m. 12 Feb 1736
Facts and Events
Marie Antoinette ( or ; ; baptised Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793), born an Archduchess of Austria, was Dauphine of France from 1770 to 1774 and Queen of France and Navarre from 1774 to 1792. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I.
In April 1770, upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France, she became Dauphine of France. She assumed the title Queen of France and of Navarre when her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI upon the death of his grandfather Louis XV in May 1774. After seven years of marriage, she gave birth to a daughter, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, the first of her four children.
Initially charmed by her personality and beauty, the French people eventually came to dislike her, accusing "L'Autrichienne" (which literally means the Austrian (woman), but also suggests the French word "chienne", meaning bitch) of being profligate, promiscuous, and of harbouring sympathies for France's enemies, particularly Austria, her country of origin. The Diamond Necklace incident damaged her reputation further. She later became known as Madame Déficit because France's financial crisis was blamed on her lavish spending.
After the revolutionaries placed the royal family under house arrest in Paris, an attempt to flee (the flight to Varennes) had disastrous effects on French popular opinion: Louis XVI was deposed and the monarchy abolished on 21 September 1792; the royal family was subsequently imprisoned at the Temple Prison. Nine months after her husband's execution, Marie Antoinette was herself tried, convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of treason to the principles of the revolution, and executed by guillotine on 16 October 1793. Her death and plots inspired many of those who fought for conservative ideas associated with religion and royal government specially in Vendee and helped the return of much of these ideas in 19th century Europe following the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
Long after her death, Marie Antoinette remains a major historical figure and frequently referenced in popular culture, being the subject of several books, films and other forms of media. Some academics and scholars have deemed her frivolous and superficial, and have attributed the start of the French Revolution to her in addition to the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars of 1792 which ended with the Congress of Vienna; however, others have claimed that she was treated unjustly and that views of her should be more sympathetic.