#compared to the hameau de la reine

[vivelareine]

A view of a building at the  Le hameau du château de Chantilly. This hameau, designed by Jean-François Leroy for the prince de Condé, was one of the inspiratations for Marie Antoinette’s later ‘hameau de la reine.’  [credit: Thesupermat, via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0, no changes]

[marzipanandminutiae]

Hello! I loved your writings about the french revolution and how its inappropriate to idealize it as a socialist uprising that ended inequality, and how Marie Antoinette has been unjustly vilified. That’s why I really want you to watch this video: https://popular-c-c.tumblr.com/post/182180796160/i-uhhhh-got-a-little-heated-about-sofia-coppolas and tell me your opinion on it. The video is mostly about the depiction of Marie Antoinette in Coppola’s movie, which the reviewer hates. It more or less says that Marie deserves no sympathy for living an opulent lifestyle at the cost of poor peasants. Both the reviewer and many in the notes heap a lot of vitriol towards Marie, saying she was callous, selfish and uncaring. I would want to hear your opinion on it. 

----------------------------

Oh boy.

So, first of all, I’m not a Marie Antoinette stan. I try not to be an anybody stan, in terms of history, especially not monarchs. Humans are complicated, and humans who make decisions from the perspective of an absolute hereditary ruler are DEFINITELY going to do things a citizen of a 21st-century republic finds appalling.

But I do think there’s a lot of misunderstanding happening in this video.

Misunderstanding on the part of the reviewer, who thinks the point of the Coppola movie is to make MA out to be a flawless #girlboss- which I never got from it at all. Misunderstanding on the part of some of the media outlets the reviewer cites- I don’t think I’ve cringed so hard in weeks as I did at seeing “Marie Antoinette was super-feminist!!!!” headlines. Just a lot of missing the point all around

I found the movie to be, overall, a pretty balanced take. yes, it’s from her perspective, but the viewer already KNOWS the French people are starving. it’s the understood undercurrent beneath all the balls and shopping sprees, the construction of the Hameau de la Reine and the wacky all-night parties. I found myself equally dazzled by all the glitz and gritting my teeth over it. you know where it’s coming from, and you know where the story is going. I don’t think Coppola intended it to be an uncomplicated Yas Queen portrayal

MA denies ever having said “let them eat cake” as she’s being fussed over by multiple servants. the message I got there was definitely “it’s not as bad as the press made out, but...um....”

I also think it DOES matter whether she said it. or, more specifically, the real historical truth of her words and actions. not because I want her to be held up as a feminist icon or excused for everything. but because she has become a cultural symbol of selfish opulence, and her husband hasn’t

how many times has M*lania Tr*mp been called “Marie Antoinette?” I can’t even count. her husband has been compared to MA, too. but not once have I ever heard “oh, that’s so Louis XVI of them!” not once has a quote attributed to him become pop culture shorthand for spoiled, out-of-touch rich people. he hurt his people just as much as she did, if not more. and yet, he’s not the one we use in our critiques and caricatures

he did every bit as much to bankrupt the country by getting involved in the American Revolution as she did with her “retail therapy.” and I think it says a lot about misogyny in pop history that she’s the one we pin all the blame on

(now, I do want to be clear re: my previous posts- I’m not a FrRev scholar. and obviously, yes, the people had legitimate grievances against the monarchy and things urgently needed to change. what I’ve said in the past- and what I still think -is that idolizing the French Revolution is a mistake, because it really didn’t end well for anybody)

(also they had an emperor again less than a decade after things quieted down)

(it’s just not a great model for a revolution, no matter how you look at it)

[das-coven]

Collioure

Eglise de notre dame des anges à Collioure .

Collioure (en catalan Cotlliure), est une commune française située au bord de la mer Méditerranée dans le département des Pyrénées-Orientales.

Localisation

Collioure est une commune située sur la Côte Vermeille dans l'arrondissement de Céret, au sud-est d'Argelès-sur-Mer et au nord de Port-Vendres.

Histoire

Préhistoire

Le site de Collioure était déjà occupé par les hommes préhistoriques, si l’on en croit les divers dolmens recensés : près du hameau du Rimbau (assez bien conservé) au col del Molló (ruiné) et sans doute au lieu-dit l’Arqueta.

Moyen Âge

Le château de Collioure est déjà cité en 673, preuve du rôle stratégique et commercial tenu par la cité à l’époque wisigothique.

