On this day in 1793 Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France and Navarre, Marie Antoinette was executed by guillotine at the Place de la Revolution in Paris at the age of 37. Born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna on 2 November 1755 in Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria. Her father was Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. At the age of 14 she was married to the grandson of King Louis XV, Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France. At the king’s death in 1774, the dauphin became King Louis XVI. In my opinion, she did not say “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (“Let them eat cake”), as has been reported, in response to the wide spread famine in France. During the French Revolution, Louis was executed on 21 January 1793 and Marie was executed on this day in 1793. Her last words were reportedly an apology to the executioner for accidentally stepping on his foot.
The Final Footprint – Initially, Marie’s body, as well as Louis’, was thrown into an unmarked grave in Madeleine cemetery, rue d’Anjou. Their bodies were exhumed on 18 January 1815 and entombed in the necropolis of French kings in Saint Denis Basilique in Saint-Denis, France. There are funerary sculpture monuments inside the basilique of the former king and queen.
Marie Antoinette has become a part of popular culture and a major historical figure, being the subject of several books, films and other forms of media. Some academics and scholars have deemed her frivolous and superficial, and have attributed the start of the French Revolution to her; however, others have claimed that she was treated unjustly and that views of her should be more sympathetic. Perhaps the most famous historical fiction which features Marie Antoinette is the Alexandre Dumas, père novel Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge (The Knight of the Red House,) which centers on the Carnation Plot. It is actually the first of a series of six books written by Dumas with Marie Antoinette featured, called the “Marie Antoinette novels”, in which the queen is shown in a sympathetic light, particularly during the “Diamond Necklace Affair”. Some novels that have portrayed Marie Antoinette in more recent years include Carrolly Erickson‘s 2005 novel The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette, as well as Elena Maria Vidal‘s 1998 book Trianon. Perhaps the two best-known movie portrayals of Marie Antoinette have been in the 1938 film directed by W. S. Van Dyke, in which the Norma Shearer played the queen, and the 2006 film directed by Sofia Coppola and starring Kirsten Dunst. The Affair of the Necklace was a 2001 film in which Hilary Swank played Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy and Joely Richardson played Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette features prominently in The Ghosts of Versailles, partially an operatic adaptation of Beaumarchais‘ La Mère coupable with score by John Corigliano and libretto by William M. Hoffman. In the film Amadeus she is mentioned twice by her brother, Emperor Joseph II as “Antoinette”, and her eventual downfall is foreshadowed when the emperor tells Mozart why he has banned the play Figaro. Marie Antoinette is referenced in the lyrics of the song ‘Killer Queen’ by the rock band Queen.
On this day in 1997, author and philanthropist James Michener died in Austin, Texas at the age of 90. Born James Albert Michener on February 3, 1907 in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Michener wrote more than 40 books, most of which were fictional, lengthy family sagas covering the lives of many generations in particular geographic locales and incorporating solid history. He was known for his meticulous research behind the books.
Michener’s novels include Tales of the South Pacific for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948, Hawaii, The Drifters, Centennial, The Source, The Fires of Spring, Chesapeake, Caribbean, Caravans, Alaska, Texas, Space, and Poland. His non-fiction works include Iberia, about his travels in Spain and Portugal; his memoir titled The World Is My Home; and Sports in America. Return to Paradise combines fictional short stories with Michener’s factual descriptions of the Pacific areas where they take place.
His first book was adapted as the popular Broadway musical South Pacific by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, and later as eponymous feature films in 1958 and 2001, adding to his financial success. He also wrote an analysis of the United States’ Electoral College system in a book which condemned it, entitled Presidential Lottery: The Reckless Gamble in Our Electoral System. It was published in 1969, and republished in 2014 and 2016.
Michener was married three times. In 1935, he married Patti Koon. In 1948, they divorced, and the same year Michener married his second wife, Vange Nord.
Michener met his third wife, Mari Yoriko Sabusawa, at a luncheon in Chicago. An American, she and her Japanese parents had suffered internment in western camps that the U.S. government set up during the early years of World War II to hold ethnic Japanese from West Coast/Pacific communities. Michener divorced Nord in 1955 and married Sabusawa the same year. Sabusawa died in 1994.
Michener became a major philanthropist, donating more than $100 million to educational, cultural, and writing institutions, including his alma mater, Swarthmore College, the Iowa Writers Workshop, and the James A. Michener Art Museum, and more than $37 million to University of Texas at Austin. By 1992, his gifts made him UT Austin’s largest single donor to that time. In the Micheners’ final years, he and his wife lived in Austin, Texas, and they endowed the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. The Center provides three-year Michener Fellowships in fiction, poetry, playwriting and screenwriting to a small number of students.
The Final Footprint
Michener was cremated, and his ashes were placed next to those of his wife at Austin Memorial Park Cemetery in Austin, Texas.
#RIP #OTD in 2007 (The King and I, Black Narcissus, From Here to Eternity, The Arrangement, Tea and Sympathy, An Affair to Remember, Bonjour Tristesse, Separate Tables, The Innocents, The Night of the Iguana), Deborah Kerr died Botesdale, England, from Parkinson’s aged 86.
Alfold Cemetery, Alfold, England.
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