Ah Maria, What Does it Mean to Be Untouchable

As my readers may recall, Marie Antoinette’s finally speaking to Madame Dubarry was hardly the end of her troubles. A baby was still years away and Marie had begun to acquire the very unfortunate habit of publicly displaying contempt for her husband. The girl never learned. Said Joseph after the 1777 visit to Paris, “She does not love him in the least.”

I say “The 1777 visit” because it was the big one that finally put some, ahem, firmness, into Marie’s husband’s resolve to father a child on the woman who, at this point, probably actively hated him. No one knows what Joseph said to these young persons, it was a very private conversation. Afterward in letters and in conversation, Joseph alluded to the subject of his little speech.

Joseph being Joseph, he was no doubt blunt to the point of being mean. Perhaps that’s what the boy needed, because the deed was done not long after and Marie Antoinette found herself pregnant.

By then things at the French Court had gone downhill considerably. Marie Antoinette’s reaction to being both odd girl out and the belle of the ball simultaneously had an unfortunate effect on Marie. She became something of a debauchee. Debauchee is perhaps too strong a word, but she certainly became a hedonist.

Although this was never to the extent that her enemies wished people to believe, it was still bad enough. Which raises a point. Forgive me for digressing here for a bit, but this is something I’ve wondered about for a long time and would like to share.

You see, I’ve been writing about royals for a few years now. Henry VIII and his wives. The Prince Regent, his very unfortunate wife and his mutton-headed brothers, and now, Maria Theresa. Not that Maria was like the others, she wasn’t, not the way the others were. It’s just that…oh, never mind.

What I’m trying to say is that when reading about these people it’s easy to say; “Oh, Id never behave like that;” or “I’d never treat people that way.” And I am the sort of nice person who would treat people well and never behave like that. Or am I? What sort of person would I be if, Like Henry and the Prince Regent, or Marie Antoinette, no one could say “no” to me?

How would any of us behave if we were really and truly above the law? No policeman could arrest us, no court would have the authority to try us. Surrounded by people who’s only job it is to make sure we have whatever we want. Surrounded by people who tell us all day long that we are the smartest, best dressed, most beautiful, most charming people who have ever walked the earth.

Go shopping and all you have to do is point at something and say “I want that.” and it’s yours. You don’t even have to carry it. That’s the job of the small army of people who follow in your wake wherever you go.

Stuff like that can go to your head. Would I still be lovable o’l Mr Al if everyone bowed to me? If I knew, knew in my bones, that no one could say “no” to me? That money was literally no object? Google Versailles, or Buckingham Palace for that matter, and say; “That’s my house.”

In places like Russia and Bohemia, where even the lesser nobility was above the law, these people behaved very, very badly. Even in England, which never had a Russian-type “serf” class because English peasants were only too happy to riot and rampage if they thought they were getting pushed around, the Better Sorts still had things pretty much their own way.

That is, until literacy became more widespread and the tabloids sprang up. Suddenly, the day to day doings of the Better Sorts were fodder for the gossip mill on an industrial scale. They discovered, to their dismay, that behaving badly had a price.

I must say, as a very average American, I have a hard time fully comprehending what such a life would be like. And I tell myself that I would still be as kind and generous, and caring, and concerned, and friendly, and supportive, and loving, and creative, and funny, and stunningly handsome in that sort of life as I am in this one, but would I really? Would any of us? Oh, I almost forgot, and modest. Um…where was I?

— Mr. Al