Le château et la ville appartiennent ensuite aux comtes de Roussillon, puis aux divers rois qui se succèdent en Roussillon : rois d’Aragon de 1172 à 1276, puis rois de Majorque jusqu’en 1343, avant de revenir aux rois d’Aragon. Sous le règne des rois de Majorque, le château, entièrement reconstruit entre 1242 et 1280 au détriment d’une maison templière qui lui était accolée, devient résidence royale, la ville étant pour sa part le premier port du Roussillon. Le commerce, surtout au temps des rois d’Aragon, y est intense : on exporte notamment des draps, de l’huile et du vin, et l’on importe des épices, des tissus orientaux et d’autres produits exotiques.

Après le mariage des Rois catholiques, Ferdinand V d’Aragon et Isabelle Ire de Castille, Collioure et le Roussillon tout entier passent sous la domination de la monarchie espagnole, sans qu’il y ait fusion centralisatrice.

La province est occupée de 1475 à 1481 par le roi de France Louis XI, qui fait bâtir des fortifications à Collioure, rebaptisée Saint-Michel, fortifications aujourd’hui dissimulées par les constructions postérieures. Son successeur, Charles VIII, rend le Roussillon à Ferdinand le Catholique, dont le successeur l’empereur Charles Quint renforce les fortifications de la ville. L'Empereur décida la construction du Fort Saint-Elme destiné à protéger les anses de Collioure et de Port-Vendres.

Époque moderne

En 1642, la ville est prise par les armées de Louis XIII, avant d’être annexée officiellement à la France en 1659 par le traité des Pyrénées sous Louis XIV. Les troupes françaises utilisent la plage de l'Ouille comme port de débarquement, attaquent par le Pla de las Fourques, prennent le Fort St Thérèse puis le Château Royal. Ils ont recours aux mortiers et à des mines de siège.

Le rôle stratégique de Collioure est redéfini par Vauban, qui voulant en faire une ville de garnison, rase la vieille ville pour accroître le château, fortifie le Pla de las Fourques (Fort Carré et Fort Rond) et réaménage les forts : Saint-Elme et le Mirador (anciennement Fort Sainte-Thèrése). La population, menacée de déportation à Port-Vendres, obtient de reconstruire la ville à son emplacement actuel. L’église, dotée d’un clocher aménagé dans une ancienne tour de guet de l’époque majorquine, est consacrée au début du xviiie siècle.

Révolution française

Au début de la Révolution (entre 1790 et 1794), Collioure annexe la commune éphémère de Fort-Saint-Elme.

En 1793, la ville est occupée pour les uns, libérée pour les autres, par les troupes espagnoles, et reprise par le général Dugommier en mai 1794 après des combats très durs contre les troupes espagnoles et loyalistes au roi de France (Légion de la Reine).

Époque contemporaine

La commune de Port-Vendres est créée le 23 avril 1823 à partir de territoires distraits des communes de Collioure et de Banyuls-sur-Mer.

Tout au long du xixe siècle, on note un important essor économique lié à l’expansion de la pêche, succès des anchois de Collioure, et à la production viticole. Ce progrès s’essouffle cependant au début du xxe siècle : après un maximum de 3 846 habitants en 1857, on tombe à 2 830 habitants en 1901, soit une perte de 1 000 habitants en une cinquantaine d’années. Le développement de Port-Vendres y est sans doute pour beaucoup.

Le 21 janvier 1870, Collioure subit un événement climatique exceptionnel, observé par le botaniste Charles Naudin, et reçoit un mètre de neige en une journée. De nombreux vergers et plantations de chênes-lièges sont détruits.

En 1939, avec la défaite du camp républicain durant la guerre d'Espagne, des centaines de milliers d’Espagnols se réfugient en France : c’est la Retirada. Les Républicains sont parqués dans des camps aux dimensions largement sous-évaluées. Une unité de cavalerie de l’armée populaire de la République espagnole arrivée entière y est internée en février, avant d’être transférée au camp d'Argelès. Le château est alors utilisé comme camp disciplinaire pour interner ceux considérés comme les plus dangereux. Certains communistes et anarchistes sont internés au « camp spécial » de Collioure, installé au château et commandé par un ancien légionnaire. Près de mille hommes passent par ce camp, comparable à un bagne et où les prisonniers sont traités comme des sous-hommes. Le traitement réservé aux Espagnols soulève un scandale, plus d’une centaine d’entre eux étant morts en quelques mois, avant qu’il ne ferme en décembre 1939 et qu’ils ne soient transférés au camp du Vernet. Le poète espagnol Antonio Machado se réfugie à Collioure, malade, en février 1939, et y meurt le 22.

