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{{Short description|Queen of France from 1774 to 1792}}
{{refimprove|date=March 2011}}
{{Other uses|Marie Antoinette (disambiguation)}} {{Other uses|Marie Antoinette (disambiguation)}}
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{{Use British English|date=April 2022}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}}
{{Infobox royalty {{Infobox royalty
| image = Marie-Antoinette, 1775 - Musée Antoine Lécuyer.jpg
|consort=yes
| caption = Portrait, {{circa|1775}}
| name =Marie Antoinette
| succession = ]
| image =Marie167.jpg
| reign = 10 May 1774 – 21 September 1792
| caption = ''Marie Antoinette à la Rose'', by ] (1783)
| birth_name = Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria
| succession =]
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1755|11|2}}
| reign =10 May 1774–21 September 1792
| birth_place = ], Vienna, Archduchy of Austria, Holy Roman Empire
| spouse =]
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1793|10|16|1755|11|2}}
| issue =] <br /> ] <br /> ] <br /> ]
| death_place = ], Paris, France
| house =]
{{Infobox person | embed = yes
| father =]
| death_cause = ]}}
| mother =]
| burial_date = 21 January 1815
| date of birth ={{Birth date|df=yes|1755|11|2}}
| burial_place = ]
| place of birth =], ], Austria
| consort = yes
| date of death = 16 October 1793 (aged 37)
| spouse = {{Marriage|]|19 April 1770|21 January 1793|end=d}}
| place of death =Place de la Révolution, Paris, France
| issue = {{Indented plainlist|
| place of burial=], France
* ]
| date of burial =21 January 1815
* ]
| full name= Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna
* ]
| signature=Marie-AntoinetteSignature.png
* Sophie
}}
| full name = {{Unbulleted list|{{langx|de|link=no|Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna}}|{{langx|fr|link=no|Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne}}}}
| house = ]
| father = ]
| mother = ]
| signature = Marie-AntoinetteSignature.png
| module = {{Infobox noble | child = yes
| CoA = ]}}
}} }}


'''Marie Antoinette''' ({{pron-en|məˈriː ˌæntwəˈnɛt}} or {{IPA-en|ˌæntwɑːˈnɛt|}}; {{IPA-fr|maʁi ɑ̃twanɛt}}; Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755&nbsp;– 16 October 1793) was an ] of ] and the ] and ]. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of ] of Austria and ]. '''Marie Antoinette''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|æ|n|t|w|ə|ˈ|n|ɛ|t|,_|ˌ|ɒ̃|t|-}};<ref>{{Citation |last=Jones |first=Daniel |title=English Pronouncing Dictionary |year=2003 |editor=Peter Roach |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-3-12-539683-8 |author-link=Daniel Jones (phonetician) |editor2=James Hartmann |editor3=Jane Setter |orig-year=1917}}.</ref> {{IPA|fr|maʁi ɑ̃twanɛt|lang|LL-Q150 (fra)-Exilexi-Marie-Antoinette.wav}}; Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last ] prior to the ] and the establishment of the ]. Marie Antoinette was the wife of ]. Born '''Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria''', she was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of ] and ]. She married Louis Auguste, ], in May 1770 at the age of 14. She then became the ]. On 10 May 1774, her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI and she became queen.


As queen, Marie Antoinette became increasingly a target of criticism by opponents of the domestic and foreign policies of Louis XVI, and those opposed to the monarchy in general. The French '']'' accused her of being profligate,<ref>Royal household spending in 1788 was 13% of total state expenses(excluding interest on debts). Finances of Louis XVI (1788) | Nicholas E. Bomba https://blogs.nvcc.edu {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110420130803/http://blogs.nvcc.edu/ |date=20 April 2011 }} › nbomba › files › 2016/10, https://books.google.com/books?id=ixJWG9q0Eo4C</ref> promiscuous, having illegitimate children, and harboring sympathies for France's perceived enemies, including her native ]. She was falsely accused of defrauding the Crown's jewelers in the ], but the accusations damaged her reputation further. During the French Revolution, she became known as ''Madame Déficit'' because the country's ] was blamed on her lavish spending and her opposition to social and financial reforms proposed by ] and ].
In April of 1770, on the day of her marriage to ], ], she became ''Dauphine de France''. Marie Antoinette assumed the title of Queen of France and of Navarre when her husband, ], ascended the throne due to the death of ] in May 1774. After seven years of marriage she gave birth to a daughter, ], the first of their four children.


