Declining popularity (1782–1785)
Despite the general celebration over the birth of an heir, Marie Antoinette's political influence was perceived to greatly benefit Austria. During the Kettle War in which Joseph II attempted to open the Scheldt river for naval passage, Marie Antoinette succeeded in obliging Vergennes to pay huge financial compensation to Austria. The queen was able to obtain her brother's support against Great Britain in the American Revolution, and she neutralized French hostility to his alliance with Russia.
In 1782, after the governess of the royal children, the Princesse de Guéméné, went bankrupt and resigned, Marie Antoinette appointed her favourite, the Duchess of Polignac, to the position. This decision met with disapproval from the court as the duchess was considered to be of too modest origins to occupy such an exalted position. In contrast, both the king and the queen trusted Madame de Polignac completely, gave her a 13-room apartment in Versailles and paid her well. The entire Polignac family benefited greatly from royal favour in titles and positions, but its sudden wealth and lavish lifestyle outraged most aristocratic families, who resented the Polignacs' dominance at court and also fueled the increasing popular disapproval of Marie Antoinette, mostly in Paris. Mercy-Argenteau wrote to the empress: "It is almost unexampled that in so short a time, the royal favour should have brought such overwhelming advantages to a family".
In June 1783, Marie Antoinette's pregnancy was announced, but on the night of 1–2 November, her 28th birthday, she suffered a miscarriage. However, there is more evidence to suggest that she conceived in late July or early August, supported by evidence in a letter to her sister, Marie-Christine, Duchess of Teschen, on 16 November 1783 at Fontainbleau. On All Saint's Day, November 1, she miscarried of a child that was at least three months' gestation and was told by her physician that the tragedy was caused by a blighted ovum, a very early type of miscarriage that does not exceed 14 weeks of pregnancy.
In 1783 the queen played a decisive role in the nomination of Charles Alexandre de Calonne, a close friend of the Polignacs, as Controller-General of Finances, and of the Baron de Breteuil as the Minister of the Royal Household, making him perhaps the strongest and most conservative minister of the reign. The result of these two nominations was that Marie Antoinette's influence became paramount in government, and the new ministers rejected any major change to the structure of the old regime. More than that, the decree by de Ségur, the minister of war, requiring four quarters of nobility as a condition for the appointment of officers, mainly served the interest of older noble families including poorer provincial ones, who were widely seen as a reactionary interest group by ambitious members of the middle and professional classes, by some more recent nobility, and even by the Parisian populace and press. The measure also blocked the access of 'commoners', mainly sons of members of the professional classes, and of more recently elevated nobility to important positions in the armed forces. As such, the decree became an important grievance for social classes that had been habitually supportive of the monarchy and established order, and which went on to supply the bulk of the early leadership of the French Revolution.
Count Axel von Fersen, after his return from America in June 1783, was accepted into the queen's private society. There were claims that the two were romantically involved, but since most of their correspondence has been lost, destroyed, or redacted, for many years there was no conclusive evidence. Starting in 2016, scientists at the Centre for Research and Restoration of Museums of France uncovered some of the redacted text of the queen's letters to Fersen. The revealed texts do not mention a physical relationship but do confirm a very strong emotional relationship.
Around this time, pamphlets describing farcical sexual deviance including the queen and her friends in the court were growing in popularity around the country. The Portefeuille d'un talon rouge was one of the earliest, including the queen and a variety of other nobles in a political statement decrying the immoral practices of the court. As time went on, these came to focus more on the queen. They described amorous encounters with a wide range of figures, from the Duchess of Polignac to Louis XV. As these attacks increased, they were connected with the public's dislike of her association with the rival nation of Austria. It was publicly suggested that her supposed behaviour was learned at the Austrian court, particularly lesbianism.
In 1783, the queen was busy with the creation of her "hamlet", a rustic retreat built by her favoured architect Richard Mique, according to the designs of the painter Hubert Robert. Its creation caused another uproar when its cost became widely known. However, the hamlet was not an eccentricity of Marie Antoinette's. It was en vogue at the time for nobles to have recreations of small villages on their properties. In fact, the design was copied from that of Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé. It was also significantly smaller and less intricate than many other nobles'. Around this time she accumulated a library of 5,000 books. Those on music, often dedicated to her, were the most read, though she also liked to read history. She sponsored the arts, in particular music. Marie Antoinette preferred to hold her musicales in the salon of her Petit appartement de la reine in the Palace of Versailles or in the Théâtre de la Reine. She limited the audience to her intimate circle and a few musicians, among them the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. "Admitted to perform music with the Queen," Saint-Georges probably played his violin sonatas for two instruments, with Her Majesty playing the fortepiano. She also supported some scientific endeavours, encouraging and witnessing the first launch of a Montgolfière hot air balloon; this extraordinary feat which represented a turning point in human civilization was done by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier.
On 27 April 1784, Pierre Beaumarchais's play The Marriage of Figaro premiered in Paris. Initially banned by the king because of its negative portrayal of the nobility, the play was finally allowed to be publicly performed because of the queen's support and its overwhelming popularity at court, where secret readings of it had been given by Marie Antoinette. The play was a disaster for the image of the monarchy and aristocracy. It inspired Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, which premiered in Vienna on 1 May 1786.
On 24 October 1784, putting the Baron de Breteuil in charge of its acquisition, Louis XVI bought the Château de Saint-Cloud from Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans in the name of his wife, which she wanted because of their expanding family. She wanted to be able to own her own property, one that was actually hers, to then have the authority to bequeath it to "whichever of my children I wish," choosing the child she thought could use it rather than it going through patriarchal inheritance laws or whims. It was proposed that the cost could be covered by other sales, such as that of the château Trompette in Bordeaux. This was unpopular, particularly with those factions of the nobility who disliked the queen but also with a growing percentage of the population who disapproved of a queen of France independently owning a private residence. The purchase of Saint-Cloud thus damaged the public's image of the queen even further. The château's high price, almost 6 million livres, plus the substantial extra cost of redecorating, ensured that much less money was going towards repaying France's substantial debt.
On 27 March 1785, Marie Antoinette gave birth to a second son, Louis Charles, who bore the title of Duke of Normandy. The fact that the birth occurred exactly nine months after Fersen's return did not escape the attention of many, leading to doubt as to the parentage of the child. Fersen was not the only man rumored to have fathered one of Marie Antoinette's children. The Duc de Coigny was also the subject of similar gossip. These rumors led to a noticeable decline of the queen's reputation in public opinion. The majority of Marie Antoinette's and Louis Charles' biographers believe that he was the biological son of Louis XVI, including Stefan Zweig and Antonia Fraser. Fraser has noted that the birthdate matches up with a known conjugal visit from the king. Courtiers at Versailles noted in their diaries that the date of conception corresponded with a period when the king and queen had spent much time together, but these details were ignored amid attacks on the queen's character. These suspicions of illegitimacy further turned popular opinion sharply against the queen, and the image of a licentious, spendthrift, empty-headed foreign queen was quickly taking root in the French psyche.
A second daughter, her last child, Marie Sophie Hélène Béatrix, Madame Sophie, was born on 9 July 1786 and lived only eleven months until 19 June 1787. She was named after the king's aunt, Princess Sophie of France.