Durant l'occupation allemande, un mur de béton armé (existant encore) est élevé sur la plage du faubourg, un canon est installé sur le balcon du château royal, d'autres sont installés au-dessus de la plage de la Balette avec un blockhaus et sur la route de Port-Vendres à Collioure. Des blockhaus, toujours visibles actuellement, sont aussi construits derrière le fort Miradou. Les Allemands réquisitionnent une maison au 31, route impériale, à l'époque la seule maison à cet endroit. Le fort Saint-Elme est aussi réquisitionné, par la marine, la collection d'armes du propriétaire est pillée et certaines parties du fort incendiées.

 Fictions à Collioure ?

Meurtre à Collioure 

Téléfilm de Bruno Garcia 

Synopsis : Le cadavre d'une jeune femme est découvert dans un tonneau rempli de clous et de tessons de verre. Ce décès n'est pas sans évoquer la légende médiévale de Paracolls. Les soupçons de la police s'orientent aussitôt vers le mari de la défunte, un peintre bien connu de Collioure, dont les excès de violence et de jalousie sont de notoriété publique. Alice Castel, gendarme à Collioure, et Pascal Loubet, officier de la police judiciaire de Perpignan, font équipe pour résoudre cette affaire. Au fil de leurs investigations, ils réalisent que le dossier est bien plus complexe qu'ils ne l'imaginaient, et que le coupable ne sera pas si facile à identifier.

[vivelareine]

Hi! I was hoping you could answer something for me because I'm debating about it somewhere. Did Marie Antoinette pretend to be a peasant/farmer at the hameau at the Petit Trianon?

She didn't. There is no evidence that Marie Antoinette ever pretended to be a farmer, milkmaid/dairymaid, shepherdess, peasant, and so on at the hameau de la reine.

The idea that she and her entourage were playing "village" can be traced to the non-contemporary names given to the buildings during the First Empire period. These building names (vicar's house, etc) gave the false impression that they were pretend "houses" used to simulate a fake village. Whereas in reality, the buildings all had specific purposes, whether they were recreational buildings intended for the elite people or practical buildings intended for the workers.

Like other historical myths, it gets repeated enough times and suddenly it's "true," showing up in books as fact without vetting, being depicted in film (La Revolution Francaise where she milks cows, etc).

But when you go back to the sources, there's no evidence for it. Only evidence that she treated the hameau de la reine like any elite woman would have treated a country estate: she was the mistress who hired employees to do the labor, and "managed it" like an elite woman would manage a country house, and enjoyed its recreations. Approving livestock orders that the head farmer requested, asking for reports on the status of crops, etc. Hosting dinners there, taking walks, tasting the dairy products made in her name, etc.

Another common myth is that she was milking perfumed cows, petting beribboned sheep, etc. Again, all false. I also sometimes see people deride the fact that she asked for a goat that had a good temper, which such an odd thing to pick on. The head farmer complained about the original goat because the original goat was an asshole (not his contemporary words, of course) so wanted to make sure the next goat wasn't Black Philip incarnate.

IMO, the hameau is novel in a different sense; because Marie Antoinette chose to include both practical and recreational buildings integrated into the same space, she created a unique type of estate which didn't hide away the practical labor used to create elite recreation; unlike similar "hameau" estates, which relied on practical production in other spaces (either out of necessity due to lack of space/ability, or specifically done in order to remove the visual of the labor) the hameau de la reine did not shy away from the practical aspect.

With this in mind, though, the hameau in general has taken on an additional mythical quality thanks largely to the aesthetics of the Sofia Coppola film, which depicts Marie Antoinette and her entourage laying in the grass, petting sheep, skipping around, digging in the dirt for strawberries, etc. It's important to remember that these are modern interpretations of how the estate was enjoyed, and not necessarily based in reality. But it has definitely made an impression on pop culture--see how the Secret Versailles of Marie Antoinette docudrama portrayed the Petit Trianon as a whole as if it came out of the Coppola film.