Several events were linked to Marie Antoinette during the Revolution after the government placed the royal family under house arrest in the ] in October 1789. The June 1791 attempted ] and her role in the ] were immensely damaging to her image among French citizens. On 10 August 1792, the attack on the Tuileries forced the royal family to take refuge at the ], and they were imprisoned in the ] on 13 August 1792. On 21 September 1792, France was declared a republic and ]. ] by ] on 21 January 1793. Marie Antoinette's trial began on 14 October 1793; two days later, she was convicted by the ] of high treason and executed by beheading by guillotine on 16 October 1793 at the ] during the French Revolution.
Initially charmed by her personality and beauty, the French people generally came to dislike her, accusing "the Austrian" of being ] and promiscuous,<ref>C. f. "it is both impolitic and immoral for palaces to belong to a Queen of France" (part of a speech by a councilor in the Parlement de Paris, early 1785, after Louis XVI bought ] chateau for the personal use of Marie Antoinette), quoted in ]. Queen of France. trans. Denise Folliot (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957), page 233,</ref> and of harboring sympathies for France's enemies, particularly Austria, since Marie Antoinette was, after all, Austrian.<ref>C.f. the following quote: "she (Marie Antoinette) thus obtained promises from Louis XVI which were in contradiction with the Council's (of Louis XVI's ministers) decisions", quoted in Andre Castelot. Queen of France. trans. Denise Folliot (New York:Harper and Brothers, 1957), page 186</ref>


==Early life (1755–1770)==
At the height of the ], Louis XVI was deposed and the monarchy abolished on ]; the royal family was subsequently imprisoned at the ]. Nine months after her husband's execution, Marie Antoinette was herself tried, convicted of ], and executed by ] on 16 October 1793.
]]]


Marie Antoinette, full name Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, was born on 2 November 1755 at the ] Palace in ], Archduchy of Austria, at 20:30.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Birth of Marie Antoinette {{!}} History Today |url=https://www.historytoday.com/archive/birth-marie-antoinette |access-date=2022-11-20 |website=historytoday.com}}</ref> She was the youngest daughter and 15th child
==Early life==
of Empress ], ruler of the ], and her husband ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2002|p=5}}</ref> Maria Theresa gave birth to all of her previous children without any problems. During the birth of her last daughter, serious complications arose, and doctors even feared for the life of the mother. Her godparents were ] and ], King and Queen of Portugal; Archduke ] and Archduchess ] acted as proxies for their newborn sister.<ref name="Fraser 2002 5–6">{{Harvnb|Fraser|2002|pp=5–6}}</ref><ref name="liaisons">{{cite book|first=Michel|last=de Decker|title=Marie-Antoinette, les dangereuses liaisons de la reine|publisher=Belfond|location=Paris, France|date=2005|isbn=978-2714441416|pages=12–20}}</ref>
], 1762]]
], 1767.]]


Maria Antonia was born on ], a ] day of mourning, and during her childhood her birthday was instead celebrated the day before, on ], due to the connotations of the date. Shortly after her birth she was placed under the care of the governess of the imperial children, Countess von Brandeis.<ref name="d'Armaillé">{{cite book|first=Marie Célestine Amélie|last=de Ségur d'Armaillé |author-link=Marie Célestine Amélie d'Armaillé |title=Marie-Thérèse et Marie-Antoinette|publisher=]|date=1870|location=Paris, France|pages=34, 47}}</ref> Maria Antonia was raised together with her sister, ], who was three years older, and with whom she had a lifelong close relationship.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lever|2006|p=10}}</ref> Maria Antonia had a difficult but ultimately loving relationship with her mother,<ref name="Fraser 2001 166–170">{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=22–23, 166–70}}</ref> who referred to her as "the little Madame Antoine".
'''Maria Antonia of Austria''' was born on 2 November 1755 at the ] in ]. She was the youngest daughter of ], and ], Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and ruler of the Habsburg dominions. Described as "a small, but completely healthy Archduchess",<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001}}.</ref><!--Need page number.--> she was known at the Austrian court as ''Madame Antoine''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=6}}.</ref>


