Antoinette, Marie

Amenemhat II, 131 Amenhetep I, 199 — II, 131 Ammarwaru, 56 Ammon, 30 Amos, 263 Ampere, 51 Amundsen, 204 Anaitis, 134 Anaxagoras 1 Andrew, St, 264 Andrews, 26 Antoinette, Marie, 63 Appert, 208, 209 Aquinas, 215 Archimedes, 134 Areithous, 267 Arfvedson, 145 Argon, Prince, 41 Aristarchus, 12... 

The long thin loaves of French bread are regarded in the rest of the world as an icon of France, alongside the Eiffel Tower. Their origin is said to be that one of the Austrian queens of France demanded the sort of loaf that she was accustomed to in Vienna. Possible candidates for the queen would be Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII, or Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. As central European wheat is hard, resembling North American wheat, this is a formidable problem with only French soft wheat available. A modern bakery technologist would find this difficult. 

Cakes more than any other category of product in this work vary in shelf life. They vary from sponge cakes to the sort of rich fruit cake that is used as a Christmas cake. Indeed it is difficult to define a cake except in terms of negatives. A cake is not yeast raised it is not a biscuit or pastry. Incidentally, Marie Antoinette probably said why do they not eat Brioche . Brioche is a sweet yeast raised product and so it is not a cake ... 

Rohan claimed that a plausible woman imposter, Countess Jeanne de Valois de La Motte, had conned him into believing she was an intimate of the queen. She d then masterminded the whole swindle by forging letters purporting to come from the queen she d persuaded him to buy the necklace on behalf of Marie-Antoinette, and, eventually, Jeanne herself had stolen and sold the necklace. Fortunately for Rohan, lack of concrete evidence against him had forced his prosecutors to ask for a series of noncapi-... 

Bourbons in so marked a manner. Looking back on this moment, Madame Campan saw it as the prelude to the end neither Marie-Antoinette nor France would ever really recover. 

Jeanne was the impresario who elevated this mad idea into one of those scenes where life outbids art. Drawing on a famous portrait of Marie-Antoinette by Madame Vigee-Lebrun printed on the back of a jewelry box, Jeanne used her milliner s skills to turn Nicole into the queen, wearing a simple white dress, without any ornament on her head other than her hair dressed in the fashion of the time and the two ringlets which, on either side, fell to her neck. ... 

A combination of coolness and luck enabled Jeanne to weather this dangerous moment. To her relief, both the cardinal and the jewelers were so excited that they made no effort to check the authenticity of the signature, Marie-Antoinette de France, penned clumsily by Retaux on the side of the bill of sale. Neither did they realize that the queen, as an Austrian patriot, never signed herself this way. 

She repeated this refrain on 20 August, after she too was arrested, taken by coach to the Bastille, and lodged in one of the cells. In a tone of bewildered innocence, she told the police that she knew nothing of Queen Marie-Antoinette or a fabulous diamond necklace—as a penniless Valois... 

Marie-Antoinette loathed Rohan, and they were determined, as Jeanne later said, to saddle him with everything. If they could convict the cardinal s guru in the process, so much the better. Abbe Georgel found himself blocked from tracking down Jeannes accomplices because, he claimed, Marie-Antoinette didn t want either the cardinal or Cagliostro to be exonerated. Matters looked bleak. 

In particularly desperate moments Jeanne began to grope toward a last awesome accusation. She hinted that any contradictions in her testimony stemmed from a need to protect the reputation of someone very eminent indeed. With a possible charge of treason hanging over her head, she didn t dare to say the name of Queen Marie-Antoinette directly, but by the time of the actual trial on 31 May, she was prepared to tiptoe down this path. 

In the years to come she would openly accuse Marie-Antoinette of the same sin. This was one of the malicious charges that contributed to the queens demise. It was thus Marie-Antoinette herself who ultimately paid the highest price of this tawdry affair she lost her dignity, a diamond necklace— and, eventually, her head. 

Louis XV lavished wealth on La Cour Parfumee (the Perfumed Court) with his mistresses Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry, where even the fountains did not escape a fragrant dousing. Eventually the Madames of France, ending with Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI (1774-1793) paid for their indulgence in meeting another Madame the guillotine. 

Frederick II of Prussia was the first to invade when Maria Theresa was pregnant with her first child. But far from buckling, she used the birth of her son to rally support. Although some territory was lost, the empire survived, and Maria Theresa bore nine more children, one of whom we encounter again as the French queen Marie Antoinette. 

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