Back to the hameau as a fake village/fake farm, Marie Antoinette pretending to be a peasant in a blissful surrounding myth: It's a myth which developed in the 1800s, after her death, around the same time that "Let them eat cake" began to stick to Marie Antoinette. Rhe contemporary criticism of the hameau was about its secrecy and privacy, about the supposed sexual and then political dealings going on there, about its expense.

Which was, of course, extraordinary compared to any amount of income the average person would make in their lifetime, though it wasn't statistically notable when it came to French finances--and as I've pointed out before, other royals spent far more but received none of the vehement criticism and dangerous dehumanization for it. Mesdames chateau & hameau at Bellevue cost 96% more than Marie Antoinette’s Petit Trianon chateau & hameau de la reine, and they were not dehumanized and degraded like MA for it, by contemporaries or later historians/writers. One of Mesdames even wrote a letter romanticizing the sounds of the servants at their hameau, and no one’s ever really made a big deal of it.

Both myths (fake village, pretend villager) served in the 19th century to develop the concept of Marie Antoinette as someone who thought that the peasants had a pretty sanitized lifestyle., either out of naivety or maliciousness.

While the real Marie Antoinette certainly couldn't empathize with what it was like to be poor, she expressed sympathy throughout her life and had a surprisingly astute understanding of the impact of a lack of bread (see the letter written they day after the October 1793 march on Versailles) on people's behavior and actions. She didn't think that their lives were represented by the hameau de la reine.

The hameau de la reine was a romanticized notion of a secluded countryside elite estate combined with a mixture of whimsical fantasy, the faux cracks & weathering designed to make it appear when you approached as if it was a mysterious place that had always been there.

Marie Antoinette did not imagine she was a peasant or that this was peasant life, nor was this an attempt to create a sanitized version of peasant life sans poverty and real peasants. I think people often confuse the notion of Marie Antoinette wanting a "simpler" life with Marie Antoinette trying to pretend she wasn't a queen; this was not the case. She never forgot she was an elite woman; she simply wanted to enjoy the type of less-rigid elite life that wasn't uncommon in other European royals, but which was considered unusual and in Marie Antoinette's case, unforgivable for a queen of France.

Some further reading:

Pierre de Nolhac, The Trianon of Marie Antoinette (1925)

Meredith Martin, Dairy Queens: The Politics of Pastoral Architecture from Catherine de' Medici to Marie-Antoinette (2011)

Simone Bertière, The Indomitable Marie-Antoinette (2014)

And to recommend something I wrote, Let's Visit! The Laiterie de Préparation at the Hameau de La Reine, I talk a bit about the practical/working dairy and my thoughts on the novel integration of the working dairy into the hameau as a whole.

[vivelareine]

Review: Poesie Perfume “In the Steps of Marie Antoinette” Collection

[Originally posted on my Blogspot but since Tumblr hates links, here we go]

I love perfume, and over the past year I've dived headfirst into the world of indie fragrances. Poesie has become one of my favorite indie perfume houses due to their diverse range of scents which range from

In 2019, Poesie released a special limited collection titled "In the Steps of Marie Antoinette," featuring 6 scents inspired by the queen of France. At the time the collection was released, I didn't have enough spending money to try them all--but thanks to Poesie's annual "Reissue Event," a limited-time event where you can order retired items from their catalog, I was finally able to collect all of them.

À la Reine

Scent Notes: fresh ripe tomato, cucumber, a bouquet of garden herbs, sweet soil, all damp from the summer rain

My Thoughts:

This scent is so, so green. I love that the emphasis is on the vegetable garden, rather than florals--not that there's anything wrong with florals, but I feel like most 'hameau de la reine' inspired scents I've tried before are heavy on the florals. This scent  makes me feel like I'm walking through a vegetable garden after the rain--moist garden dirt, spicy herbs, but then a vegetable sweetness from the juicy tomatoes and cucumbers. It's really amazing how this scent captures the very particular way that gardens smell after the rain... a sort of slightly sweet, slightly spicy earth tinged with vegetables and grass.  

Petit Trianon

Scent Notes: a freshly picked bouquet of wood violets, accented with jasmine sambac, tuberose and Madonna lily, sheer sandalwood

My Thoughts:

This is another scent that I picked up when the collection was originally released. I can't resist a Trianon inspired scent!  This is a very white floral scent, with hints of green underneath, but it is mostly the violets, jasmine and tuberose that stand out. The sandalwood provides a solid thread for the florals and overall the scent gives the impression of walking through a carefully cultivated garden. A very warm, floral scent.  

