Marie Antoinette
Her Birth:
November 2nd will be remembered in history, this day proved to be a very important for many souls. Maria Theresa Holy Queen of France bore her daughter, in full Marie-Antoinette-Josèphe-Jeanne d'Autriche-Lorraine (Austria-Lorraine), originally German Maria Antonia Josépha Joanna von Österreich-Lothringen. She had born in born November 2, 1755, Vienna, Austria in house of King Francis I. Her birth place was Vienna Austria.
Her Marriage:
At age of 15 years she was married to the dauphin Louis in 1770. Her husband Louis was grand son of France's King Louis XV. Louis' inability to consummate their marriage and the queen's resultant childlessness in the 1770s inspired rivals—including the king's own brothers, who stood to inherit the throne if she did not produce a legitimate heir—to circulate slanderous reports of her alleged extramarital affairs.
A Dangerous Scandal:
Scandals are always dangerous but some leave such a spell that a long time needs to remove that, some scandals change the whole scene, so was the Affair of the Diamond Necklace (1785–86), in which the queen was unjustly accused of having formed an immoral relationship with a cardinal. The scandal discredited the monarchy and encouraged the nobles to oppose vigorously (1787–88) all the financial reforms advocated by the king's ministers.
This is also called, Affair of the Necklace, scandal at the court of Louis XVI in 1785 that discredited the French monarchy on the eve of the French Revolution. It began as an intrigue on the part of an adventuress, the comtesse (countess) de La Motte, to procure, supposedly for Queen Marie-Antoinette but in reality for herself and her associates, a diamond necklace worth 1,600,000 livres. The necklace was the property of the Parisian firm of jewelers Boehmer and Bassenge, who had tried unsuccessfully to sell it, first to Louis XV as a present for his mistress Madame du Barry and later to Louis XVI for the queen.
The countess's scheme involved the prestigious Cardinal de Rohan, bishop of Strasbourg, who as French ambassador to Vienna from 1772 to 1774 had aroused the dislike of the queen's mother, the empress Maria Theresa, and who had subsequently incurred the hostility of Marie-Antoinette herself; he was anxious to be restored to favour at the French court.
The comtesse de La Motte suggested to the cardinal that the queen wished to acquire the necklace surreptitiously and would be prepared for a formal reconciliation at court if he would facilitate its purchase by negotiating with the jewelers. After reading forged letters supposedly from the queen and after a brief nocturnal interview in the gardens of Versailles with a prostitute disguised as the queen, the cardinal entered into a contract with the jewelers to pledge his credit to pay for the necklace in installments. The imposture came to light, however, when the cardinal failed to raise the first installment in full and the jewelers applied directly to the queen. With the imposture exposed, it was discovered that the necklace that the cardinal had supposed to be in the queen's possession had been broken up and sold in London.
Instead of concealing the intrigue, Louis XVI had the cardinal arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille. The cardinal was tried, along with his alleged accomplices, before the Parlement of Paris. Though he was eventually acquitted of the charge of having fraudulently acquired the necklace (May 31, 1786), he was deprived of all his offices and exiled to the abbey of La Chaise-Dieu in Auvergne. The comtesse de La Motte was sentenced to be flogged, branded, and imprisoned for life in the Salpêtrière prison in Paris. She later escaped to England and there published scandalous Mémoires vilifying the queen.
Though Marie-Antoinette was guiltless, the scandal confirmed the belief of contemporaries in her moral laxness and frivolity. The arbitrary arrest of the cardinal, the pressure put on his judges, and his final disgrace deepened the impression of the king's weakness and the autocratic nature of his government. The incident was one of many factors leading to the dissolution of the ancien régime and thus to the French Revolution.
The Affair of the Diamond Necklace has been retold in literature and film.
Journey from Stronger Queen to Hostage:
During these crises, as in those to come, Marie-Antoinette proved to be stronger and more decisive than her husband. After a crowd stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, the queen failed to convince Louis to take refuge with his army at Metz. In August–September, however, she successfully prodded him to resist the attempts of the Revolutionary National Assembly to abolish feudalism and restrict the royal prerogative. As a result, she became the main target of the popular agitators, who attributed to her the celebrated and callous remark on being told that the people had no bread: “Let them eat cake!” (“Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!”). In October 1789 popular pressure compelled the royal family to return from Versailles to Paris, where they became hostages of the Revolutionary movement.
Her Try to Escape:
Six months later Marie-Antoinette opened secret communications with the "comte de Mirabeau", a prominent member of the National Assembly who hoped to restore the authority of the crown. Nevertheless, her mistrust of Mirabeau prevented the king from following his advice. After Mirabeau died in April 1791, she turned for assistance to a group of émigrés. They arranged for the king and queen to escape from Paris on the night of June 20, but Revolutionary forces apprehended the royal couple at Varennes (June 25) and escorted them back to Paris.
Her END:
Marie-Antoinette then attempted to shore up the rapidly deteriorating position of the crown by opening secret negotiations with Antoine Barnave, leader of the constitutional monarchist faction in the Assembly. Barnave persuaded the king to accept publicly the new constitution (September 1791), but the queen undermined Barnave's position by privately urging her brother, the Holy Roman emperor Leopold II, to conduct a counterrevolutionary crusade against France. Leopold avoided acceding to her demands. After France declared war on Austria in April 1792, Marie-Antoinette's continuing intrigues with the Austrians further enraged the French. Popular hatred of the queen provided impetus to the insurrection that overthrew the monarchy on August 10, 1792.
Marie-Antoinette spent the remainder of her life in Parisian prisons. Louis XVI was executed on orders from the National Convention in January 1793, and in August the queen was put in solitary confinement in the Conciergerie. She was brought before the Revolutionary tribunal on October 14, 1793, and was guillotined two days later.
A Little Comparison:
I think Mrs. Zardari, is not much different than Marie, Benazir Bhutto daughter of an intellectual ex-Prime Minister of Pakistan was always betrayed and behaved unjustly. Her scandals proved not much acidity. She was killed innocently without blame of any charge. Sorry but her husband is also not so different and is another version of Louis.
Her end was beginning of a new age in France and likewise the end of Benazir is start of a new era in Pakistan. Marie died but France saw revolution. Benazir died and we are about to see one. Indeed Benazir Bhutto was not an angel she was faulty and guilty in many cases but she was worth ruling than her husband or ex-President Musharaf.
After her we see a huge gap, in her presence and in opposition to Nawaz Sharif, we had a healthy democracy and if not healthy then at least better one as compared with Musharaf's time or Zardari's time.
Unlike Zardari she was better in decisions, in her time she worked better than her husband. And spent in fewer ratios than her husband, she worked hard for her country, apart we have some controversial issues, but her overall status is better than Louis of Marie or her husband Asif Ali Zardari.
Pakistani Nation now today hopes for better days, while America and Bharat are seeking a crack for their eatery in Pakistan.
May God Save Pakistan from IMF and all disorder.
With Best Regards:
Muhammad Usman
Cell: +923217744778
