00:15:45.120So she was one of the like maids of honor, meaning like the first of the ladies in waiting to a couple French queens in a row.
00:15:55.020So by the time Marie Antoinette comes onto the scene and she's coming in as Dauphine, Madame Etiquette, as Marie Antoinette calls her, is the person kind of like standing guard over all of these etiquette procedures and this like court code.
00:16:11.460So she gets that nickname Madame Etiquette from Marie Antoinette in the Sofia Coppola movie.
00:16:16.100She's the one that says this Madame is Versailles.
00:16:20.240And so that's like a legendary line delivery.
00:16:23.620There's a line I was just going over in one of the biographies I was reading about Marie Antoinette, about Madame Etiquette.
00:16:28.840We were saying she's the sort of person who if like one like pin was in the wrong place in a court gown to her, like that was the apocalypse.
00:32:27.560So there is like a hierarchy at court that's a little different than just the French nobility.
00:32:32.940So at Versailles, you had to have both the title, the money, and then the access.0.89
00:32:37.560But Marie Antoinette's sort of coming in and making her mark here.
00:32:39.940So yeah, Gabrielle comes into court because her husband now has this job, they have an income and she, the way is paved for her to become Marie Antoinette's most trusted companion. And that soothing influence is still talked about at this time. Marie Antoinette is said to be able to dispense with the usual protocol and etiquette that she hated around Gabrielle.
00:33:03.180So Gabrielle is one of the people that would go to her to the Petit Trianon when she's trying to
00:33:08.840isolate, get away from the hustle and bustle of the main palace of Versailles.
00:33:13.380Okay. We need to talk about Petit Trianon. So that was around the same time. It was about
00:33:17.420shortly after they became king and queen, Louis XVI allows Marie Antoinette to take over the
00:33:23.040Petit Trianon. Can you explain this? The Coachella of Versailles?
00:33:28.040I think it's when she gives birth to their first child. It's like a gift or like a reward because
00:33:33.720that's a thing that you would do, right? If your queen fulfilled her duty. So he gives her the
00:33:38.780Petit Trianon, which I think was described as like a pleasure palace and it had previously belonged
00:33:45.240to one of Louis XV's mistresses. It's described as a chateau. Like you've been to Versailles,
00:33:51.500right? Yes, I have. What does Petit Trianon like functionally as a building look like? Does it look
00:33:56.420like a little palace or does it look like a little it no it does look like a little palace it's like
00:34:02.260neoclassical it has like the facade of like it has like four columns and then like a little tiny
00:34:09.740wing on either side so it's not huge but it still has like this grand staircase going up and it's
00:34:15.780just like very pretty it's like a petite like small version of a palace okay because i've been
00:34:21.940picturing it as just like a shepherd's hut. No, it's really not. It's really not. It comes later.
00:34:27.300Okay. Yes. It has this facade that's like very, very beautiful. Um, it's built within the grounds
00:34:33.280of Versailles, but in such a way that it's like surrounded by like, think of like the queue
00:34:38.520gardens, like the botanical gardens of the King and Queen. And then you see this little
00:34:42.920petite tree in on it was okay. It was given to Madame de Pompadour by Louis the 15th. So it was
00:34:49.200built for her. It's pretty new at this time. It was completed in 1768. So Louis XVI gives it to
00:34:56.900Marie Antoinette for her exclusive use. And she uses it to escape the formality of the big palace
00:35:05.480of Versailles. It's her private property. No one is allowed to enter without her permission. So
00:35:10.600she uses this as a way to keep everybody except her inner circle out. This is like, you know,
00:35:17.560you're you are an expert in the modern royal family and it reminds me a lot about if you
00:35:24.840think about someone like princess diana or even kate middleton where it's just like everywhere
00:35:28.060they go there's paparazzi there's people taking pictures like you can't do anything where it's
00:35:32.440just like they were desperate for just a place where they could just like chill and be okay and
00:35:37.060like long-range cameras couldn't get to them like they could just hide and it's exactly that because
00:35:41.080she's just like i just want like a day where no one is talking about what i'm wearing and looking
00:35:47.360asking me questions. Yeah, absolutely. I just want to like be by myself. Yeah.
