The Royal Family of France. From left to right: The Dukes of Berry and Angoulême with their sister Mademoiselle Sophie, the Countess and Count of Artois, the King and Queen holding the Dauphin with his older sister Madame Royale holding his train, Madame Élisabeth, the Count and Countess of Provence.
Engraving shows King Louis XVI of France, known as Citizen Louis Capet after the French Revolution, as he is confronted by a mob of revolutionaries while his queen, Marie Antoinette shields their children Louis XVII of France and Mariebehind him.
Louis XVII, titular king of France from 1793, as Charles Louis, Dauphin de France, is torn from his mother Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, in the Temple prison.
A hand-colored print made after an original work by Claude-Louis Desrais.
Connections
Daughter: Marie-Thérèse Charlotte
Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, Marie's daughter
Father: Francis I
Francis I, Marie's father
Mother: Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina
Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, Maria Antoinette’s mother, was known by her political opponents as a fierce ruler.
Son: Louis Joseph
Louis Joseph of France1
Son: Louis
Ludwig Karl XVII, Marie's son
Daughter: Sophie Hélène Béatrice
Princess Marie Sophie Hélène Béatrix de France, youngest child of King Louis XVI.
gadmother: Mariana Victoria of Spain
Mariana Victoria of Spain, Marie's godmother
godfather: Joseph I of Portugal
Joseph I of Portugal, Marie's godfather
Partner: Count Axel Von Fersen
The queen’s alleged lover, Count Axel Von Fersen, who was instrumental in the planning of the French royal’s escape from Versailles at the dawn of the French Revolution.
She was born on 2 November 1755 at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria. She was the youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg Empire, and her husband Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. Her godparents were Joseph I and Mariana Victoria, King and Queen of Portugal.
Education
She was home-schooled in Vienna and her education was certainly very much neglected. With the exception of the Italian language, all that related to belles letters, and particularly to history, even that of her own country, was almost entirely unknown to her. Her teacher was Countess of Brandeiss.
Career
When Maria Antonia married by proxy to the Dauphin of France at the Augustinian Church in Vienna, she adopted the French version of her name: Marie Antoinette. With the death of Louis XV on 10 May 1774, Marie Antoinette became Queen of France and Navarre. At the outset, the new queen had limited political influence with her husband. However, the queen did play a decisive role in the disgrace and exile of the most powerful of Louis XV's ministers, the Duke of Aiguillon.
From 1774, Marie Antoinette began to befriend some of her male admirers, such as the baron de Besenval, the duc de Coigny, and Count Valentin Esterházy, and formed deep friendships with various ladies at court. Meanwhile, the queen began to institute changes in court customs. Some of them met with the disapproval of the older generation, such as the abandonment of heavy make-up and the popular wide-hooped panniers. In 1780 she began to participate in amateur plays and musicals in a theatre built for her by Richard Mique at the Petit Trianon.
In 1783, the queen played a decisive role in the nomination of Charles Alexandre de Calonne, a close friend of the Polignacs, as Controller-General of Finances, and of the baron de Breteuil as the Minister of the Royal Household, making him perhaps the strongest and most conservative minister of the reign. The result of these two nominations was that Marie Antoinette's influence became paramount in government, and the new ministers rejected any major change to the structure of the old regime.
Marie Antoinette was instrumental in the reinstatement of Jacques Necker as Finance Minister on 26 August, a popular move, even though she herself was worried that it would go against her if Necker proved unsuccessful in reforming the country's finances. She accepted Necker's proposition to double the representation of the Third Estate (tiers état) in an attempt to check the power of the aristocracy.
Marie Antoinette continued to perform charitable functions and attend religious ceremonies, but dedicated most of her time to her children. A significant achievement of Marie Antoinette in that period was the establishment of an alliance with Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, the most important lawmaker in the assembly. He had joined the Third Estate. On the advice of Mercy, Marie Antoinette opened secret negotiations with him and both agreed to meet privately at the château of Saint-Cloud on 3 July 1790, where the royal family was allowed to spend the summer, free of the radical evidences of the beginning of the French Revolution. However, Mirabeau died in April 1791.
On 10 August 1792, the queen and her family were held under tight surveillance by the Garde nationale in the Tuileries, where the royal couple was guarded night and day. On 21 September 1792, the fall of the monarchy was officially declared and the National Convention became the governing body of the French Republic. The royal family name was downgraded to the non-royal "Capets". Preparations began for the trial of the king in a court of law.
Marie Antoinette was tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 14 October 1793. Early on 16 October, she was declared guilty of the three main charges against her: depletion of the national treasury, conspiracy against the internal and external security of the State, and high treason because of her intelligence activities in the interest of the enemy; the latter charge alone was enough to condemn her to death. She was guillotined on 16 October 1793.
Marie Antoinette was a Catholic, and believed in the principles of her religion. She believed in the monarchy, and in the divine right of kings, as did most royalty in those days.
Views
Quotations:
"Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end?"
Personality
Marie Antoinette was ridiculously self indulgent, and essentially just did what she wanted after she took power. She cared nothing of politics and just used her power to make things go her way.
Interests
The queen spent heavily on fashion, luxuries and gambling.
Connections
In 1770 she was married by proxy to the Dauphin of France. After eight years of marriage, Marie Antoinette gave birth to a daughter, Marie Thérèse. She also had 2 sons and a daughter: Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France, Louis XVII of France and Princess Sophie.
In addition to her biological children, Marie Antoinette also adopted four children: "Armand" Francois-Michel Gagné (c. 1771-1792), a poor orphan adopted in 1776; Jean Amilcar (c. 1781-1793), a Senegalese slave boy given to the queen as a present by Chevalier de Boufflers in 1787, but whom she instead had freed, baptized, adopted and placed in a pension; Ernestine Lambriquet (1778-1813), daughter of two servants at the palace, who was raised as the playmate of her daughter and whom she adopted after the death of her mother in 1788; and finally "Zoe" Jeanne Louise Victoire (born in 1787), who was adopted in 1790 along with her two older sisters when her parents, an usher and his wife in service of the king, had died.