The Queen – A Middle–Class Tragedy: The Writing of History and the Creation of Myths in Nineteenth–Century France and Germany

Abstract

This article is an interpretation of historical narratives written by nineteenth–century German and French historians (among them Johann Gustav Droysen and Jules Michelet) about the French Revolution and the biographies of notable queens. Central to this historical narrative are Marie–Antoinette of France, Louise, queen of Prussia, and Elizabeth, empress of Austria. The text is concerned with the process of transforming the executed queen of ancien régime France into the image of the nineteenth–century bourgeois ideal of women and monarchy. Thus the essay is also about the creation of myths and about male bourgeois and middle–class fantasies.

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