Oh to be Marie Antoinette, pretending to be a simple peasant girl
She's just a simple peasant farm girl, and so am I
The most relatable thing I’ve ever heard about Marie Antoinette, is that she used to enjoy pretending to be a “simple peasant girl.”
When I learned this back in high school history class I remember thinking… I would so have done that if I were a her too.
The melodrama. I just… really related. I wanted to pretend to be a simple peasant girl too, back in simpler times… except I only wanted the aesthetics of it. I wanted the dress. The dirt on my face. The wind in my hair. I wanted maybe an hour or two of farm work, specifically in a period farm dress from 100 years prior, just to feel alive. Then, I wanted to peace out, go sit on the couch, and eat snickerdoodles.
And… this yearning to be a peasant girl in the days of old, is a big reason why I was an actress. Well, it was partially because I’d always been a singer, but also because I got to scratch this itch — the melodrama of the simple peasant girl itch — by doing my little monologues and songs. I channeled this delusional whimsy into acting. And that was that.
Marie channeled her whimsy too.
I was just so struck by how much I related to her melodramatic, romantic spirit. She was … extra, as they say.
She too wanted that faux farm life. And because she had the means to pretend she did not have the means, she made it happen. She had a small, faux “rustic, simple peasant village” built on her grounds, with a working farm. Real servants and farmers would work the farm, and she would go out to spend time in her simple peasant cottage, wearing a muslin dress, and pretend to be a peasant. For fun. She would milk a cow and herd some sheep, and then retire to her cottage. It was rustic on the outside, lavish on the inside… (I would have had mine rustic on the inside too, I don’t know what she was thinking.)
The “hamlet” (a tiny village on the palace grounds) exists, to this day. But there is some dispute over whether she actually did this. But I know she did. You know how I know? Because if I were her, I would have done the exact same thing.
Here it is:
Yes! That’s the cottage! Straight out of Beauty and the Beast! “Madame! Gaston?! Can’t you just seeeee it?!”
I remembered this past time of Marie’s, because just today, as I was lugging my compost outside, I remembered Marie in her little peasant bonnet… and it hit me that every time I lug my bucket of compost from my kitchen, out through the mud to the big compost bin at the back of my yard, wearing my rain boots, I get a similar feeling. I think, Ah, it’s just me, a single woman working this farm. Keeping it all going. Or rather, today I thought, Ah, I feel just like Marie Antoinette, pretending to be a simple peasant girl.
I often feel that same thing lingering in the background with my gardening endeavors. Oh I’m just a simple peasant girl, trying to make sure I can get a good crop yield, before harvest time. I’m surprised I haven’t gone full Marie, and bought myself an authentic old fashioned farmer girl outfit.
In truth, I do love learning to garden. I love it for the simple, basic fact that it’s joyful, and fascinating, and satisfying. It is some of the only time I spend not staring at a screen. And I’m lucky that I can learn slowly, and let it be a hobby without the pressure of actually being a … simple peasant girl.
And I know I know. There are probably actual farmers reading this post. They don’t have the luxury of pretending to be a simple farmer girl for an hour or two here and there, they legitimately do hard work, what… 10+ hours a day? But I have to ask, have you ever tried to do it in a muslin dress and a bonnet? Maybe it would make it more fun? Just kidding just kidding.
Anyway, I know I’m ridiculous. And that is why I relate to Marie Antoinette, pretending to be a simple village girl. And to be clear, I don’t relate to her in any other way. Except I guess we were both cancelled too. Hahahahhahahahahha. I’ll try to keep my head.
But honestly, as ridiculous as Marie and I are, her yearning to spend time pretending to be a simple peasant girl was based in something understandable. She really probably did crave something real and grounded. Just like so many of us in generation smart phone do too... we are craving that fake peasant life. Or we are craving something.
Marie probably did crave feeling closer to nature. And normalcy. She actually probably did crave hard work, doing something tactile, and feeling accomplished. And building a tiny faux peasant village and employing real peasants to run it, was the only way she knew how to get close to that.
Marie was into cottage-core, way before it was a thing.
And now, every time I take out my compost, I think of her. And I wish, or maybe even pretend, that my little, 1940s brick bomb-shelter house looked more like her simple rustic peasant cottage.
Paywall just for audio voiceover.