00:35:52.180It's literally designed for that purpose too. It's designed so that the, the servants are not
00:35:59.320visible. The dining room at the Petit Trianon, it's like some Harry Potter shit. The dining room0.99
00:36:06.000can be like raised and lowered through the floorboards so that the servants can set the
00:36:11.300table and then it can be raised back up. So Marie Antoinette and her friends can have dinner and
00:36:15.740never see another person that they don't want to see. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So like that's the level to
00:36:20.960which she was craving privacy and intimacy. Understandable. Like I have no nothing. This
00:36:29.000only makes sense to me because you were describing it's like she wakes up. There's like a crowd of
00:36:33.060people there to dress or there's a crowd of people watching doing it. Like she's never alone. And
00:36:37.980like anyone would lose their mind. The king and queen at Versailles, like you could come in off
00:36:43.540the street if you were dressed correctly to watch them eat dinner like you would always be visible
00:36:49.880if you've ever seen like pictures of a buckingham palace garden party like in the modern sense
00:36:54.740that's 8 000 people max this is 10 000 people max so like more than a buckingham palace garden party
00:37:01.580showing up to look at you every day like of course you would want somewhere you could go to be alone
00:37:06.560with your besties so she takes gabrielle and princess delon ball which is one of her other
00:37:11.360besties at this time, um, quite often to Petit Trianon. She goes there, especially after she
00:37:16.620gives birth to her daughter to recover and just like be away from it all. Which is like, God,
00:37:24.160okay. There's an example, um, in Marin, just, I just really want everybody to understand that
00:37:28.220like, this is comprehensive. Like I cannot blame her at all for wanting to go to Petit, like as
00:37:34.460an example. So when, um, I think it was a Countess of Artois or one of her other sister-in-laws
00:37:38.900gave birth and there's like all the courtiers are there watching it and marie antoinette is there
00:37:45.400and this is during the time period where marie antoinette was not getting pregnant for various
00:37:49.640reasons i will talk about in the marie antoinette episode and it was really affecting her emotionally
00:37:54.520and then she's like her sister-in-law gave birth and then she like you know she was there watching
00:37:59.640it because she had to because that was the etiquette and then there's courtiers in the0.53
00:38:03.380hallway and also like market ladies from paris had come up just like tourists and as marie antoinette0.99
00:38:08.720publicly had to walk from this room where she watched a baby being born into her room people
00:38:13.540are heckling her they're just like when are you gonna have a baby right you're going through
00:38:17.440these extremely emotional like let's say i'll call infertility but it's not really that but
00:38:22.620it kind of is but like she feels like it is but there's no there's no privacy and you're going
00:38:28.460through these like extreme emotional moments the same as like i'm just picturing princess diana
00:38:31.900you know walking down the street and she's crying and i was like why are you crying diana like
00:38:35.240it's just like all of your problems were so like the fact that she has this little escape like this
00:38:41.080is where else could she go to do this it's like it makes all of the sense to me that you do this
00:38:45.780I'm very defensive of Marie Antoinette as you can tell but because I know people's like oh she wanted
00:38:50.320to like play act of being a shepherdess and she's so out of touch it's just like can she have five
00:38:55.160minutes to herself like yeah so the palace is separate I will say from the hamo de la brin
00:39:02.400the little village that she ends up building. And I'm sure you'll talk about that in that
00:39:05.880episode. But so eventually I think people know about Marie Antoinette. She kind of play acts
00:39:10.600this very clean girl version of poverty and like farming life, provincial life in France.0.98
00:39:19.020And that kind of happens in the grounds of the Petit Trianon as well. So she doesn't,0.90
00:39:22.660she doesn't have to go off site, but she can, in the Sofia Coppola movie, there's a great shot of
00:39:27.120like a servant picking up an egg, cleaning it, and then putting it back so that Marie Antoinette0.56
00:50:31.620and we're back which is interesting because yeah like it's a nice marriage he doesn't have a
00:50:37.380mistress isn't that nice but it's like it meant that once madame du Barry was off the scene like
00:50:42.620she got all of the hate um and then when she was gone it's like well there's not another woman
00:50:47.280there's not a scapegoat so then Marie Antoinette gets it which other queens didn't but this is
00:50:51.060where I wanted to talk about exactly what I just said so like rumors develop because they're on
00:50:55.760petite tree now no one knows what's going on and she's so close but people like there's rumors that
00:51:00.160the two of them are lovers but it's in the terms of like queer history it's not like we can talk
00:51:07.580about it seriously and i want to but also it's like isn't she monstrous like this is a rumor0.62
00:51:12.520that's not meant to be like oh are they lovers it's just kind of like we hate marie antoinette
00:51:16.640and look how unnatural she is quote unquote like that's where the rumors are coming from not a
00:51:21.220place of like we actually think they're lovers it's like let's just be smirk her name absolutely1.00
00:51:25.840And because she's pissing people off at court, she's also attracting a lot of criticism for spending lavishly, which I don't think was a fair criticism.1.00
00:51:38.520She spent less in, I think, 10 years than certain royal mistresses of the past had spent in one year.0.83
00:51:44.980It was like a figure that was given at some point.
00:51:47.060Well, and I saw also, in terms of the time period we're looking at, this is like the 1770s.
00:51:51.020The American Revolution is happening and France is helping out.
