, and at a party, he and Marie Antoinette talked for a while, and he didn't know who she was. So that's like. He was like, this woman's great. And, like, they just, like, he didn't realize that she was the Queen. And he came back four years later and she saw him and she said, oh, you're an old friend. Like, she remembered meeting him, you know, because he was cute and, like, he made her feel sexy. And he would be in and out of her life forever for the rest of her life. Some people think that her last two kids are actually Ferson's kids and not Louis xvi. Some people are like, oh, yeah. Some people are like, oh, they're just really good friends. Which is so stupid because, like, who cares? Like, it's been 300 years, you know, so. But, like, he had rooms below hers that were connected. So tons of tunnels connecting him to her. In the 1800s, his family had a bunch of his letters and he sold them, but they were heavily edited. Like, people had crossed out, like, big paragraphs of them, which you don't do if it's not a love letter, you know?
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: And he tried to save her a few times. There's letters from first into his sister that are like, oh, I just love this woman so much. I don't know what to do. He also was, like, a real pro monarchy guy. He thought that, like, kings were appointed by God, so just, like, being around her was, like, magical for him as well, you know? Yeah, the king knew or whatever, but I don't. But he. You know, I don't think he, like, particularly, like, cared too, too much. He just was, like, content to, like, do his. Do his own thing. And he was.
>> Farz: He was also sleeping with other people.
>> Taylor: No, he wasn't, but he just wasn't into it.
>> Farz: Okay.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Wasn't to it.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: I think he was asexual. You know, he just, like. It just wasn't. Wasn't his jam, which is fine. He didn't. So he was like, okay, I know my wife needs Jesus. So after the revolution, people found his rooms under his bed, and they were like, under her. Under her bed? Under her. Her rooms, like, the secrets and stuff. And they were like, oh, interesting. You know, it was very clear that they were like, he was sneaking around other things that happened.
So Lafayette goes back to help with the French Revolution, but he wants to compromise
Lafayette is there. So Lafayette, who was, you know, the French guy who came to America to help George Washington. He goes back to help with the French Revolution, but he wants to compromise. He's like, you know, the. The French. France is like, we want to totally abolish the monarchy. Lafayette is like, we think we can make a compromise, have a constitutional monarchy like Britain. Like, let's try to figure this out. In 1789, in July, the Bastille is stormed. So yada, yada, yada, a lot of that. But there's, like, a ton of unrest, a ton of riots. This is an insurrection. They stormed the Bastille, which is a jail in Paris, and they let everybody out. So this is like the regular folks who are. Who are having the revolution. So in the Bastille, and in that, like, they're killing people and putting their heads on sticks. So it's like a very brutal day in October, 1789. They come and they storm Versailles. So this sounds like very, very scary. Like. So it's the middle of the night, and they do this in. In the film, I think. Well, because the feeling. It's the middle of the night. She doesn't know her kids are. She doesn't know where Louis is because everyone's in separate bedrooms. There's all these corridors. There's all these secret passages, and people are starting, like, running up to Versailles. They even have a hard time closing the doors because The Versailles had never been closed. People were just kind of welcome to come in and out, you know, so they, like, try to lock the doors. It's chaos. Everyone's crying. Lafayette comes and tries to help them, but they get. End up getting taken to Paris. So. But while they're still at Versailles, kind of the last time that she's there, the. The crowd yells, they want to see the Queen. So she goes out in the balcony with her children and they say, no, children. We just want to see you. So she sends the kids back in and she does a bow to them, and a couple people are like, bring her to Paris. And some people are like, long live the Queen. Because they kind of like that, like, bow that she did to them.
>> Farz: But bring a bear killer, though.
>> Taylor: Yes, but not for a few years, since she's essentially under arrest for treason and conspiracy and for spending all of the country's money. Spent a lot of money.
>> Farz: She contributed a lot.
