the Queen of Hearts and the curse of the milkmaid: or, may you live in interesting times

She "rocked the world", according to US Vogue* (this makes sense: Queen: "we will rock you"); here is their wonderful over-the-top cover.

Of course, true to my name, I had to buy the magazine, and carry it home, all 754 fashion-packed pages of it. If I'd been Marie Antoinette I'd have had a mule to strap it onto, but as it was I had to lug it on the Tube in the bag with my new back-to-school, I mean back-to-work-now-it's-autumn, shoes. (They're a bit drop-dead, in a good way I mean, with ankle straps that buckle in the front, but with sensible crepe wedge heels. M.A. never had those.)

Of course this is a Zeitgeist Moment. It's all about Sofia Coppola's film, starring Kirsten Dunst: a sort of Virgin Suicides with brocade draperies. (I wonder. I'm sure I'll comnent once I've seen it.) Years ago I did try to read Antonia Fraser's biography, which is also Coppola's source. I went along for a few hundred pages (it's almost as long as Vogue) until it cloyed, like sweetened milk left in a milk can for fun - and I never did finish it. Ultimately it was just too much apologia, which of course began to have almost the same effect on me - it's a matter of degree, I find - as it had on Robespierre back in the day. Eventually the book went to the charity shop, but it did get me thinking. Marie Antoinette was a victim of the system, just like the rest of us - if slightly better housed - but I'm still not seeing her as a Queen of the People. Not precisely.

Now they're marketing her as the Princess Diana of her day and it does make you wonder if there's a curse, like the Curse of Superman, or the Curse of Blue Peter... Think: they were both married off young to rather inbred princes who, for one reason or the other, couldn't have cared less; they both suffered in their self-esteem as a result of this sexual rejection, and made up for it later on with increasingly glamorous and powerful lovers; they were both (erroneously, in poor Diana's case) famous for their fashion sense; they both learned, after a bad start, to cultivate their personal 'brand' (if you like) to recoup positions of power, relying on intrigue and denying doing so; they died within a year of each other's ages, both violently, both in Paris.

Apparently now Paris has gone Marie Antoinette mad, which would be something to see. I think it's the guilt. And the relief that suddenly it's okay to like nice dresses again.

Most of us, of course, are not in Paris. Speaking of the Zeitgeist, let's look at the World Situation surrounding this - again, something M.A. herself could have done with doing. Social flux; changing means of production and even crises about what to produce; widening gaps between rich and poor - both people and countries - with increasing anger from the powerless; new, cheap, universally available means of disseminating information and opinion; increasing religious intolerance even in mundane places; random, violent reprisals in the street, against innocent people, for alleged philosophical and religious 'offences'; Government justification for 'any means necessary' to repress those whom they perceive as the troublemakers; loss of democratic rights; fears for the future of our civilisation; fear. The shops are all full of grey clothes. Narrow, grey skirts. Jackets are "playing with volume" but they are cropped and the sleeves are cropped, and the buttons are so big that when you wear the clothes you look a bit like a Borrower. It's not clothing of power. The placement of this Beautiful craze is interesting, n'est-ce pas? Remember that the pundits are saying the Enlightmentment is over.

After reading the book, I have to say, the famous drawing of Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine becomes very powerful. It is a tragedy, and that is what comes out. What struck me, after about ten minutes looking at it, was how sad to have this drawing made as you go to your death, by someone who doesn't love you - who hates you. But the person who drew it was in fact unable to take away the small but all-important fact that you are a person. I now rather regret having given the biography away, though one can't keep everything. Perhaps if I had a little summer house for the books.

*okay - "rocked Versailles", I see now, having finally managed to upload something bigger than a thumbnail. So much for Blogger beta. Anway, Versailles, the world, same diff.