00:51:53.940so it's like compared to how much money are they spending on the war it's like of the annual budget
00:51:59.720or whatever Marie Antoinette's expenses for it was something like seven percent of all the money
00:52:03.360spent was her stuff like yeah other things cost a lot more than her outfits but you have to have1.00
00:52:08.900that scapegoat right so she's she's robbing people the wrong way in every direction it's the people0.98
00:52:15.040of France it's the people of Versailles she also has I'm not trying to victim blame here but she
00:52:19.600did have this kind of like aloof demeanor. She was kind of above it all. And people took this
00:52:26.660as her being like self-centered. I want to say, um, yeah, just from what I've been reading,
00:52:31.600she had a resting bitch face and she did. It's like, um, she had this, like, because of her1.00
00:52:38.220Habsburg, um, Marie Internet's like Habsburg lineage. She was not as nowhere near as inbred0.67
00:52:43.380as a lot of other Habsburg you're thinking about, but you know, there's a Habsburg jaw1.00
00:52:46.240yeah like those you see the spanish like extremely in red people and like they couldn't0.97
00:52:50.220close and there's like a hapsburg lip too that's what she has she has yeah so she had this kind of0.99
00:52:54.580like pouting lower lip which is like she is like so when she wasn't smiling like she had sort of1.00
00:53:02.600like a long nose and this kind of pouting lip so just she had resting like snob face like whether0.82
00:53:08.220or not that's what she was like and we can talk about that but like she just looked like she just
00:53:13.160had a face I'm trying to think of someone who's like this kind of like Gwyneth Paltrow like you
00:53:16.700just oh you just look like a snobby person or Anya Taylor-Joy is another one I kind of think of
00:53:21.300yeah yeah like there's some people who are just like and maybe like so it's interesting in
00:53:25.600portraits I was reading a whole book about like how she was portrayed and you're you know about
00:53:28.860art history but in portraits they never painted her in profile because her profile is where it
00:53:34.300really becomes apparent she's always face on right but then you see a bust of her and it's
00:53:39.640like oh there it is because you get the 360 so it's like she knew she knew that like because of0.99
00:53:46.120this pouting lip like she kind of had this resting bitch face so people like that and that's just like0.96
00:53:52.460that's just her face but also it's like and she's the queen so it's like oh she's snobby it's like1.00
00:53:56.400girl she has every right to be she's like right why wouldn't she be like she's the queen but and
00:54:01.640so that's yeah that starts to be criticized gabrielle is also catching strays for it because
00:54:06.240she has been given so many honors by Marie Antoinette and it's, we're not done. Like we're
00:54:11.100not done with the titles and honors she's going to be given. And also like the Polignacs in general,0.93
00:54:15.760like this whole family. So I said earlier, like she's not self-promoting, but she is,
00:54:20.980because this is what is expected of you promoting her husband's family. So at a certain point
00:54:25.240she's in, it actually has a name. It's like the private society of the queen. It's like her
00:54:29.680inner, inner circle. At one point, there's no fewer than six people from the Polignac family
00:54:35.560in that inner circle like she's really promoting her husband's family their interests and if you
00:54:41.740take issue with this impoverished noble family getting advanced at court like that's going to
00:54:46.880become more ammunition i want to i want to say we're far enough in this episode that like people
00:54:52.620are only listening for their fans of you and me but i just wanted to like throw some shade on the
00:54:56.600middleton family so this reminds me a bit of just like oh pippa middleton wrote a book oh james
00:55:03.580Middleton wrote a book. It's just like, oh, they're like party favors company got a loan
00:55:07.580from the government. Like this is what it reminds me of where it's just kind of like your connections
00:55:10.860are obviously working for you. Right. But like back home in Buckleberry or wherever they live,
00:55:16.160like the neighbors are going to gossip because the Middleton family has a paved driveway and not a
00:55:21.420gravel driveway. And that's just an indicator that they are middle class, like pretending to be high
00:55:27.820class. Like I find this so interesting. It's like, you have to be in the know to talk smack about
00:55:33.440them, but like, it still happens. I don't know. I find that like fascinating.
00:55:37.520Well, no. And this is exactly, exactly the same thing where it's just like,
00:55:40.520because of a person's connection to the Royal family, then the family gets like some extra
00:55:45.160perks. You know what? Camilla Parker Bowles' son wrote a cookbook or whatever. It's just kind of
00:55:49.140like through, we have the same publisher, by the way, which I love. Yeah. So it's just kind of
00:55:59.120like, we still see this the same now. And I'm sure it's the same and not, you know,
00:56:02.660in other businesses, which is like, God knows, like all the Trump family people who are whatever.
00:56:07.720Like would James Middleton have a dog food brand if his wife wasn't the princess of Wales? I don't
00:56:12.600know. Yeah. I don't know. Oh no. So exactly. So it's like, we, this is just, I'm going to say
00:56:17.780understandable. Like if you're in a position of power and your family needs some help,
00:56:22.100like you're going to help your family. It's how the system works. Absolutely.
00:56:24.800And that's how this, but what this, what's a bending things here is that the Polignacs1.00
00:56:28.780didn't used to be at Versailles at all and now they're like getting they're all there they're0.98
00:56:33.540all there and they're all getting titles and jobs and yeah because ultimately Gabrielle is just like
00:56:39.220a chill fun person with beautiful eyes yeah yeah but this gets interpreted so if you want to
00:56:45.900criticize the queen you can't do it openly who do you look for the mistress or in this case the
00:56:51.000favorite so the queen and Gabrielle you were alluding to this they become frequent subjects of
00:56:57.860libelous pamphlets. They're fittingly enough called libelles. They flood the streets of Paris.