>> Taylor: Yes. So they have a few chances to escape, but they, like, don't. They don't want to leave France. That would be seen as, like, terrible. Nobody trusts her because of her Austria connection. So I don't know how much she actually knew that she was like, passing information to Austria, but she was constantly doing that because the people around her were like, kind of betraying her and sent telling stuff to other countries in Europe. They have a plot to escape where they. At one point, they, like, dress like they're peasants and get into a carriage and they ride for a couple days out into the countryside. And then they eventually get caught and have to go back. But before they left, Louis XVI wrote a letter on his desk that was on his desk that said, like, you, I never would have compromised with you. I hate you all, or something really hilarious. And. And then when he got caught and brought back, he was like, I didn't. I didn't mean that letter takes. Takes you backseat, which is so funny. This whole time, Ferson is like, helping her, trying to help her get out of it. He thinks that she dies a couple times. She sends him a letter that just says, I exist and I love you. You know, just trying to do it. They try to escape a couple times. Technically, they're prisoners. They have to. You know, things are starting to change. Like, she does have. Obviously she has her ladies in waiting there with her. Louis sixth sister is there with them. So they're not alone yet. But things are, like, drastically different.
The king spends an evening with his family. Eventually the king knows that it's over
So at one point, Marie Antoinette is in, like, her room in this prison, which is probably like more beautiful than any room I'd ever be in. But one of the guards is talking to her, and he kind of gets tired, and he sits on the edge of her bed to talk to her. And she's just like, what is happening? You know, that's just something that would be like, you would get your head cut off for doing that at Versailles. So it's just things are starting to change. It goes on for years. And the people taunt her whenever she's out. Like, they bring her from building to building to, like, question her. People will, like, run past the carriage with, like, little tiny guillotines and, like, wave them in the air at her.
>> Farz: Well, that is.
>> Taylor: Don't.
>> Farz: That is dark.
>> Taylor: Dark. The king won't succeed. Secede. They're like. He's like, no, I can't. Like, he can't do it. He had opportunity to. He could have saved his family, but he, like, didn't because he wanted to save the monarchy. So while they're still living together as a family in this prison, Madame Lamball, which is her first lady in waiting, she was like, Marie Antoinette's best friend is taken and guillotined. So here's what they do to her. They take her head and they put it on a stick and they bring it to the jail to show Marie Antoinette the head of her friend. So some people say that insane. So they say that they heard a scream from the window, but it was actually the jailer's wife. And Marie Antoinette never actually saw the head. Some say that the head had, like, her. Her hair was just, like, matted and covered in blood, and you couldn't really tell it was her. So there's a rumor that they took the head to a hairdresser and had her hair fixed so that Marie Antoinette could note. Could recognize her somehow.
>> Farz: That's even more grotesque.
>> Taylor: No, it's gross. And then her body, they ripped off all of her clothes, left her naked body on the street and ripped her heart out. Like, Jesus. Okay, so like, when we talk about, like, people in, like, the ancient past being brutal, like, this was not too long ago, you know, did this to her. So other people that were. They were with died. Other people who were guillotined. Madame Dewberry was the. The past king's mistress, the Comtesse Dinois was. She was the one that was the man of etiquette. Marie Antoinette's sister in law, Elizabeth Defrance, she was guillotined as well. So a lot of people are dying. They get sent to a dungeon. There's no servants she wants to be with her children. She tries to teach them things. Eventually the king knows that it's over. So, you know, lots of reasons where they get to it. But the king is going to be. Going to be killed. Obviously Robespierre is there. He's the guy who like, loves the guillotine and was like responsible for tons of beheadings. And he spends an. The king spends an evening with his family. He says he'll come back in the morning, but he doesn't. He changes his mind because someone tells him it would be too hard for him to go back and see them again. So he doesn't. He leaves her a ring and he has a lock of her hair. And by 10am on September 21, 1792, he is killed by guillotine.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: When she heard the. When Marie Antoinette from jail heard the bells announcing that he had been killed, she bowed to her son, who was technically the new king, but he was never officially king.
>> Farz: It's like, you don't want that role now, son.
>> Taylor: Yeah, things are bad. So then they took her kids, which is so sad because she really loved her kids. I just. She, like, they would take her son and she could hear him, but she couldn't see him. So she would spend all day trying to like peek through the bars of her prison just to like see her son. She just like missed him so much. Her daughter was eventually sent away after all the deaths and she was exiled and then back and then exiled again. Like I said, she lived to be like 60. But this son, for f***'s sake, is what I wrote. So this second son of hers, the one who was Louis, technically Louis XVII of France, but he was never actually king. He was 10 years old. When they're in this prison and his. He gets this tutor who's this, like. They called him an alcoholic cobbler, which is not the kind of person you want to be teaching your child. And he sort of told the, the boy to like say bad things about his mom. So he wanted to say like, he said he was like, say horrible things about your mother. And I guess the jailers caught the boy like touching himself because he's like a 10 year old boy. And they made him say, and like made him believe essentially that his mom and his aunt would like watch him m********* and like lay in bed with him when he did that, which is not true. So Marie Antoinette was like, that's not true. Like you can make a kid say anything, you know, and they were like telling him these terrible things about his Mother. But they made. They kind of spread that rumor, which also made one of her charges. Incest.
