Marie Antoinette Quotes

Marie Antoinette shares vivid, theatrical statements that capture boldness and drama.

40 quotes

1. It is quite certain that in seeing the people who treat us so well despite their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness. The king seems to understand this truth; as for myself, I know that in my whole life (even if I live for a hundred years) I shall never forget the day of the coronation.

2. I put on my rouge and wash my hands in front of the whole world!

3. A son would have belonged to the state, but you shall be mine, and have all my care; you shall share my happiness and soften my sorrows.

4. Mon chou d'amour is charming, and I love him madly. He loves me very much too, in his own way, without embarrassment.

5. Not only have I never commissioned you to make a jewel... but, what is more, I have told you repeatedly that I would never add so much as another carat to my present collection of diamonds. I refused to buy your necklace for myself; the king offered to buy it for me, and I refused it as a gift. Never mention it again.

6. I'm fine, don't worry.

7. The Church. The Church... we're next.

8. If I have not replied it is because Nature itself refuses to respond to such a charge laid against a mother.

9. There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.

10. I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all.

11. I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long.

12. Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end?

13. Monsieur, je vous demande pardon. Je ne l'ai pas fait expres..

14. There are crosses for all shoulders.

15. The Feast of All Souls, was the great Catholic Day of the Dead, when the departed were solemnly commemorated in a series of requiem Masses, in churches and chapels heavily draped in black. What this actually meant during the childhood of Marie Antoinette was that her birthday was generally celebrated on its eve, the Feast of All Saints, a day of white and gold.

16. A woman more sinned against than sinning.

17. Vive la Reine!

18. I have promised [my readers] the head of Antoinette. I will go and cut if off myself if there is any delay in giving it to me.

19. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette have often been portrayed as weak and vacillating. Far from it; their policy between 1789 and 1792 was entirely consistent, and highly conservative. They were prepared to die for their beliefs, and ultimately did so.

20. She no longer had any hope left in her heart or distinguished between life and death.

21. Other people spent more on their gardens!

22. Sorrow had blanched the Queen's once beautiful hair; but her features and air still commanded the admiration of all who beheld her; her cheeks, pale and emaciated, were occasionally tinged with a vivid colour at the mention of those she had lost. When led out to execution, she was dressed in white; she had cut off her hair with her own hands. Placed in a tumbrel, with her arms tied behind her, she was taken by a circuitous route to the Place de la Revolution, and she ascended the scaffold with a firm and dignified step, as if she had been about to take her place on a throne by the side of her husband.

23. I feel more and more, every day of my life, how much my dear mamma has done for my establishment. I was the youngest of all her daughters, and she has treated me as if I were the eldest, so that my whole soul is filled with the most tender gratitude.

24. My dear mamma is quite right when she says that we must lay down principles and not depart from them. The king will not have the same weaknesses as his grandfather. I hope that he will have no favorites; but I am afraid that he is too mild and too easy. You may depend upon it that I will not draw the king into any great expenses.

25. No harm will come to me. The Assembly is prepared to treat us leniently.

26. When everyone else is losing their heads, it is important to keep yours.

27. Qu'ils mangent de la brioche. Let them eat cake. On being told that her people had no bread. Attributed to Marie-Antoinette, but remark is much older. Rousseau refers in his Confessions, 1740, to a similar remark, as a well-known saying. Others attribute the remark to the wife of Louis XIV.

28. You have doubtless heard, my dear mother, the misfortune of Madame de Chartres, whose child is born dead. But I would rather have even that, terrible as it is, than be as I am without hope of any children.

29. Your Majesty may rest assured about my conduct towards the Comtesse de Provence; I will certainly try and gain her friendship and confidence, without going too far.

30. one's enjoyment is doubled when one can share it with a friend - and where can one find a more affectionate, a more intimate friend than in one's own family?

31. You can be assured that I need no one's guidance in anything concerning propriety.

32. Farewell, my children, forever. I go to your Father.

33. I have come, Sire, to complain of one of your subjects who has been so audacious as to kick me in the belly.

34. The king and the dauphin both like to see me on horseback. I only say this because all the world perceives it, and especially while we were absent from Versailles, they were delighted to see me in my riding habit.

35. No, do not love me, it is better to give me death!

36. The ministers and the Jacobins are making the king declare war tomorrow on Austria. The ministers are hoping that this move will frighten the Austrians and that within three weeks we will be negotiating (God forbid that this should happen). May we at last be avenged for all the outrages we have suffered from this country!

37. In times of crisis, it is of utmost importance to keep one's head.

38. I should be very sorry if the Germans disapproved of me.

39. I had friends. The idea of being forever separated from them and from all their troubles is one of the greatest sorrows that I suffer in dying. Let them at least know that to my latest moment I thought of them.

40. The King of Prussia is innately a bad neighbor, but the English will also always be bad neighbors to France, and the sea has never prevented them from doing her great mischief.