00:57:05.200Revolutionaries eventually print them to kind of keep people mad at the monarchy. And often,
00:57:11.380it's so interesting, the queen and Gabrielle are painted as lesbian lovers. So there is this like
00:57:18.760deep suspicion of homosexuality in France at this time. There's a code word for it. It's called0.86
00:57:24.840the German vice, which is, I think, another stick to beat Marie Antoinette with because she's0.86
00:57:29.880Austrian. Yeah. Austrian, yeah. Austrian, German. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the rumors that she and1.00
00:57:35.960Gabrielle are lesbian lovers, sometimes to a pornographic level, like there's pictures of
00:57:42.380them, there's prints of them like naked embracing. It's to another level, but it's all kind of code0.97
00:57:49.580for the vices of the monarchy the excesses the sin that the monarchy apparently gets up to it's
00:57:57.900it's very interesting like layered discussion I personally don't think it was about like
00:58:05.500Gabrielle as a person her actual relationship with the queen even though they did have like a
00:58:10.680very intense relationship friendship there are letters between them that are like very flowery
00:58:16.960because that's how you wrote at the time there was one where maria internet writes to her like
00:58:21.200only death can stop me loving you but like i think that's just gals being pals like i don't know at0.94
00:58:28.760the time there was a way to be friends with a woman and like write that i forget i forget who
00:58:34.420it was but there was a popular novel of around this time that was about passionate female
00:58:39.200friendship and so everybody was just kind of like that is what i'm gonna be like abusive
00:58:42.740like very flowery language yeah yeah so there is I actually really appreciate in um Antonio
00:58:48.720Frazier's biography of Marie Antoinette which is the one that was developed into the Sofia Coppola
00:58:53.300film which is one of the more sympathetic portrayals of Marie Antoinette right I appreciated
00:58:57.500Dame Antonio Frazier this like elderly British person she's like yeah these were all libels but0.99
00:59:04.080she acknowledged that like queer people now find like they like to look at this and like see this0.82
00:59:10.660is maybe queer history and like so there's nothing incorrect about having that about looking back at
00:59:16.560this and like you know looking at this and like imagining that they were lovers like this but
00:59:20.760it's just like what if what if yeah but like the the pamphlets at the time weren't saying like we
00:59:26.380think they are lovers it was just kind of like look we want to make you hate marie antoinette
00:59:30.900because she is emblematic of the monarchy and this is a thing that people hate so we're going
00:59:35.940to say that she is doing this thing yeah it was more about like look what she gets up to in secret
00:59:41.120with her close group of friends who are corrupting the nation like that's more of what the tone was
00:59:46.440supposed to be rather than like actually exposing something actually happening at Versailles so yeah
00:59:52.680I think it's important to like underline that just that distinction and then if you want to go from
00:59:57.540there and look at their relationship like go for it I would love scholarship on that to happen but
01:00:02.700it's more likely than not that they like were not lovers well and this is where like again it's not
01:00:09.120just because I'm talking to you that I keep bringing up the British royal family but it's
01:00:11.740kind of like it's if there actually were insiders they would be like what's going on with Marie
01:00:16.720Antoinette and this Swedish count who retroactively Axel von Fersen like every book I read was like
01:00:24.500yeah Marie Antoinette was probably lovers with this guy nobody at the time was suspecting them
01:00:30.400at all. So it's like, if you actually knew what was going on the inside, you'd be talking about
01:00:34.660Axel von Fursen. You wouldn't be talking about Polignac. Like that's people who are guessing.
01:00:38.380That's not people who know what's happening. And Gabrielle herself, I don't know if,
01:00:43.500do you want to talk about her alleged affair? Uh, please. No, you, you can explain, but because
01:00:48.360this is like, it's, it's such a weird thing to me. French culture at this time was just kind of like
01:00:53.440people got married, but people had lovers. And that was kind of like just what you did. And that
01:00:58.320was not. So to be like, Oh, the French Royal family, like they're so like, look at all these
01:01:02.960excesses, but like people, everyone had lovers and it's just like, everyone was married. It's
01:01:07.560like the dangerous marriage was a prerequisite to falling in love. Like you had to be married to
01:01:11.840have to take a lover to, to find a person you actually got along with. It's like you get
01:01:17.080married so that when you have a baby, you can say, Oh yeah, it's totally my husband's baby.
01:01:19.680Like you just have to have a husband. Right, right, right, right. So yeah. So that does come
01:01:23.300up with Gabrielle. I forgot she had a husband, but yeah. Yeah. She does have a husband. They0.76
01:01:27.880like i think they work very well together but it's never described as like a love match it's
01:01:31.440not a passionate marriage even though they do have at least three children together the fourth
01:01:36.300child is speculated to be the son of the rakish joseph hyacinth francois de paul de rigo count
01:01:45.680de vadriel vadroy what do we call him paul i don't know i guess vadroy is like how people
01:01:52.980we'll call him joseph i like that he is i didn't read anything about him i like that he's rakish
01:01:57.940i'm picturing every romance novel that's like the rake the rake who loved me whatever it's like
01:02:02.800good for you gabrielle yeah so he's he's described as like a scoundrel he um so this is jumping
01:02:09.760forward a little bit to 1780 ish that's when gabrielle's youngest son is born vajroy joseph
01:02:15.760he was born in the west indies actually his mother was an aristocratic white creole woman
01:02:22.980His father was the French governor of the island.
01:02:25.840So like he's, yes, Creole, but he's also white.0.76
01:02:29.300And he enters the French army at the age of 19.
01:02:32.500He serves in the Seven Years' War as a staff officer.
01:02:35.700And then when the war ends, he moves to Paris.
01:02:39.900He serves as the captain of the guards,
01:02:42.020like the closest group of guards working for the king.
01:02:46.060So this would bring him into contact with the queen and Gabrielle.
01:02:49.880He was also Gabrielle's distant cousin.
