Marie Antoinette is one of the most memorable and controversial figures in French history. Her name is easily recognizable and often misattributed to the phrase "Let them eat cake." And while she never said the words often most associated with her, she is remembered for her worldly extravagance and violent death.
Marie Antoinette began her wild ride of a life as Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen on the second day of November, 1755. She was the fifteenth child of Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor and Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, and carried the title of archduchess through childhood.
As a child, she was known at court as "Madame Antoine", perhaps denoting an already regal streak embedded in her character. However, much of her childhood starkly contrasted a courtly life. In a private setting, the family acted as normal as possible. Young Maria Antonia was brought up playing with the children of commoners and wearing the typical children's clothing of the day - a far cry from the frippery that was to come. Being the fifteenth child, it was no wonder that young Antonia escaped her mother's attention for much of her childhood. Her education could be described as informal at best, and sources allege that she could barely read or write by the age of twelve.
In 1765, young Maria Antonia's father died of a stroke. Her mother became co-ruler of the empire with Maria's older brother, Emperor Joseph II. This event sparked the empress to make several politically tactical marriages for her elder daughters. Far from love matches, these marriages were artfully designed to cement alliances that Austria gained during the Seven Year's War (1756-1763).
The family was stricken with a smallpox outbreak in 1767. One of the elder daughters, Archduchess Maria Josepha (who was betrothed to King Ferdinand of Naples), was killed quickly by the sickness. Maria Elisabeth was afflicted severely; though she didn't die, she was decidedly unfit to marry after that. These losses necessitated a shift in arrangements on the empress's part; younger daughters Maria Carolina and Maria Amalia would marry the King of Naples and Don Ferdinand of Parma, respectively. The smallpox outbreak caused young Maria Antonia to be moved up in the marriage line. With two of her elder sisters out of the picture, she was now more important in the grand scheme of her mother's matrimonial architecture.
At the age of twelve, Marie Antoinette was married by proxy to her fourteen-year-old second cousin, once removed, Louis Auguste, the Dauphin of France. The ceremonial marriage, with the dauphin in attendance, took place on May 16, 1770, when Marie Antoinette was fifteen.
The match was said to be popular among the common people. But this wasn't true amongst those at court. Her husband's aunts, the Mesdammes Tantes, referred to her coldly as "the Austrian woman". The remark was meant to be rude as well as to express tensions between the French and the Austrians who were at war during the dauphine's early childhood.
Marie Antoinette was also at odds with her grandfather-in-law's mistress, Madame du Barry. Du Barry was the one point of reconciliation between the dauphine and her husband's aunts, for they disliked her, too. In fact, the aunts went as far as to discourage Antoinette from even acknowledging the woman. This was a severe faux pas; du Barry was very important to the king and held a lot of political sway because of this. Her mother and the Austrian ambassador were appalled and horrified at her refusal to speak to du Barry. After much pressure, Marie Antoinette condescended to say "there are a lot of people at Versailles today". And though the remark may seem trivial to the modern mind, it was a huge act of kindness in the dauphine's mind and worked to ease tensions between du Barry and herself, as well as gain the approval of Louis XV.
Marie Antoinette's marriage was seen as rocky by her family. At the time, it was extremely important to consummate a marriage. The consummation should've happened on the wedding night, but it didn't. Without consummation, an heir could not be produced. Without an heir, Marie Antoinette would hold no influence over the king. Furthermore, her marriage could be annulled and she would be sent back to Austria, a disgrace to her family. This lack of consummation was a huge stress upon young Marie Antoinette. Her mother would write insisting and pressuring letters, demanding Marie give her a grandchild. Marie tried to "inspire passions" - as her mother politely put it - but the young dauphin was unresponsive.
Marie Antoinette was also easily bored by the rituals and customs of the French court, which she saw as outdated and trivial. To ease this boredom, she became an avid patroness of the arts. She adored the opera and it was around this time that she began to make friends: friends which would comprise her inner circle as queen. This time period also marked the beginning of Marie Antoinette's frivolous activities, which she used as an escape from her unfulfiling marriage and unhappy life at court.
The Princesse de Lamballe was a close confidant of the teenage dauphine. At the age of nineteen, Lamballe was widowed, leaving her a vast fortune. Described as prudish by contemporaries, she could be seen as the opposite to Marie Antoinette's bourgeoning extravagance.
The Duchesse de Polignac was another important friend Marie Antoinette made at this time. Fun-loving and vibrant, the duchess instantly became a favorite of the dauphine. The dauphin praised her for her "calming" influence on his wife and enjoyed her company.
King Louis XV died in 1774 after suffering for over two weeks with smallpox. His grandson, Marie-Antoinette's nineteen-year-old husband, succeeded to the throne as Louis XVI, king and absolute monarch of France.
On August 6, 1775, the comtesse d'Artois gave birth to a son, the king's nephew. At this time, Marie Antoinette was still a virgin; the birth of a son to the king's younger brother renewed curiosity in the French people as to when they would finally see an heir. Vicious pamphlets started to emerge. The king was portrayed as impotent, whereas the young queen was described as an adulteress, partaking in affairs with both men and women.
Giving the country an heir was not in Marie's hands. Feeling out of control about the situation, she plunged herself into a life of even greater extravagance. She heartily took to gambling and became a connoisseur of extremely voluminous and expensive dresses. She spent far more than her monthly allowance at this time and pushed the boundaries further by renovating the Petit Trianon, which would become her getaway from the drama of the court.
