Lavish spending has long been a hallmark of the rich and powerful throughout history. Sometimes, however, the profligate spending exceeds even the already lavish norms of the well-heeled. Take the spendthrift ways of Marie Antoinette, that made her widely reviled in France, and set the stage for the French Revolution. Or the magnificent pilgrimage of Mansa Musa, that ruined what had once been a famously wealthy empire. Below are twenty five things about those and other lavish spending bouts from history.
An Austrian Royal’s Bad Time in France
The French never warmed to Marie Antoinette, and reviled her for decades before they chopped off her head in 1793. Even at home, she got little love from her husband, Louis XVI. French kings had reputations for insatiable lust, but not Louis XVI. He married Marie in 1770 when he was fifteen and she was fourteen, but the marriage was not consummated until seven years later. Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Marie Antoinette’s brother, described in a letter what Louis did with his queen. He: “Introduces the member … stays there without moving for about two minutes“, then pulls out without eja-culation, and “bids goodnight“. An angry Joseph II swore that if he had been there, he would have had Louis whipped “so that he would have come out of sheer rage like a donkey“.
Joseph’s frustration was understandable: begetting heirs was important in royal marriages, not just to the royal couple, but to their families as well. Things were not much better outside the marital bed. Many viewed Marie Antoinette as an interloper from a country the French had often warred against. She was deemed frivolous and out of touch. She never said “let them eat cake“. However, the tale was widely accepted because she was seen as somebody who probably would say such a thing. Most damningly, as seen below, Marie Antoinette was loathed for her lavish spending at a time when many suffered from hunger and want.
