Frightening but interesting

I found this movie somewhat frightening, especially the scene where everyone is just roaming the halls with candles, like ghosts. I studied the French Revolution in school, but had never thought what it would be like to be at Versailles toward the end -- the confusion, uncertainty, and chaos.

I was also fascinated by the functioning of the court. Who was the woman who had such total access to the queen? How did she get such a powerful position? Yet clearly she had no influence with Marie Antionette. And I think they shrunk things down so it wouldn't look so odd to modern viewers -- the hair and dresses were enormous at that time, weren't they? And would the queen's reader have sufficient social standing to just ask a Marquis a question, the way Sidonie does?

P.S. Who was the woman who hung herself, and why did she do it?