Maria Antonia spent her formative years between the Hofburg Palace and ], the imperial summer residence in Vienna,<ref name="liaisons" /> where on 13 October 1762, when she was seven, she met ], two months her junior and a child prodigy.<ref>{{cite book|first=Philippe|last=Delorme|author-link=Philippe Delorme|title=Marie-Antoinette. Épouse de Louis XVI, mère de Louis XVII|publisher=Pygmalion Éditions|date=1999|page=13}}</ref><ref name="liaisons" /><ref name="d'Armaillé" /><ref>{{cite book|first=Évelyne|last=Lever|author-link=Évelyne Lever|title='C'état Marie-Antoinette|publisher=]|location=Paris, France|date=2006|page=14|ref=none}}</ref> Despite the private tutoring she received, the results of her schooling were less than satisfactory.<ref name="Cronin 1989 45">{{Harvnb|Cronin|1989|p=45}}</ref> At the age of 10 she could not write correctly in German or in any language commonly used at court, such as French or Italian,<ref name="liaisons" /> and conversations with her were stilted.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2002|pp=32–33}}</ref><ref name="liaisons" /> Under the teaching of ], Maria Antonia developed into a good musician. She learned to play the ],<ref name="Cronin 1989 45" /> the ] and the ]. She sang during the family's evening gatherings, as she was known to have had a beautiful voice.<ref>{{Harvnb|Cronin|1989|p=46}}</ref> She also excelled at dancing, had "exquisite" poise, and loved dolls.<ref name="Weber2007">{{harvnb|Weber|2007|pp=13–14}}</ref>
Maria Antonia and her older sister, ], were the two youngest girls and were raised together. They shared the same governess, ], until 1767 and became extremely close. She thoroughly enjoyed music and learned to play the ], which she played for many people at the court. She also excelled at dancing&nbsp;– an accomplishment often remarked by those who saw her, whether friendly or hostile, having been carefully trained in it since her early youth.<ref name=amazon>{{cite web
|url= http://www.amazon.com/reader/0312427344/ref=rdr_sb_li_sims_1&state=01101#reader_0312427344
|title=Amazon.com: Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution (9780312427344): Caroline Weber: Books
|work=amazon.com
|accessdate=9 April 2010
}}</ref> She had an "exquisite" poise and a famously graceful deportment.<ref name=amazon/> She also loved dolls from when she was young, as captured by a family portrait in which seven-year-old "sweet Antonia" excitedly holds up a doll dressed as fancily as she is.<ref name=amazon/> Numerous dolls arrived at the Hofburg as soon as Marie Antoinette turned thirteen, wearing miniature versions of the ball gowns, afternoon dresses, and gold-trimmed gowns proposed for her.<ref name=amazon/>


] c.1767-1768]]
The laxity of court life{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}} was compounded by the private life which was developed by the ] even before Marie Antoinette was born. In their private life, the family dressed in bourgeois attire, played games with "normal" (non-royal) children, and were treated to gardens and menageries (mini zoos in fact). Maria Antonia, or known by her French name Marie Antoinette, later attempted to recreate this atmosphere through her renovation of the ] in France.
The death of her older sister ] from ] during the epidemic in Vienna in October 1767 made an everlasting impression on the young Maria Antonia.{{Sfn|Fraser|2002|p=28}} Maria Antonia, in her later life, recalled the ailing Maria Josepha taking her in her arms. She told her that she would not be traveling to Naples to marry King ], to whom she was betrothed, but for the ].{{Sfn|Fraser|2002|p=28}}


Later in 1768, Mathieu-Jacques de Vermond was dispatched by ] to tutor Marie Antoinette as she became the future wife to Louis XVI. Serving as an educator, Abbé de Vermond found her to be unsatisfactorily educated and lacking in, at the age of 13, important writing skills. Nonetheless, he also complimented her, stating "her character, her heart, are excellent". He found her "more intelligent than has been generally supposed," but since "she is rather lazy and extremely frivolous, she is hard to teach".<ref name="Marie Antoinette">{{cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/marie-antoinette-134629573/|title=Marie Antoinette |date=November 2006|publisher=Smithsonian Magazine |first1= Richard |last1=Covington |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20240124074106/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/marie-antoinette-134629573/ |archive-date= Jan 24, 2024 }}</ref>
By many accounts, her childhood was somewhat complex. On the one hand, her parents had instituted several innovations in court life which made Austria one of the most progressive courts in Europe. While certain court functions remained formal by necessity, the Emperor and Empress nevertheless presided over many basic changes in court life. This included allowing relaxations in the type of people who could come to court (a change which allowed people of merit, as well as birth, to rise rapidly in the hierarchy of imperial favor at court), relatively lax dress etiquette, and the abolition of certain antiquated court ritual, including one in which dozens of ] could be in the Empress' bedchamber, watching her give birth – the Empress disliked the ritual, and would eject courtiers from her rooms when she went into labour.<ref>After the problems encountered at the birth of Marie Antoinette's first child, Marie Therese in 1778, her husband, king Louis XVI, did not allow the public in his wife's bedroom at the birth their other children, and let only a handful of trusted courtiers witness the birth of the dauphin Louis Joseph on 22 October 1781. {{Harvtxt|Fraser|2001|pp=166–170}}.</ref>


