
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, October 16, 1993                   TAG: 9310160065
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PARIS                                LENGTH: Short

WAS MARIE-ANTOINETTE SO BAD?

Two hundred years after losing her head for her lavishness, some French wonder whether Marie-Antoinette was that awful.

The queen's callous response to the news that the masses had no bread - "Let them eat cake!" - epitomized the aristocratic excesses that helped lead to the French Revolution.

But maybe she didn't say it after all, her defenders suggest. And maybe financing the American Revolution did more to bankrupt France than her opulence, they say.

A recent poll indicates the French are split on whether Marie-Antoinette should have been guillotined. The 37-year-old queen was executed on Oct. 16, 1793, in the Place de la Concorde, for treason, meddling in government affairs and causing France's financial collapse.

Witnesses at her trial, armed mainly with vicious rumor, accused her of lavish feasts and orgies, wearing 160 dresses a year, incest with her son, lesbianism and sending a fortune to her brother, Austrian emperor Joseph II.

The 200th anniversary of her execution is being marked by nostalgic royalists and a powerful play that draws on transcripts and documents to re-enact her trial.

by CNB