Rococo Paradise

Scent Notes: ripe strawberries, plush apricot, fresh grass, milk + honey, lavender sprigs

My Thoughts:

This is one of the scents I picked up last year, and it's one of my favorite scents in my collection. This scent smells it belongs in the scene from Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette where the queen and her entourage are picking strawberries and drinking fresh milk at the hameau de la reine. The milk provides a soft creaminess to the scent, which is complemented by the fresh grass and lavender. The strawberries add sweetness--it's more of a wild strawberry undertone, berries tinged with green. A naturally sweet and mellow scent overall.

Folly of Love

Scent Notes: Paradise apples, purple lilac blooms, white Bourbon roses, seductive vanilla

My Thoughts:

I didn't receive this scent until the 2020 reissue event, and truthfully I wish I had picked up a larger size! It is a very soft, summery fragrance. The lilacs and roses form nice floral base, while the apples bright the fragrance with a touch of sweet fruitiness. The vanilla takes awhile to come out, but when it does it adds a rounded softness to the delicate fragrance. I was originally a bit worried that the florals would be overbearing, but the apple note keeps things bright and youthful.

Infamous

Scent Notes: luscious white cake layered with sticky marshmallow creme and topped with mounds of vanilla frosting

My Thoughts:

Unfortunately, this is the only scent from the collection that I did not enjoy. The reason for this is that there is barely any scent at all on my skin. It has an extremely light throw, and I genuinely have to stick my nose right up to my skin to smell anything. Even then, all I can get is a very, very faint vanilla. This is pretty unusual for this company, as while I haven't always enjoyed every scent I've gotten from Poesie, none of them have been so non-existent in terms of scent. Maybe it was an off batch!

Versailles

Scent Notes: golden cake, intoxicating orange blossom, fluffy vanilla citrus icing, blood orange

My Thoughts:

I feel like “Versailles” is what I anticipated from Infamous.  It's not an extremely strong scent, but it has a light to medium throw comparable to other “cake” scents I’ve gotten from Poesie.  This one smells like a vanilla cake smothered in delicious, luscious vanilla-orange frosting. Rich and creamy and downright yummy.

Where to Get Them

"In the Steps of Marie Antoinette" was a limited collection, so the full collection is no longer available from Poesie. However, "Versailles" was added to the Poesie General Catalog based on its popularity so it is available on the official shop page. The scent does seem to sell out fairly regularly, but it is restocked regularly as well.

If you use Reddit, I would recommend checking out the Sunday IMAM Indie Marketplace thread, where you can sometimes find people selling or swapping discontinued scents. The Indie Marketplace thread is posted every Sunday.

Or you can put a pin in this and wait until 2021 when Poesie will likely do another Reissue event.

[vivelareine]

hameau de la reine =/= pretend peasant

Bringing this post back around and adding to it because the misrepresentation of the hamlet is so prevalent. And I get it! It’s so ingrained in Marie Antoinette’s role in pop culture today.

But how modern people view the hamlet was not how contemporary French people viewed the hamlet. Just like the peasants didn’t revolt because she was rumored to say “Let them eat cake,” the peasants didn’t revolt because they were mad she was “pretending to be a peasant.” The criticism against the hamlet by contemporaries was its expense and its perception as an exclusive, female-dominated, foreign space. Marie Antoinette didn’t pretend to be a peasant at the hamlet, and the contemporary criticism against it was not related to any perception that she was mocking the poor.

And even though the spending for the hameau was a drop in a drop in a drop of the budget compared to spending on, say, wars-- it was a highly visual and tangible thing that people could criticize. It’s easier to direct anger at the queen’s private estate than on vague notions of hundreds of millions of livres spent on wars.

Marie Antoinette was criticized for acting outside her queenly station--but not in the sense that people thought she was mocking the poor due to the hamlet. It was in the sense that she was blurring social class boundaries by adopting popular fashions which could be worn by people of any station, abandoning or altering traditional court practices (such as limiting audiences, surrounding herself with people based on her favor exclusively rather than title/inheritance) and avoiding as much etiquette as possible. Her behavior was viewed as an attack on the traditional French expectations for what a woman and a queen was meant to be.

She wasn’t criticized for pretending to be poor: she was criticized for pretending to be a private citizen.