Marie Antoinette's elder brother, Emperor Joseph II, paid a visit to the young king and queen in April of 1777. His main reason of doing so was to determine why the king couldn't have sexual relations with his wife. At first, it was suspected there was something medically wrong with him. However, further inquiries - and heart-felt talking on Joseph's part - determined that Louis was, essentially, inexperienced and unsure of actually how to go about having sexual intercourse. Needless to say, Joseph resolved the problem very quickly and the marriage was officially consummated on August 30, 1777. On December 19, 1778, Marie Antoinette gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Marie Therese, whom she named after her mother.
The labor was extremely difficult. The young queen was forced to give birth in a ritualistic way, with an extraordinary amount of courtiers piled into her bedchamber. She fainted from both embarrassment and exhaustion, and possibly due to extensive bleeding. However, the child was born healthy and from then on, Marie Antoinette opted only to have private births, following the way of her mother, who also disliked the ritual.
The hate-mongering pamphleteers used the birth as a means to bolster their own cause. Using their previous topics of impotence and infidelity as a jumping off point, they claimed that the child was not the daughter of the king, but rather the product of an affair. This naturally hurt the queen's feelings. However, the king knew very well the child was rightfully his and treated her as such.
The pamphlets also took more a pornographic turn in their content, vividly portraying her to be in a lesbian relationship with Polignac, and having an affair with her brother-in-law, the comte d'Artois. Again, the court viewed these pamphlets as ridiculous, though they served to further damage her increasingly deteriorating reputation outside of the palace walls.
Marie Antoinette shocked society by awarding her favorite friend, the duchesse de Polignac, the position of governess to her children. The court was outraged by the appointment, due to the fact that they generally thought the duchess to be of low birth. However, both king and queen trusted her and were happy with her in that post. Appointments such as that led to further demonization of Marie's character. Though she had little political influence, she would get her friends appointed to important and sought-after positions. This sparked rage, jealousy, and an eventual hatred.
To her slight redemption in both public and courtly eye, Marie Antoinette gave birth to the dauphin of France on October 22, 1781. Her husband was particularly delighted. An anecdote of the time says he was so proud, he often tried to work the phrase "my son, the Dauphin" into everyday conversation.
Marie Antoinette's life took a turn for the worse with the dawn of the French Revolution. She was already distrusted and hated amongst the people by this point, due to her extravagant lifestyle. But other intrigues began to haunt her, such as the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, leading to further gossip and distrust of her character.
After the storming of the Bastille, the comte d'Artois and the duchesse de Polignac fled France for fear of assassination. Marie Antoinette bravely stayed behind. This was a true testimony to her character and her devotion to both her husband and France, because by this point, many wanted her head on a pike. Less than three weeks after the Bastille fell, the royal family was taken to the palace of Tuileries in Paris and placed under house arrest.
The royal family's time at Tuileries was marked by several planned and attempted escapes. However, the king and queen both unintentionally foiled them all through indecisiveness and unwillingness to have the family separated. The last attempt was orchestrated by Count Axel von Fersen, a rumored lover of Antoinette, and the baron de Breteuil. Again, the royal family's own indecisiveness and hesitation were their downfall and they were caught at Verennes and promptly returned to Paris, where they remained from there on out.
Louis XVI officially lost power on July 31, 1791, when the National Assembly concluded "Louis XVI is no longer King of the French."
The Princesse de Lamballe remained a friend of Marie Antoinette's until the very end. She and several others were taken from the family, where revolutionary forces attempted to make them swear allegiance to their cause and defame the former monarchs. Lamballe refused out of friendship for the once queen; she was raped and brutally murdered. Her head was placed on a pike and paraded outside of Marie Antoinette's window, where the queen fainted upon seeing the horror. This was the beginning of what would become known as the Reign of Terror.
On January 21, 1793, Marie Antoinette officially became known as the Widow Capet. Louis Auguste had been sent to the guillotine. His fate would prove to be the same as countless others, including Marie Antoinette herself. The shock of her husband's death devastated her. She sunk into a state of severe depression and sources allude that her hair turned gray, perhaps even falling out. She was stricken with consumption and refused to even eat.
The dauphin, Louise Charles, was taken away from her with the intent of making him more sympathetic to the revolutionary cause. He was given to a cobbler, who, by all accounts, abused him. Marie Antoinette never saw her son again.
Her situation deteriorated as she was separated from her children and sister-in-law, the only family she had left sharing her imprisonment. There was much question amongst the revolutionaries as to what they should do about her, though most agreed there should be a trial, which occurred on October 14 of 1793.
History sees this trial as a complete and utter mockery of the judicial system. All of the charges were trumped up and based on the fabrications of the vicious pamphlets circulating Paris. The most horrendous charge against her was that she committed incest with her son, abusing the child. Up until that moment, she had been calm. However, when that charge was laid against her, she righteously defended herself against the cruel absurdity. Her defense didn't matter. The verdict was already decided and on October 16, Marie Antoinette, former queen of France, was convicted of treason and sentenced to death by guillotine.
Wearing a plain white dress, Marie Antoinette was decapitated at precisely 2:15 in the afternoon. Her last words were simple, a mere apology to a man whose foot she'd trod on as she approached the guillotine. And thus was the death of a beautiful, extravagant woman, whose life fate made a mockery of.