Under the recommendation of ], a strong supporter of her prospective marriage, Maria Antonia also received a makeover to bring her more in line with the fashion of French royalty. This included the straightening of her teeth by a French dentist, the diversification of her wardrobe, and hairstyles reminiscent of ].<ref>{{harvnb|Weber|2007|pp=15–16}}</ref> She was also instructed by ], who taught her to walk in the gliding fashion characteristic of the court of Versailles.<ref>{{harvnb|Erickson|1991|pp=40–41}}</ref>
While she had an idyllic "private" life, her initial role in the political arena– and in her mother's main aim of alliance through marriage– was relatively minuscule. As there were so many other children who could be married off, Maria Antonia, or Marie Antoinette in French, was sometimes neglected by her mother; as a result, she later described her relationship with her mother as one of awe-inspired fear.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=22}}.</ref> She also developed a mistrust of intelligent older women as a result of her mother's close relationship with the ], Marie Antoinette's older sister.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=23}}.</ref> The lack of supervision also resulted in a sub-par education in many regards. By the time she was twelve she could barely read or write properly in her native ] . This was due in large measure, however, to the fact that French, not German, was the language most commonly spoken at the Austrian court. It was for that reason that the young archduchess was usually referred to as "Madame Antoine" and signed herself as "Antoine Archiduchesse" in French.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=31–33}}.</ref>


==Dauphine of France (1770–1774)==
==Marriage to Louis: 1770–1793==
], which was sent to the ] in May 1769{{Sfn|Fraser|2001|p=37}}]]
]
] by ] and sent to her mother, Empress Maria Theresa, in Austria]]
The events leading to her eventual ] to the Dauphin of France began in 1765, when her father, Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, died of a stroke in August, leaving Maria Theresa to co-rule with her elder son and heir, the ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=25}}.</ref> By that time, marriage arrangements for several of Maria Antonia's sisters had begun, with the ] betrothed to ], and ] tentatively set to marry one of the remaining eligible archduchesses. The purpose of these marriages was to cement the various complex alliances that Maria Theresa had entered into in the 1750s due to the ], which included Parma, Naples, Russia, and more importantly Austria's traditional enemy, France.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=10–12}}.</ref> Without the Seven Years' War to "unite" the two countries briefly, the marriage of Maria Antonia and the Dauphin Louis-Auguste might not have occurred.
Following the ] and the ] of 1756, Empress Maria Theresa decided to end hostilities with her longtime enemy, King Louis XV of France. Their common desire to destroy the ambitions of ] and ], and to secure a definitive peace between their respective countries led them to seal their alliance with a marriage: on 7 February 1770, Louis XV formally requested the hand of Maria Antonia for his eldest surviving grandson and heir, ], ] and ].<ref name="liaisons"/>
], by ] (1768).]]


