Marie-Antoinette

Marie-Antoinette, the flighty Queen. 

Her life

Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France, was born Maria Antonia Josepha Joanna on November 2, 1755, in Vienna, Austria. She was the 15th and second to last child of Maria Theresa, empress of Austria, and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. Marie Antoinette lived a relatively carefree childhood. She received an education typical of an 18th century aristocratic girl, focusing primarily on religious and moral principles, while her brothers studied more academic subject matter. Marie Antoinette helped provoke the popular unrest that led to the French Revolution and to the overthrow of the monarchy in August 1792. She became a symbol of the excesses of the monarchy and is often credited with the famous quote "Let them eat cake," although there is no evidence she actually said it. As consort to Louis XVI, she was beheaded nine months after he was, on October 16, 1793, by order of the Revolutionary tribunal. She was 37 years old.

HER BEAUTY SECRETS

Arrived in Versailles in 1770 at the age of only 14, Marie-Antoinette breathes the wind back to natural. Under his leadership, the "dry toilet" was abandoned in favor of "la toilette de Flore", whose reputation was such that it gave its name to a work by Pierre-Joseph Buc'Hoz, a famous botanist of the time . And, in line with this return to nature, cosmetic formulas based on minerals - including those that made up the makeup, therefore - are abandoned in favor of natural beauty products based on plant extracts. Marie-Antoinette provided herself in red lipstick with Mademoiselle Martin (Rose Bertin) although sometimes, it is her perfumer, Fargeon, who obtained it for her. The latter offered nine shades of carmine-based red, whose basic recipe is carmine, powdered talc, the amount of which will make the red more or less clear, olive oil and gum tragacanth. Marie Antoinette liked to take care of her complexion. "Cosmetic pigeon water cleans the skin, water of charms made with the tears of the vine flowing in May, toned it.The angel's water whitened it by purifying the complexion (...). She coated her hands with the Royal Paste, which kept its sweetness and prevented chapping, and she adored rose, vanilla, frangipane, tuberose, carnation, jasmine, and mille-fleurs ointments. For bathing, she used soap with herbs, amber, bergamot or potpourri, and to maintain the brightness of her teeth, she ordered powders and opiats. "

On the "toilets", pieces of scented cloth placed on a table, the paraphernalia of cosmetics unfolded in front of the pretty woman: "powders and essences contained in boxes of porcelain, agate, precious metal and in small bottles pear-shaped crystals of rock, amber glass, gold or enamelled silver ".