01:02:52.980not everyone's cousins there's a rumor that they were actually supposed to be the ones getting
01:02:58.960married at a certain point when they were like very young but this is a story i don't think it's
01:03:03.760true the rumor is joseph refused after seeing her in a convent and not thinking she was pretty
01:03:10.300enough girl that's not true it can't be true right no one would think that of her elizabeth taylor
01:03:15.140people say like it was when she was really young because when she got older he saw her again and
01:03:20.160drastically, like did a 180, changed his mind, but she was already married to Jules. So that's
01:03:25.180the story anyway. He is also friends with Artois. So he has an in with this inner circle and he and
01:03:30.560Gabrielle become very friendly. Like that's for certain. He ends up having a little bit of
01:03:37.040influence with the inner circle at court, but he's also controversial and he is seen
01:03:42.260as this like very uncouth social climber. So Gabrielle and her husband, they are social
01:03:49.120climbing, but they're not like engineering it. It's just kind of happening to them because
01:03:53.720they're nice people. Vudroy, Joseph, he is given a lot of like flack for being very ambitious.
01:04:00.220You can't want it too badly at Versailles. Like that's another part of it.
01:04:04.320That's so funny because like literally everybody, everybody at Versailles is ambitious,
01:04:09.060but you can't, but you have to hide it. Yeah. Right. So he is said to have like a really bad
01:04:14.500temper as well there is a story that he once broke one of marie antoinette's ivory billiard
01:04:20.140cues in a fit of rage so apparently he has a temper and he and gabrielle they do become buddy
01:04:26.360buddy at a certain point and this it's speculated that they were lovers but like there's not a lot
01:04:32.680of contemporary evidence like people are not like you said they're not writing about them
01:04:36.760having an affair antonia fraser does think that it was probably true that they were lovers
01:04:44.480And she agrees that Joseph most likely was the father of Gabrielle's youngest son, who was born in 1780. His name is, oh, I don't know. I didn't write it down.
01:04:58.140But then there are other people who say like, it's probably not likely, since he's not a discreet person and he is social climbing, the fact that he never like brags about being in a relationship with Gabrielle might be evidence that it wasn't actually happening.
01:05:14.480There's also evidence that he, and this is fun,
01:13:47.180They couldn't be at Versailles anymore.
01:13:49.140And so after this bankruptcy, the position is vacant.0.99
01:13:52.720So rather than kind of revisiting the social hierarchy, Marie Antoinette looks at this job,0.98
01:13:58.140which the job is to oversee a staff of over 100 courtiers and servants who take care of the royal children.0.96
01:14:05.520So she's not necessarily the person like sitting down to teach the children, but she is like in charge of their household.0.56
01:14:12.700Marie Antoinette looks at the job and she's like, I'm obviously going to give it to my bestie.
01:14:16.180Like the person who knows me the best, knows what I want for my children the best, probably knows the children really well because she's around all the time.
01:14:23.720She was there when I gave birth to my children.0.99
01:14:26.140So she gives this job to Gabrielle, ultimately just generating more outrage for the Polignac family at court.0.98
01:14:32.360even though she has this long lineage it wasn't the correct lineage to be in a job of that much0.90
01:14:38.480importance she like specifically had not been born into the line of succession
01:14:43.220for royal governess which is just an insane statement but like that's how the people of
01:14:48.840Versailles felt and it was also if you want to criticize Marie Antoinette well Marie Antoinette
01:14:54.060she's depriving a very deserving noble family of what they are owed but like from Marie's
01:15:01.200standpoint she probably wanted the person in charge of her children's welfare to like
01:15:05.100be a person she liked and trusted i don't know it's just like messy like gambling den
01:15:09.960madame that's insane right isn't that crazy because like i was thinking oh well it must
01:15:14.420have been if people were mad at gabrielle de polignac like they must have thought she wasn't0.77
01:15:18.980right for the job because of her lifestyle no it was purely like hypocritical in nature because it
01:15:25.600was just about the title it was just about the position it's um and it's like such a position0.75
01:15:30.000So she gets a 13-room apartment in the Palace of Versailles.
01:15:35.020The size of this apartment was unprecedented.
01:16:24.440So she's also given near the Petit Trianon, we talked about the Hemo de Lorraine, the village, the Queen's village. She's given her own little cottage there. So she's even closer to Marie, like wherever she goes, there Gabrielle also is. So this is great for her. She has so much access. She is so influential over how the royal family's like inner circle operates.
01:16:47.840And I don't think that's like a bad thing. I think it's just, she's a trustworthy friend. She's in charge with the education of the children. She supervises various deputies and under governesses and her household like consists of dozens of servants and then the caregivers of the children. So there's like a lot of responsibility in this role as well. So it's not like, I don't know. It wasn't just favoritism. Like she must have done a good job.
01:17:15.860In terms of, I'm going to talk next week about the third member of this friend group, the princess of Lambal, but she was given the job of head of the household.
01:17:23.620So which was an equivalently intense position overseeing like hundreds of people as well.0.64
01:17:28.940Like, so Marie Antoinette was just finding ways.
01:17:30.620She's just like, I want people who I like and trust to have these.
01:17:33.860But then it's like you're overseeing all these people who are all mad at you and think you shouldn't have this job, which would make it a bit more challenging.
