Does Marie Antoinette Get A Raw Deal In History?

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure.
That of course are the words of Thomas Jefferson. Those words were not uttered in a public forum but in a private letter around 1787 to a Senator in New York. One sees them uttered on American political web sites all the time.

Jefferson of course in his years in Paris where he saw the beginning of the French Revolution was a supporter. However his attitude as well as others soured quite a bit when the horror of it became known. It soured quite a bit more when African slaves in what we know as Haiti took those words to heart and did the unthinkable. Rebelled and then defeated the French Army. That set off a chain of events that forever changed this Country

It is something to look at the diaries or Nuns and Priests that came to Louisiana. Many fled here because of the French revolution and had relatives that died in it. Louisiana at the time of revolution was under Spanish control and suffered little of its ill affects. One gets a sense that many people here in Louisiana had a more realistic viewpoint of it.

Despite Americans takling about "refreshing the tree of liberty" in the end we are not big revolution people. The horrors of the civil war cured that to a great extent. Even when something could be bubbling a foreign event shows us that we will take a pass. For example the Russian Revolution in the 1900's scared the heck out of a lot of folks and thus put a damper on similar movements here

Catholics should know better than anyone about the horrors of the French Revolution.

There is a great Catholic blogger that has one of the most interesting web sites called Tea at Trianon. Her blog talks about many things but it does have one special unique main purpse. That is to defend and rehabilitate the French Royal Family and Especially Marie-Antoinette,

This post is quite fascinating and it is called the The Last Letter of Marie Antoinette. It has pictures of the letter(that was smuggled out) , and the background. If there is anyway for a Catholic Leader to die she set a standard. This is a part of the letter which can be found at the post that written hours before her execution:

I die in the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion, that of my fathers, that in which I was brought up, and which I have always professed. Having no spiritual consolation to look for, not even knowing whether there are still in this place any priests of that religion (and indeed the place where I am would expose them to too much danger if they were to enter it but once), I sincerely implore pardon of God for all the faults which I may have committed during my life. I trust that, in His goodness, He will mercifully accept my last prayers, as well as those which I have for a long time addressed to Him, to receive my soul into His mercy. I beg pardon of all whom I know, and especially of you, my sister, for all the vexations which, without intending it, I may have caused you. I pardon all my enemies the evils that they have done me. I bid farewell to my aunts and to all my brothers and sisters. 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.

Farewell, my good and tender sister. May this letter reach you. Think always of me; I embrace you with all my heart, as I do my poor dear children. My God, how heart-rending it is to leave them forever! Farewell! farewell! I must now occupy myself with my spiritual duties, as I am not free in my actions. Perhaps they will bring me a priest; but I here protest that I will not say a word to him, but that I will treat him as a total stranger.

The last line is a tad confusing. She would have confessed to a "non juring" priest. That is a priest who refused to sign the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. She showed loyalty to the faith by not confessing to juring priest.

Pretty inspiring