MARIE ANTOINETTE'S SLIPPERS FIND A HOME

October 17, 2012

Was it a romantic prince charming with a nostalgia for the tales of his youth? Could it have been an ecstatic Imelda Marcos adding the final glory to her collection of shoes? Whoever it was, they paid 62,460 euros for the privilege of owning a pair of slippers that belonged to the remarkable Marie Antoinette. The dainty trophies went under the hammer in France and sold for five times the expected price to a telephone bidder.

Marie Antoinette was the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa and an archduchess of Austria. She became queen of France in 1774 when her husband became Louis XVI on the death of his grandfather Louis XV. After the abolition of the monarchy in 1792, she was tried and guillotined on October 16, 1793. She was a romantic figure and died a tragic death, so it would seem appropriate to treasure and safeguard her slippers.

Some will no doubt consider paying so much for a pair of old slippers the modern day equivalent of "Let them eat cake!", but everything has its worth and these are no ordinary slippers. When you consider the billions languishing in banks, the sight of a slippery investment is not a bad thing. They will possibly disappear now, like a fleeting comet, and then reappear in a different generation under a different hammer. At least they will be loved.