01:17:40.180There was also like a manual for this job.
01:17:42.480It has a very long French title, but it's like an official court document.
01:17:45.860that includes the etiquette, the ceremonial role, and the daily responsibilities of the
01:17:50.600royal governess. And it also like contains lists of like the inventories of the children's
01:17:56.860households. So like there is like, this is an official court position. This is like,
01:18:02.000there's a lot of responsibility riding on it. And I don't blame Marie Antoinette one bit for like,
01:18:08.120I don't know, almost paring back the officialness of the role and handing it to somebody who like
01:18:13.720she liked and who liked her children but yeah so at this time gabrielle's fortunes like0.97
01:18:19.000she's pretty much as high as she's gonna go um she does due to this alleged relationship with
01:18:25.900joseph her possibly lover most likely just like good friend marie antonette is said to not like0.81
01:18:33.220him very much so she starts to kind of rub marie antonette the wrong way around like 1782
01:18:41.040Marie Antoinette is recorded as like kind of cooling on Gabrielle a little bit becoming a
01:18:48.380little bit disillusioned like I've given you so much and like still you're pushing like your
01:18:53.180family you're pushing this guy that I don't really like so she like at a certain point
01:18:59.420goes to England for a little bit like she's just like let's just give herself some space
01:19:04.440right like we need a friend break like it's okay she goes and she stays with Georgina the0.62
01:19:09.480Duchess of Devonshire. Oh my God. One day we'll do an episode about the Duchess of Devonshire
01:19:14.300because she is a fascinating person with some incredible hats. Um, but yeah, yeah, she, um,0.99
01:19:22.100was kind of part of their larger friend circle somehow this like English Duchess. Yeah. So she0.97
01:19:27.320just like goes to England to hang out and this is like, we're getting, it's the mid 1780s. So
01:19:31.360it's not like the French revolution where people are like escaping to England. This is just kind
01:19:35.720of like, let's just have a cute little visit. Like, let's just hang with my friend. Like,
01:19:39.080let's just have some space between me. I'll talk about this more in the, in next week's episode
01:19:43.480about the princess of Lambelle, but like these three women, like Marie Antoinette really liked
01:19:47.660princess of Lambelle. She really liked Gabrielle. The two of those, those two did not like each
01:19:53.100other at all. So it's not like a happy trio. So it's kind of like when one of them, Marie Antoinette
01:19:58.840likes better than the other one kind of fades away. It's kind of like one or the other. So
01:20:02.660this is like a Lambelle era happening right now. Yeah. But they like both had their, I hate to say0.94
01:20:07.360like uses but like gabrielle she's the fun friend she is really good at social engineering and then
01:20:14.120lamb ball i'm sure you're going to talk about like she's just chill she's just nice she's just like a
01:20:19.080a nice fun friend to have around like she's gonna compliment you she's gonna like let you be the
01:20:25.280star and then gabrielle is like your friend you want to take to the masked ball like there's
01:20:30.580different situations where you would want to have one of them around but you maybe don't need both
01:20:35.360of them at the same time. So she's, she's in England and we don't, do you know much about
01:20:38.540what she got up to there or just kind of like hanging out? Yeah, she's hanging out. She's
01:20:41.760visiting friends. There's, um, she gets a nickname in England. They call her little Poe. So she's
01:20:47.780the Duchess of Polignac. They call her little Poe because she apparently has a delicate constitution.1.00
01:20:53.220So this is the first like inkling that maybe she's not completely physically healthy. Some
01:20:59.020people speculate she had cancer later on or was suffering from consumption tuberculosis over this
01:21:06.160period so this is like the first instance where that kind of pops up but yeah she gets this like
01:21:10.620diminutive nickname little poe which i think is cute but like kind of sad but yeah so she just
01:21:18.240kind of is a way for i don't have anything in my notes about what happens between that and just
01:21:22.300like the french revolution do you know a little bit so she um she does come back to france she
01:21:27.400Marie Antoinette are good even Joseph the guy that she's like allegedly in a relationship with
01:21:33.220like he makes out pretty well even though like his relationship with Gabrielle cools off once
01:21:38.720she realizes like oh Marie doesn't like this guy like she doesn't like me when he's around
01:21:44.080he secures a position as the grand falconer of France. Wait this is him the the lover? Yeah
01:21:51.400the lover allegedly the grand falconer so he's in charge of the falcon presumably like if you go
01:21:58.220out hunting he's the guy in charge of the birds um so he gets a pension of 30 000 livra i guess
01:22:04.520per year or is that maybe one time i don't know but he gets this job and he kind of just like
01:22:09.160goes off to live his life so he's out of the picture now maybe that indicates that gabrielle
01:22:14.940like valued her friendship with marie antoinette more than she ever did this guy so it was even if
01:22:19.360they were in love like it wasn't a blinding passion he was she was not going to risk her
01:22:24.100friendship with the queen she was not going to risk her position at court and i mentioned like
01:22:28.920there were rumors that her youngest son was her lover joseph's king louis the 16th actually like
01:22:34.580makes a point of visiting the youngest the baby his household to squash the rumors because
01:22:41.520if the king's visiting acknowledging you like obviously nothing can be fishy about this
01:22:46.380That didn't really stop the rumors and the whispers about her, but like it's it's small potatoes compared like with what's coming and with the libels about the lesbian relationship. Right. So, yeah.0.64
01:22:57.560So at this time, the pamphlets about the queen and Gabrielle possibly being lovers are like ramping up. So she's back at court, but it's never really the same as it was before she left for England.
