The Maid and the Milkmaid: Joan of Arc and Marie Antoinette

Joan of Arc is remembered for piety and soldiering; Marie Antoinette, for frivolity and gambling. But their trajectories were oddly congruent. Called from home for political ends (Joan defied her parents and rushed to save the dauphin, in the interests of France; the archduchess was sent by her mother to marry another dauphin, in the interests of Austria), they inscribed their ambitions in their hair and clothes and became two of the greatest celebrities ever. Two lives punctuated by coronations and culminating at the scaffold illustrate the intersections of sexuality and politics and the risks entailed in breaking cultural codes.