>> Farz: Sheesh. Yeah, they did it dirty.
>> Taylor: And. Yeah, so maybe he believed that it happened, but, like, he was a kid, and, like, they asked his sister, did it happen? And she was like, it absolutely didn't happen. But then she also, like, is part of this, like, real world. So she's like, if my brother said it happened, maybe it did because he knows more than me because he's a boy. You know, like, stuff like that. Like, so it's like, believe, believe, believe children, of course.
Marie Antoinette is accused of conspiring with foreign powers and committing treason
But also they made him do this.
>> Farz: And also, like, in a situation where the entire country and now everybody in power is saying that, like, you and your family are the bad ones, you're gonna align yourself with power, right?
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So in her last letter, she did. She forgave her son. She was like, they can. He's just a child. You know, she loved him so much. Now she's alone in a dungeon for a while. She has a girl named Rosalie, who is her, like, only servant. She's a servant. She reads books. She prays, she cries, she doesn't eat. She loses, like, a bunch of weight. She is 37, but they say that she looks like she's, like, 60. You know, her hair turns gray. She's kind of wasting away in there. Count Ferson tries to help her, but he can't. He just cannot help her. There's a thing that happens where she's accused of sending messages via flower petal that she was writing, like, messages in a flower to someone else. It's called the carnation affair. So she was, like, being, you know, told about other things or kind of accused other things in the. In the interim. So eventually, the three big things that Marie Antoinette is tried on are conspiring with foreign powers, the depletion of the state treasury, and of committing high treason by acting against the security of the French state. So she was kind of trying to incest, but not really. She said, I'm a mom. I would never do that. And then all the women who happen to be there were like, oh, my God, totally. So they threw it out because it actually got her some sympathy because she was like, look what they're trying to do to my son, you know?
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: Trying to do that. She might have commit. She might have actually committed treason. So, like, one book says that she did. It's kind of complicated. So, like, she was. They were trying to save their version of France, So they were, like, trying to get help from foreign powers to save the monarchy. So that's treason against the revolution, technically.
>> Farz: You know, which you would expect them to do because if they're not successful, they get beheaded.
>> Taylor: Yes, exactly. So she had no, no chance in this. So on October 17, 1793, she's convicted and sentenced to death. She writes a letter to her sister in law, who isn't dead yet, asks for forgiveness. She's wearing a simple white dress and a bonnet. When they come to get her, they cut off her hair all the way to the neck. So they cut her hair really short, which makes sense because I feel like hair would get in the way of guillotine someone and it'd be gross. So they cut her hair, they put the bonnet back on, and they take her to the scaffolds where this is going to happen. The executioner, his name is Charles Henri Sanson. He's someone who is an executioner. I think he also guillotined the king. And on the way up the steps, she accidentally steps on his foot and she looks at him and she says, pardon me, sir, I didn't mean to. And those are her last words. A she was taken to the scaffold at 12:15. She was beheaded. They held up her head and yelled, long live the Republic. She was buried in a poor section of Paris. But before she was buried, the people who worked at the, at the cemetery were on lunch break and Madame Tussaud snuck in and took her death mask. So we do technically know what she looked like because we have the death mask of Marie Antoinette that Madame Tussaud herself made. That's cool. And are you asking that? It's super cool. I know you asked me about this is what she really looked like. So if you compare the death, the death mask to the paintings, there's a little bit of obviously stylization in the paintings. Her nose is a little more like hooked than it is in the paintings, but it's pretty close. And there's a website called Royalty now that takes like death masks and paintings and descriptions into account and tries to say like, what people really did look like. So I think that the paintings are pretty close.