01:23:10.180And Marie Antoinette starts to feel like she's perceiving too much backlash over her friendship with Gabrielle.
01:23:18.160She apparently confides to one of her other courtiers at a certain point that she's suffering acute dissatisfaction because of her relationship with Gabrielle.
01:23:28.460And so this isn't necessarily because they've had a falling out, but because Marie realizes people, she finally catches on to like people being unhappy that she has raised Gabrielle up so high.
01:23:40.180um, her, the, the woman in her household, Madame Kempon, who writes a bunch of memoirs about her
01:23:45.740time working for Marie Antoinette. She writes, her majesty observed to me that when a sovereign
01:23:50.700raises up favorites in court, she raises up despots against herself. So it's like you raise
01:23:56.740one person up and you make yourself a bunch of enemies. So it better be worth it. So this is the
01:24:02.260time she kind of goes to England. She comes back and when she comes back, yeah, the revolution is
01:24:07.160really ramping up so yeah she's coming back in um i'm not sure what the year is specifically but
01:24:14.160just kind of like we're in the late 17 i don't know if it's literally 1789 but she comes back
01:24:17.960and it's just kind of like i've done a gazillion episodes about like the french revolution itself
01:24:21.660but just kind of like for all the reasons i talked about in numerous episodes things are getting
01:24:25.820pretty bad for a girl marie antonette and so gabrielle is just like i need to be there with
01:24:30.340my friend i don't know like she's just there to try to help out i don't know or provide it's like
01:24:34.500chillness. Also, she's very central to royalist scheming. She and Artois kind of take over
01:24:43.440because the king and queen, they got a lot on their plates, right? If there are any pro-monarchy
01:24:49.080plots happening, Gabrielle and Artois are kind of the ones behind them. She even is said to have
01:24:57.200persuaded Marie Antoinette to work against Jacques Necker, who is the minister of finances
01:25:03.400that the public loves and the king ultimately dismisses and it's his dismissal that culminates
01:25:10.100in the attack on the Bastille so like Gabrielle is one of the people advising like literally
01:25:15.560advising Marie Antoinette who in turn advises the king so she really kind of does have this
01:25:19.680royal mistress role in that way she's like whispering in Marie's ear and then Marie is
01:25:24.100going to the king with all of these ideas of how to how to deal with the budding revolution
01:25:29.040this is her like it's not good for her it's not good for her and so the Bastille stormed and she's
01:25:35.960just like oh that did not go well let's there are literally out France there are effigies of the
01:25:42.300Duchess of Polignac being burned in September 1788 so before the Bastille like the public has
01:25:48.560already turned against her and yeah it's finally clear to her like oh this is not going to go well
01:25:54.560for us. This is not going to go well for me. So she is one of the first courtiers to actually
01:25:59.100flee from Versailles. She leaves on July 16th, 1789. So what is that? Two days after the best
01:26:05.080deal. Yeah. Right, right, right, right. And in fact, all of the members of her husband's family
01:26:10.540that had been at court went with her into exile. So she was actually part of a group that Louis
01:26:16.140the 16th arranged to leave court. The Comte d'Artois also left at this time. Gabrielle went
01:26:23.100with her family to Switzerland. And at this time, she still keeps in contact with Marie Antoinette,
01:26:28.020even though she's moving around. So she starts in Switzerland with her family. They travel through
01:26:33.460Austria, Italy. They eventually settle, I think, Switzerland, Turin, Rome, Venice. Then they end up
01:26:41.360in Vienna. So it's kind of like the last stop for them. It takes them a while to settle. But all the
01:26:47.260while, she's writing letters to Marie Antoinette, which is kind of how historians can trace
01:26:51.540where the Poliniac family went after they left Versailles because of where these letters are
01:26:55.980being sent from. So she's, I'm just trying to put the math together. So like her child,
01:27:00.380she's like adult children at this point, because like she had her children like the 1770s. Now
01:27:04.340it's like 17, like she attended like the wedding of one of her children. Like they are.
01:27:08.020Yes. Yeah. Um, the children are going to like live on and actually eventually go back to France.
01:27:13.960Her oldest son becomes a minister. Spoiler alert. When Artois becomes king, he's like
01:27:20.960charles the 10th or something like that after the restoration so yeah they're they're doing okay but
01:27:27.720gabrielle is not doing okay she's this illness whatever it is it's just like exacerbating
01:27:32.840she's sick and she misses the queen marie antoinette is writing to her expressing how
01:27:37.340much she misses gabrielle she writes her adieu dearest of friends the word is awful but i must
01:27:43.280say it i have only strength enough to send you my love so that's the queen writing to gabrielle
01:27:48.340So she's, she's very, very, she's just miserable.1.00
01:30:23.280So the Monegasque royal family is descended through Gabrielle Dupolignac.