Maria Antonia formally renounced her rights to ] domains, and on 19 April 1770 she was ] with Louis Auguste at the ], with her brother Archduke ] standing in for the Dauphin.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=51–53}}</ref><ref>{{citation |first=Pierre |last=Nolhac |title=La Dauphine Marie Antoinette |date=1929 |pages=46–48}}</ref><ref name="liaisons" /> On 14 May 1770 she met her husband at the edge of the ]. Upon her arrival in France, she adopted the French version of her name: Marie Antoinette. A further ceremonial wedding took place on 16 May 1770 in the ] and, after the festivities, the day ended with the ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=70–71}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Nolhac|1929|pp=55–61}}</ref> The couple's longtime failure to ] the marriage plagued the reputations of the royal couple for the next seven years.{{sfnm|Fraser|2001|1p=157|2a1=d'Arneth|2a2=Geffroy|2y=1874|2pp=80–90, 110–115}}
In 1767, a ] outbreak hit the family. Maria Antonia was one of the few who were immune to the disease because she already had had it at a young age. Her sister, Maria Josepha, came down with it after visiting the improperly sealed tomb of her sister-in-law (of the same name), and died quickly afterwards. However, since the rash appeared two days after Maria Josepha had visited the vault even though it takes at least a week for the smallpox rash to appear after a person is infected, the Archduchess must have been infected sometime before visiting the vault. Her mother, Maria Theresa, caught it and, though she survived, she suffered from the ill effects of the disease for the rest of her life. Her sister, ], caught it but survived. Her brother, ], and sister ], had already earlier caught the smallpox which ended in their deaths in 1761 and 1762 respectively.<!-- is that whole paragraph on those who caught smallpox necessary???/FW -->


The initial reaction to the marriage between Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI was mixed. On the one hand, the Dauphine was beautiful, personable and well-liked by the common people. Her first official appearance in Paris on 8 June 1773 was a resounding success. On the other hand, those opposed to the alliance with Austria had a difficult relationship with Marie Antoinette, as did others who disliked her for more personal or petty reasons.<ref>{{Harvnb|Cronin|1974|pp=61–63}}</ref>
This ultimately left twelve-year-old Madame Antoine as the only potential bride left in the family for the fourteen-year-old Louis Auguste, who was also her ]. During the marriage negotiations, they lamented the crookedness of her teeth. Straightaway, a French doctor was called to perform some painful oral surgeries.<ref name=amazon/> Performed without anesthesia and requiring three long months to take, at last Marie Antoinette's smile, "very beautiful and straight", satisfied France.<ref name=amazon/> After painstaking work between the governments of France and Austria, the ] was set at 200,000 crowns; as was the custom, portraits and rings were exchanged.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=42–50}}.</ref> Finally, Antoine was ] on 19 April in the ], Vienna; her brother ] stood in as the bridegroom. She was also officially restyled as ''Marie Antoinette, Dauphine of France''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=51–53}}.</ref>


] proved a troublesome foe to the new dauphine. She was Louis XV's mistress and had considerable political influence over him. In 1770 she was instrumental in ousting ], who had helped orchestrate the ] and Marie Antoinette's marriage,<ref>{{Harvnb|Cronin|1974|p=61}}</ref> and in exiling his sister, the ], one of Marie Antoinette's ladies-in-waiting. Marie Antoinette was persuaded by her husband's aunts to refuse to acknowledge du Barry, which some saw as a political blunder that jeopardized Austria's interests at the French court. Marie Antoinette's mother and the Austrian ambassador to France, ], who sent the Empress secret reports on Marie Antoinette's behaviour, pressured Marie Antoinette to speak to Madame du Barry, which she grudgingly agreed to do on New Year's Day 1772.{{sfnm|Fraser|2001|1pp=80–81|2a1=d'Arneth|2a2=Geffroy|2y=1874|2pp=65–75}} She merely commented to her, "There are a lot of people at Versailles today", but it was enough for Madame du Barry, who was satisfied with this recognition, and the crisis passed.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lever|2006|p=38}}</ref>
Marie Antoinette was officially handed over to her French bearers on 7 May 1770, on an island on the Rhine River near ]. Chief among them were the ] and his wife, the ], who had been appointed the Dauphine's Mistress of the Household by Louis XV.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=58–62}}.</ref> She met the King, the Dauphin Louis-Auguste, and the royal aunts (Louis XV's daughters, known as ]), one week later. Before reaching Versailles, she also met her future brothers-in-law, ]; and ], who came to play important roles during and after her life.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=64–69}}.</ref> Later, she met the rest of the family, including her husband's youngest sister, ], who at the end of Marie Antoinette's life would become her closest and most loyal friend.