>> Farz: Yeah, I would say so. Looking at the death mask.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah. After the revolution, Louis's brother becomes king and he moves her body, which is just bones and a little bit of hair and clothes, to the Basilico Cathedral of St. Denis in St. Denis. I'm sorry? St. Denis, St. Denis, France. And it is 18 miles from Versailles and that's where she is buried today with Louis.
>> Farz: So is She a tragic figure or.
>> Taylor: I think she's tragic in that she was just a little girl put into she didn't know any better, you know, and then you can say like, sure, she should have known better. But also everyone's telling you that you're super special. Everyone is confiding in you with things. Everyone's kind of keeping her in a. I don't know, they're kind of keeping her in her perpetual state of like, do this. Oh, just. Oh, you just eat, you just drink, you just have fun. You just do these things. No big deal.
This episode looks at the Marie Antoinette story very well
They're like kind of scheming around her to do other things and things are happening that she doesn't understand and she doesn't take interest in them. So like, that's her fault. She could have taken more interest in them. But also like, you know what? You know.
>> Farz: Yeah, you have to be like super, you have to be like super dialed in, I think, to even know what to pay attention.
>> Taylor: Yeah, you have to be. Yeah, you have to be Catherine the Great. And she wasn't Catherine the Great, but like no one is. So. Yeah, yeah, you know.
>> Farz: Yeah. I've always kind of looked at it as a, kind of like a. Probably an unfair telling. It is a story of excess that it is nice to look at and say, oh, well, the rich ones are the s*****, evil, horrible people. And that's true in a lot of cases. But there's people who are kind of born into things and circumstances and they're no more at fault for their ignorance than someone who was born into poverty is for their poverty.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, I agree. She's not, she's not that let them eat cake villain for sure.
>> Farz: Exactly. Exactly.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Awesome.
>> Farz: Yeah, that was a really well researched, well done episode and I'm gonna also call out the Marie Antoinette piece of it. So again, that other show that I always harp on, you're wrong about also did like a three part series on Marie Antoinette as well. And that's outside of this episode. That's the only other place I've like learned about her in her history. So that's also a good, good listen to for more historical context in case folks were interested.
>> Taylor: And that totally. And the books I read are actually great. Like the Marie Antoinette. The Journey by Antonia Fraser is so good. It's like a minute by minute, you're, you're, you're terrified when she's in the jail. You know she's going to die the next day and you're so sad for her and you're so worried and, like, all these things. So it really is. It really is great. Would you link to that? And I have a.
>> Farz: Would you go by guillotine?
>> Taylor: I actually think yes, that sounds. It sounds kind of nice because it happens so fast. I think much rather guillotine than like a dude with an ax.
>> Farz: Like, you know, you don't. You don't see it, right, because your head down.
>> Taylor: Yeah, your head's down. I think both cases your head's down, but your head's down and it happens like in half a second and your head falls into a basket, you know, but like, the ax guy can, like, up and like, cut your shoulder or like, maybe it takes six times, you know what I mean, if you get a bad ax guy. So I think having a guillotine, I mean, that's what it was made for, right, to, like, speed up that process.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: Robespierre ended up being guillotined himself.
>> Farz: Good. I'm not sad about that.
>> Taylor: He's the guy who. Yeah. Maximilian Robespierre, a man who loved being guillotined people.
>> Farz: Yeah, there you go.
>> Taylor: Yeah, he loved guillotines, but I think he. I think he gets guillotined. Anyway, he's someone we could talk about later at length as well. Because he is crazy.
>> Farz: Yes. Yes. The French, luckily has a rich history of crazy, crazy people.
Doomed to Fail podcast on all of the socials and YouTube
Well, Taylor, thanks for. Thanks for sharing. Do we have any listener mail?
>> Taylor: No, I have a couple people have reached out and said they've been listening, which is super fun. And I sent some stuff about our email list, so hopefully people can join that. You know, if you don't get the push notifications, if you just want to, like, know what we're up to and kind of pick what you. What you're. What you're listening to, you can do that. And that's all going to be in the show notes and on our website and everything. So, yeah, please continue to listen, give us ideas. We love them, and thank you so much. Right. Doomed to Fail podcast on all of the socials and YouTube and our email is doomed to fell pod gmail dot com.
>> Farz: Sweet. Awesome. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Taylor. Have a safe trip to San Diego.
>> Taylor: Oh, thank you.
>> Farz: Thank you. I'm going to shut this down and.