Lettres de Marie-Antoinette (LMA) (2023...)
The project “Letters from Marie-Antoinette” (LMA, for its acronym in French) aims to make an inventory of the active correspondence of Marie-Antoinette, and make it accessible in a digital version. The letters are kept in public collections in France and abroad, as well as in private collections. Some have been published, others remain unpublished.
Since the 18th century, everyone has had an opinion about Marie-Antoinette. She is a controversial figure, sometimes hated, sometimes adored, rarely considered with the hindsight required. Many biographies have been devoted to her. These, when used, are based on the published correspondence, which, unfortunately, is incomplete and sometimes even falsified. Since the late 19th century, publishers of Marie-Antoinette correspondence have willingly deleted or altered entire passages that they deemed unnecessary or compromising. Moreover, because the sources are widely dispersed, despite the large number of existing publications, to date, none can claim to be exhaustive.
The aim of this project is to publish the letters written by Marie-Antoinette (active correspondence), cross-referencing them in a second phase, where possible, with the letters she received (passive correspondence).
Among the numerous sets of letters, we should point out the exchanges between Marie-Antoinette and her original family (with her mother, the Empress Marie-Thérèse, and with her brothers and sisters), regularly used to portray a crown princess and then a queen who remained a Habsburg; official letters, for example, to foreign sovereigns or princes of the Church, showing the duties of a Crown Princess and Queen of France; more personal letters to friends and relatives, including the princesses of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Archduchess’ childhood friends, and to Fersen – recently studied as part of a project supported by the Fondation des Sciences du Patrimoine and based on the Archives nationales de France) – which continue to reveal their secrets and which are also part of a later large set of letters, the political letters (notably to ministers, Ambassador Mercy, the revolutionaries Barnave and Mirabeau) of the revolutionary era. These make it possible to gain a better understanding of the ambitions and limitations of a queen actively engaged in efforts to influence events. Some of these letters are at times coded or redacted, making transcription more difficult.
- Marie-Antoinette, reine de France.
Louise-Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. Oil on canvas, 1788.
Versailles, musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, MV 2097. © Château de Versailles, Dist. RMN / Christophe Fouin.
Partners
Archives nationales autrichiennes (Österreichisches Staats-Archiv)
Archives nationales de France
Centre de recherche du château de Versailles
University of Oxford – Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages
Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership
Team
Isabelle Aristide-Hastir, General Curator, Archives nationales de France
Karin Borgkvist Ljung, Researcher and Palaeographer (Sweden)
Mathieu da Vinha, Scientific Director, Centre de recherche du château de Versailles
Tess Eastgate, PhD student awarded the AHRC OOC DTP scholarship, université d’Oxford/Centre de recherche du château de Versailles
Evelyn Farr, Historian specialising in Marie-Antoinette and her correspondence
Alexandre Maral, Director, Centre de recherche du château de Versailles
Jasmin Oberleitner, Curator, Archives d’État autrichiennes (Habsbourg-Lorraine collections)
Alexandra Pioch, Scientific publications coordinator, Centre de recherche du château de Versailles
Catriona Seth, Professor and Chair of Maréchal Foch, université d’Oxford
Mélanie Traversier, lecturer - accredited to supervise research, université de Lille
Production
Carnet de recherche Hypothèses « LMA – Lettres de Marie-Antoinette »
Production planned
Electronic critical edition of active correspondence from Marie-Antoinette.
