I don't know, I feel like a lot of people stop at reading the memoirs, and they take them as trustworthy because everyone else does.
You're probably right. Even among biographers aiming at making themselves stand out from all the previous biographies, "everyone else thinks that" is amazingly powerful. I mean, I didn't see either Jürgen Luh or Klosterhuis mentioning good old Henri de Catt might be less than reliable, either, and they both in different ways pitch themselves as "deconstructing legends".
Also: just think of the (in)famous "If they don't have bread, let them eat cake". Even within Marie Antoinette's lifetime, it was pointed out that this quote first started showing up years before she was born in an essay by Rousseau attributing it to "a princess". Various ladies got associated with it until MA got stuck with it, and ever since, biographers repeat she never said it. And still, pop culture has been so persuasive through the centuries that I dare say if you quiz ten non-historians and non-particularly-immersed-into-the-French-Revolution people, at least eight out of ten would spontanously name that quote, if they name anything, as something she said. One an idea, quote, cliché is there, people don't want to give it up. And Catt is the origin of many a treasured quote, scene, statement.
Re: Catt's reliability
You're probably right. Even among biographers aiming at making themselves stand out from all the previous biographies, "everyone else thinks that" is amazingly powerful. I mean, I didn't see either Jürgen Luh or Klosterhuis mentioning good old Henri de Catt might be less than reliable, either, and they both in different ways pitch themselves as "deconstructing legends".
Also: just think of the (in)famous "If they don't have bread, let them eat cake". Even within Marie Antoinette's lifetime, it was pointed out that this quote first started showing up years before she was born in an essay by Rousseau attributing it to "a princess". Various ladies got associated with it until MA got stuck with it, and ever since, biographers repeat she never said it. And still, pop culture has been so persuasive through the centuries that I dare say if you quiz ten non-historians and non-particularly-immersed-into-the-French-Revolution people, at least eight out of ten would spontanously name that quote, if they name anything, as something she said. One an idea, quote, cliché is there, people don't want to give it up. And Catt is the origin of many a treasured quote, scene, statement.