cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

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Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

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From:

cahn

Also, for the record, the start of The Talk goes like this:

Awwww, okay, that's really sweet!

surely, it's MA's fault, she must be frigid, "just like her brother the Emperor; everyone says he#s such a cold man".

This is also awesome (though in sort of the opposite way) :)

(The film is based on Antonia Fraser's MA biography, which I haven't read.)

Has salon read any Fraser in general? I do remember coming across her MA biography when I got the Zweig (though I didn't read it at all). Scrolling through amazon reviews makes it sound like she might be a little more apologetic towards MA than Zweig, though. (Though I suppose the real question is, does she ship MA/Fersen? :) )

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Has salon read any Fraser in general?

Only in high school, sorry! I know I read and owned her Mary, Queen of Scots bio, and at least one of her others, but I retain no memories.

From:

selenak

I read her Charles II biography, which is both entertaining and informative, but also was the one that got her the reputation of falling in love with her subjects, and I think she even did admit - not in the book, in interviews - to a crush on Charles. Otoh Antonia Fraser also wrote about Oliver Cromwell (before she wrote her Charles biography, I might add), and no one accused her of being in love with him....

From:

selenak

I replied to the reading Fraser question elsewhere. Going this this review of her MA biography, yes, she does ship MA/Fersen! Incidentally, the Coppola movie doesn't, really. I mean, they're shown to have an affair - the only affair Marie Antoinette has with anyone in this film, as her relationships with her female favourites Lamballe and Polignac are completely platonic friendships - , but there's minimum dialogue, and the main relationship MA has in the movie is with her husband, which starts out completely awkward for the obvious reasons but by the time they leave Versailles, which is when the movie ends, has become us-against-the-world-mutually-supportive. By contrast, Fersen basically his introduction scene, when MA and he notice each other on a masque ball, and exchange two flirty lines before MA has to return to Versailles and Fersen disappears for the next hour, and then the scene where he's back (after the birth of the first two kids), we see them flirt through the eyes of her courtiers (i.e. at a distance where you can't hear their dialogue), and then there's the cut to MA lying naked except for her stockings waiting for him, indicating that yes, this is about to become sexual. And that's it. So Fraser might ship MA/Fersen, but Coppola ships MA/Louis instead and does the "arranged marriage turns real" trope for the film.

Incidentally: this very Christmas, the BBC does a new MA miniseries in six parts, from the same producer as The Favourite. Going by the trailer, there is f/f kissing, at least. I'm very much afraid, though, that the lady saying she'll destroy MA is supposed to be Dubarry, which is really unfair if true. All Dubarry wanted was being talked to by the Dauphine. The whole Dubarry/MA bust up was very much engineered by "the aunts", Louis XV's unmarried daughters, for their own purposes, so if anyone should be blamed, it's them. Also, reminder, when MA gloated about finally being able to send Dubarry packing after Louis XV had died, MT wrote a chiding letter and says MA should be sorry for her instead. (Sidenote: Oh, and when Joseph visited Paris years later, he did visit Dubarry, which was really unexpected because she had no more influence and thus there was no political point. But apparently he wanted to.