European History

Diplomatic Revolution

The Diplomatic Revolution is a term applied to the reversal of longstanding diplomatic alliances in the wake of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle which concluded the War of the Austrian Succession in 1748. The traditional alliances of France and Prussia against Great Britain and Austria changed to France and Austria against Great Britain and Prussia. In order to cement the alliance, Maria Theresa of Austria married her daughter, Marie Antoinette, to Louis XVI, heir to the French throne. Despite hope that this alliance would create an unbeatable power bloc in Europe, it failed to win the Seven Years' War (fought in Europe from 1758-1763, known in America as the French and Indian War), as both Austria and France failed to stop the rising power of Prussia under Frederick the Great. Furthermore, public opinion on both sides was very skeptical of this alliance, for Austria and France had traditionally been enemies since the Habsburg-Valois wars of the 16th century.

The Austrian alliance, including the marriage of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette is commonly considered one of the central causes of the French Revolution. The Queen was widely condemned for her extravagance, extreme even for a queen, and the most quoted remark never said; when told that the peasants of France were so poor that they could not put bread on the table, she was said to have replied, "let them eat cake," which supposedly "proved" that she was out of touch with the general populace. Although it is unlikely that the queen ever said such a thing, it is still an example of the French citizens' opinion of their royalty, that they would create such a story. As the historian Munro Price suggests, though, much of the criticism of Marie-Antoinette came from the fact that there was no one else to blame for bad policies. Under Louis XIV and Louis XV, both of whom were prolific womanizers who had many official mistresses during their respective reigns, public opinion often leveled the blame for society's ills at the King's current ministers who, more often than not, owed their position to the royal mistress (such as the Duc de Choiseul and Madame de Pompadour in the 1750s). When there was no mistress, however, as was the case with Louis XVI, opinion turned on the Queen, who was widely perceived, and to some extent correctly, to exercise influence with the King in the choice of ministers, as had happened with the intermittent appointments of the Baron de Breteuil (a favorite of the Queen's) to the royal council.