Once the most despised woman in Europe, Marie Antoinette was vilified as an empty-headed libertine, a conspirator and a reckless spendthrift – and then publicly executed. Now a major exhibition interrogates some of the myths that surround her.

"All eyes will be on you," cautioned Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, in April 1770, as her daughter, the 14-year-old Archduchess Maria Antonia prepared to marry the future King Louis XVI of France at the Palace of Versailles. Yet the scrutiny endured by Marie Antoinette, as the Archduchess was later known, was far crueller than anticipated. She was vilified as a libertine, a conspirator and a reckless spendthrift, whose exorbitant lifestyle was bankrupting the country – accusations that would precipitate the French Revolution and lead to a rare and shocking spectacle: the public execution of a queen.

Our fascination with Marie Antoinette has never waned, but increasingly her story is being questioned. Did she deserve to be despised, or was she a martyr caught between conflicting interests and destroyed by lies? For Dr Sarah Grant, the curator of Marie Antoinette Style, opening at the V&A on 20 September, she is the "most fashionable, scrutinised and controversial queen in history". Marking the 270th anniversary of the birth of this mould-breaking but maligned figure, the show celebrates her sense of style, and interrogates some of the myths associated with her.

One such myth is her apocryphal "let them eat cake" comment, a brattish response to devastating........

© BBC