Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Size did matter to Marie-Antoinette
The Observer (U.K.) | 08/04/2002 | Paul Webster

Posted on 08/03/2002 5:14:59 PM PDT by Pokey78

One of the underlying causes of the French Revolution, the disastrous marriage between Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, has been brought down to size by a meticulous investigation into the royal couple's sexual incompatibility. Put simply, the king was endowed with a ' bracquemart assez considérable' - a rather large penis - and Marie-Antoinette suffered from a condition known in the court as ' l'étroitesse du chemin', a narrow vagina, that made her frigid.

The research by Simone Bertière, a specialist in the lives of France's seventeenth and eighteenth-century queens, shatters the myth of a semi-impotent, foppish king, and a sluttish queen, favourite targets of scurrilous pamphlets that inflamed the mobs of 1789. It also undermines the most influential biography of Marie-Antoinette, written by Stefan Zweig in Vienna in 1932 after he discovered uncensored correspondence between the queen and her domineering mother, the Empress Marie-Theresa.

'Since then, the presumed impotence of Louis and his cowardice in refusing an operation to correct a small physical malformation have been accepted as a matter of fact, sufficient to explain the queen's neurotic instability,' Bertière said, commenting on her 700-page biography, Marie-Antoinette, l'insoumise (the rebel). 'But Zweig did not compare these letters with those sent by the Hapsburg ambassador to the empress which leave no doubt at all that Louis XVI did not suffer from malformation.'

It was not until seven years after marrying Louis XV's orphaned grandson, then the Dauphin, at Versailles in 1770 that Marie-Antoinette, 'a little girl paralysed by terror', lost her virginity. From the first fruitless night the physiological realities which, according to Bertière, nineteenth and twentieth-century historians glossed over, were the object of intense court records, letters and diplomatic exchanges that described their sexual characteristics in detail. But despite the opinion of surgeons that the couple dodged conjugal activity because it was too painful for both of them, Louis's mother-in-law empress insisted that the problem lay wholly with her son-in-law's inadequate penis.

'I refuse to believe that it is my daughter's fault,' the empress wrote to her ambassador at Versailles, maintaining demands for an operation on the king even after several intimate inspections by doctors. They repeatedly said there was no evidence of phimosis, a narrowing of the preputial orifice, a theory that Zweig insisted on after reading nagging letters from the imperial mother-in-law replying to misleading correspondence from her daughter.

Concern at the failure to consummate a marriage, essential for a military alliance between the Bourbons and Hapsburgs, was a matter of recorded clinical analysis from the first weeks. By 1772, Louis XV, notorious for his love life and generous genitalia, tackled his grandson, a virgin at marriage, about his barren union. Louis, then 18, told him that he had tried several times to deflower his wife 'but was always stopped by painful sensations'.

A year later, Louis achieved what was called a 'demi-succès', telling his grandfather that Marie-Antoinette was now 'my wife' after a rare night in the same bed. But she was still considered a virgin in 1777 when Austria's Joseph II, the queen's older brother, questioned the couple about their failure to produce an heir. The Austrian ruler then wrote to his brother Leopold to say that the French king, who succeeded to the throne in 1774, 'had well-conditioned, strong erections and introduced his member, stayed there for two minutes without moving, withdrew without ejaculation, and then, still erect, wished [his wife] good evening. He should be whipped like a donkey to make him discharge in anger'.

Bertiere said that for both king and queen, sex was an 'abominable task' for which the only possible explanation was the physical disparity between them. It was only after more strong words from Joseph II that the unhappy pair conceived a child, a daughter born in 1778, the first of four births, including the future Louis XVII who died as a prisoner in the Temple after his parents were executed in 1793.

Bertière said it would be wrong to blame Marie-Antoinette for sparking off the revolution but 'by her flightiness she hastened the monarchy's discredit'.

'Her conjugal failures, abundantly spread in public, added ridicule to the real virtues of Louis XVI while his complacent attitude towards her completed his reputation for weakness,' the author added.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-49 next last
This might get pulled.
1 posted on 08/03/2002 5:14:59 PM PDT by Pokey78
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
The missing link
2 posted on 08/03/2002 5:15:29 PM PDT by Pokey78
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
This might get pulled.

That's what she said.

3 posted on 08/03/2002 5:24:15 PM PDT by TrappedInLiberalHell
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
The French are such liars.
4 posted on 08/03/2002 5:25:33 PM PDT by ValerieUSA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
king was endowed with a ' bracquemart assez considérable' - a rather large penis - and Marie-Antoinette suffered from a condition known in the court as ' l'étroitesse du chemin', a narrow vagina, that made her frigid.

Clinton is calling Doris Kearns Goodwin as we speak!

5 posted on 08/03/2002 5:27:35 PM PDT by operation clinton cleanup
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
Yep, this is definately a historical piece of fictional crap that my kids should know.

But hey!

Let's dig them up and find out...
6 posted on 08/03/2002 5:28:48 PM PDT by Vidalia
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
I read that Louis needed to have a circumcision in order to have children.
7 posted on 08/03/2002 5:33:17 PM PDT by Styria
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78; beowolf; ofMagog; Billie; Fred Mertz; COB1; Snow Bunny; Scuttlebutt
I refuse to comment after my comments on the other thread dealing with this!

Is this a case of the princess and the pea squash?

8 posted on 08/03/2002 5:33:48 PM PDT by razorback-bert
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Styria
I read that Louis needed to have a circumcision in order to have children.

In that case, off with his head!!

9 posted on 08/03/2002 5:36:08 PM PDT by Jonah Hex
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: operation clinton cleanup
Clinton was unendowed
10 posted on 08/03/2002 5:37:05 PM PDT by woofie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Jonah Hex
ooooo that was bad.... LOL!
11 posted on 08/03/2002 5:37:49 PM PDT by listenhillary
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
They were common folks after ALL.
12 posted on 08/03/2002 5:38:41 PM PDT by billhilly
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
INT. COCKTAIL PARTY. SMALLTALK AMONGST THE GUESTS.

GUEST #1: So what sort of research are you doing?

BERTIERE: For the past several years I've been researching whether the friction between Louis XVI's enormous penis and Marie-Antoinette's extraordinarily small vagina is the underlying reason for the French Revolution.

GUEST #1 FAINTS TO THE FLOOR.

13 posted on 08/03/2002 5:39:21 PM PDT by rabidralph
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
At last, news you can use.
14 posted on 08/03/2002 5:39:55 PM PDT by gcruse
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
Put simply, the king was endowed with a ' bracquemart assez considérable' - a rather large penis

Oui. But which way did it point?

15 posted on 08/03/2002 5:42:14 PM PDT by jackbill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: woofie
Clinton was unendowed

James Carville didnt seem to mind.

16 posted on 08/03/2002 5:44:21 PM PDT by operation clinton cleanup
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
...why is this news...,why do I have to know about one's king schlong size including his queen beaver size...dude get back on the medicine, it shows you just missed it!
17 posted on 08/03/2002 5:46:05 PM PDT by danmar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
Don't tell me Louis was a Pokey78
18 posted on 08/03/2002 5:46:45 PM PDT by ValerieUSA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
And you wonder why men don't want to commit. I mean, would you buy a pair of shoes without trying them on? Cringing, awaiting a firestorm
19 posted on 08/03/2002 5:54:43 PM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ValerieUSA
HA!
20 posted on 08/03/2002 5:56:37 PM PDT by Pokey78
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-49 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson