How did Marie Antoinette celebrate her 21st birthday?

Château Fontainebleau is the only royal and imperial château to have been continuously inhabited for seven centuries. Photo via Musee château Fontainebleau 

When a Queen turns 21, you have to do something big! Of course a party would be planned for her birthday, but what could be done to make the event even bigger? How about starting the party before her birthday even arrived? 36 hours before Marie Antoinette turned 21 the Faro tables opened!


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Diamond feathers for her hair

"Spectacular old mine cut diamond and sapphire oversized feather brooch from Fred Leighton -- the one that fashion baron, André Leon Talley, borrows from time to time." source New York Social Diary

"I beg you will limit yourself to this ornament, even of which your charms have no need. This present should please you the more that it has not increased my expenditure, since it is composed of diamonds I possessed when I was a dauphin."¹
Even Louis XVI tried to curb Marie Antoinette's taste for tall headdresses, which were inspired by Georgiana duchess of Devonshire.  In this anecdote, he offered her a beautiful diamond aigrette, made of diamonds from his personal collection, to wear instead of the frivolous feathers. Subtle(?) gesture.

¹Métra, François. "Correspondance littéraire secrète." Neuwied, Société typographique, Janurary 9, 1775. Quoted in Langlade, Émile, and A. S. Rappoport. 1913. Rose Bertin: the creator of fashion at the court of Marie-Antoinette. New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. 40.


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