01:30:27.360so that's the monaco like the grace kelly monaco royal family yeah yep isn't that cool well just
01:30:33.080grace kelly is another person who had that sort of like just beauty and kind of like chill but
01:30:38.400sort of like aristocratic looking sort of vibes i mean on the surface grace kelly like famously0.88
01:30:44.560was known as like a good time if you were going to go on a date with her in hollywood but then0.99
01:30:50.720she transformed her image into like yeah the perfect polished princess which i love so you're
01:30:55.580promote this podcast and what we do at the end of these biographical episodes, which is we need to
01:30:59.500score Gabrielle in four categories. So the first one is, and this is going to be a really interesting
01:31:05.120discussion, I think, because the first category is scandalousness. How scandalous was she seen0.97
01:31:09.360at the time? And it's like, to you and me, it's just like, well, she was just living within this
01:31:13.700world and she was kind of behaving with the ambition anyone else would. But to the people
01:31:18.820in Versailles, she's very scandalous. To the people of Paris, she was very scandalous. But
01:31:22.520like was she compared to other people of the time? I don't know. Do we give her like a differential
01:31:28.540because of the magnifying glass that's on her? Like, like is her score weighted? Like as if0.98
01:31:34.160she's taking an AP course in scandalousness because of how intense the scrutiny of her was?
01:31:40.020I think, yeah. Cause you have to look at the scandalousness in the context of where she's1.00
01:31:43.420living and how her behavior would be perceived. And she was living in Versailles. And so her0.98
01:31:47.380behavior was, I do think we've been a magnifying glass on it. Like stuff that would not be
01:31:51.040scandalous in another context. Like even just getting a job was seen as scandalous because
01:31:55.300she was putting people out of a job and she was upending the whole social system.1.00
01:31:59.720I would give her, I want to say an eight. It's probably like a six, five or a seven, but1.00
01:32:05.100under that lens, I would say an eight. I think an eight just for what, I mean,
01:32:09.840it was a context where it's just like, oh my God, you like did curtsy number six instead of
01:32:13.480curtsy number seven to that person's wife. Like apocalypse. You sat on a chair that had a back
01:32:18.280and you are not in the Royal family. Exactly. So in a context where that sort of stuff is like
01:32:22.520such scandal, the fact that she like got these jobs and is doing all this stuff. It's just like,
01:32:27.360this is it kind of, and that's not even like the lesbian rumors are in there for sure. But like,
01:32:33.220that's the least of my concerns. The chair setting is really it. Um, then interestingly,
01:32:39.860the next category is the scheminess. Yeah. And I don't, you know, it's like,
01:32:44.340we were talking about like these things, like they were sort of being elevated and that was
01:32:48.100kind of just, it was happening to them. Like she wasn't like a Madame du Berry who like worked her
01:32:53.200way in there and like figured out how to do it. But it's like, there is some level of subtle
01:32:57.840scheminess to achieve what she achieved. There's almost like two types of scheminess for Gabrielle
01:33:03.780de Polignac. There's the personal scheminess, which I don't think was necessarily there because
01:33:08.260remember she declined. Like it's almost like an Anne Boleyn refusing to marry Henry VIII. I don't
01:33:13.480think that was because she was being schemey. I think it was because she didn't want to marry1.00
01:33:17.140him. So she went home, right. She declined to move to Versailles because she couldn't afford it.
01:33:22.480Yeah. Right. Um, but then there's also when she is in the inner circle, she is advancing people.
01:33:28.640She is, I mean, Royalist monarchist plots at the beginning of the revolution have her name
01:33:34.100all over them. I would say maybe a five, like to balance those two things. Yeah. Yeah. Because she
01:33:42.180was, she wasn't, you know, she's not like Catherine de Medici, like going out there and0.91
01:33:46.240She's like scheming hard, but there aren't stories of her like deposing enemies or like putting other people down to ensure her own rise.
01:33:54.280It's like just she was really nice to Marie Antoinette and for that reason got advanced.
01:34:00.680And then within that context, like and that's why she was able to stay in the position she was and to achieve what she did for her family was because she was smart enough to know you can't scheme hard in this situation.
01:34:14.940um her significance and this would be like to history both to to events of the time and i don't
01:34:22.420know like she's always in a marie internet movie but like the average person on the street is not
01:34:26.600going to be like oh yes of course like she's not oh the rose burn character got it but the
01:34:32.400revolutionaries were burning her in effigy so that's pretty significant yeah and she was in
01:34:36.700like people knew who she was like she was in all of these libells and stuff like she was
01:34:41.580the significance of her as the person who got all these favors and these jobs and this money like
01:34:48.380that she was like a linchpin yeah it was like one of many specific things people could point to to
01:34:54.300say like here's how corrupt marie antoinette is like liquid like i kind of go off of in something0.88
01:35:00.140like the antonia frazier book like how long is your index section let me look i mean she's got1.00
01:35:06.320a good, like two and a half inch long section in the index. I don't know. I would say maybe like0.79
01:35:14.200a six. Yeah. I was thinking like five, six, let's do it. But am I biased? I'm going to say 5.5.
01:35:20.940Cause I was thinking like maybe a five, like there's certainly something there. And then
01:35:24.780cause the final category is the sexism bonus. How much, if at all, did the patriarchy hold her back?1.00
01:35:31.140And I don't think this is going to be a high number because I think she was not someone in our discussion or in my reading about her who I saw struggling to achieve more than she wound up achieving.
01:35:43.300You know, I think she was kind of like she went to school.