Marie-Antoinette, the woman beyond the myth

Myths about Marie Antoinette abound. She is one of the most famous characters in History, and yet so much we know about her is wrong: she didn’t say Let them eat cake; she didn’t bankrupt France with her desire to buy diamonds; she wasn’t the power-hungry and lascivious woman revolutionary caricatures represent. In this talk, Catriona Seth will strip away some of the accumulated legends about ‘the last Queen of France’ and reveal a complex and engaging personality: someone who was a true but often naïve friend, a devoted Mother, a remarkable musician, a woman with assured taste in interior decoration, a fashion icon and, when the Revolution came, an active figure in the political landscape.

Pr. Catriona Seth is a British scholar of French literature and the history of ideas. Since 2015, she has been Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.