I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long.
Interpretation
This quote expresses the deep pain and loss suffered by Marie Antoinette, highlighting her resilience in the face of suffering.
In this quote, Marie Antoinette articulates the tragic losses she has endured; being stripped of her status as a queen, the death of her husband, and the deprivation of her children. Despite the immense suffering, she exhibits courage and a longing for a quick end to her suffering rather than prolonged anguish, showcasing the depths of her emotional and physical turmoil during her final moments.
In practice
In a literary analysis discussing themes of loss and resilience in historical figures.
Qu'ils mangent de la brioche. Let them eat cake. On being told that her people had no bread. Attributed to Marie-Antoinette, but remark is much older. Rousseau refers in his Confessions, 1740, to a similar remark, as a well-known saying. Others attribute the remark to the wife of Louis XIV.
No one understands my ills, nor the terror that fills my breast, who does not know the heart of a mother.
I had friends. The idea of being forever separated from them and from all their troubles is one of the greatest sorrows that I suffer in dying. Let them at least know that to my latest moment I thought of them.
I trust we shall never be reduced to the painful extremity of seeking the aid of Mirabeau.
When I first ran for City Council in 2013, I was told over and over again that I would likely lose, and for reasons beyond my control: I was too young, not born in Boston, Asian American, female.
I didn't want people to know me as a victim.
Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're American citizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyone else... So I came out for it.
Fear and God do not occupy the same space.
There are men in the world who derive an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as other from success.
So it was that the war in the air began. Men rode upon the whirlwind that night and slew and fell like archangels. The sky rained heroes upon the astonished earth. Surely the last fights of mankind were the best. What was the heavy pounding of your Homeric swordsmen, what was the creaking charge of chariots, besides this swift rush, this crash, this giddy triumph, this headlong sweep to death?
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