Two days after the death of Louis XV in 1774, Louis XVI exiled du Barry to the ] in ], pleasing both his wife and aunts.<ref>Fraser, ''Marie Antoinette'', 2001, p. 124.</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Jacques |last=Levron |title=Madame du Barry |date=1973 |pages=75–85}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Lever|1991|p=124}}</ref><ref name="Goncourt 1880, pp. 195–196">{{cite book|first=Edmond de|last=Goncourt|title=La Du Barry|publisher=G. Charpentier|location=Paris, France|date=1880|pages=195–96}}</ref><ref>Lever, Evelyne, ''Louis XV'', Fayard, Paris, 1985, p. 96</ref> Two and a half years later, at the end of October 1776, Madame du Barry's exile ended and she was allowed to return to her beloved château at ], but she was never permitted to return to Versailles.<ref>{{cite book|first=Charles|last=Vatel|title=Histoire de Madame du Barry: d'après ses papiers personnels et les documents d'archives|publisher=Hachette Livre|location=Paris, France|date=1883|isbn=978-2013020077|page=410}}</ref>
The ceremonial wedding of the ] and ] took place on 16 May 1770, in the ], after which was the ritual bedding.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=70–71}}.</ref> It was assumed by custom that ] of the marriage would take place on the wedding night. However, this did not occur, and the lack of consummation plagued the reputation of both Louis-Auguste and Marie Antoinette for seven years to come.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=157}}.</ref>


==Queen of France and Navarre (1774–1792)==
The initial reaction to the marriage between Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste was decidedly mixed. On the one hand, the Dauphine herself was popular among the people. Her first official appearance in Paris on 8 June 1773 at the ] was considered by many royal watchers a resounding success, with a reported 50,000 people crying out to see her. People were easily charmed by her personality and beauty. She had fair skin, straw-blond hair, and deep blue eyes.
] (1769).]] ]


===Early years (1774–1778)===
At Court, however, the match was not so popular among the elder members of court due to the long-standing tensions between Austria and France, which had only recently been mollified. Many courtiers had been active at promoting a match between the dauphin and various ] princesses instead. Behind her back, Mesdames called Marie Antoinette "l'Autrichienne", the "Austrian woman." (Later, on the eve of the Revolution, and as Marie Antoinette's unpopularity grew, ''l'Autrichienne'' was easily transformed into ''l'Autruchienne'', a pun making use of the words ''autruche'' "]" and ''chienne'' "]".)<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=47}}.</ref> Others accused her of trying to sway the king to Austria's thrall, destroying long-standing traditions (such as appointing people to posts due to friendship and not to peerage), and of laughing at the influence of older women at the royal court.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=94, 130–31}}.</ref> Many other courtiers, such as the ], had tenuous relationships with the Dauphine.
On 10 May 1774, upon the death of ], the Dauphin ascended the throne as King Louis XVI of ] and ] with Marie Antoinette as his ]. At the outset, the new queen had limited political influence with her husband, who, with the support of his two most important ministers, Chief Minister ] and Foreign Minister ], blocked several of her candidates from assuming important positions, including Choiseul.{{sfnm|Fraser|2001|1pp=136–37|2a1=d'Arneth|2a2=Geffroy|2y=1874|2pp=475–480}} The queen did play a decisive role in the disgrace and exile of the most powerful of Louis XV's ministers, the ].{{sfnm|Castelot|1962|1pp=107–108|Fraser|2001|2pp=124–27|Lever|1991|3p=125}}


On 24 May 1774, two weeks after the death of Louis XV, the king gave his wife the ], a small château on the grounds of Versailles that had been built by Louis XV for his mistress, ]. Louis XVI allowed Marie Antoinette to renovate it to suit her own tastes; soon rumours circulated that she had plastered the walls with gold and diamonds.<ref>{{Harvnb|Cronin|1974|p=215}}</ref>
However, Marie Antoinette's relationship with the comtesse du Barry was one which was important to rectify, at least on the surface, as Madame du Barry was the mistress of Louis XV, and thus not without considerable political influence over the king. In fact, she had been instrumental in the ousting from power of the ], who had helped orchestrate the Franco-Austrian alliance as well as Marie Antoinette's own marriage. However, Louis XV's daughters, Mesdames, hated Mme du Barry due to her unsavory relationship with their father. With manipulative coaching, the aunts encouraged the Dauphine to refuse to acknowledge the favourite, which was considered by some to be a political blunder. After months of continued pressure from her mother and the Austrian minister, the ], Marie Antoinette grudgingly agreed to speak to Mme du Barry on New Year's Day 1772. Although the limit of their conversation was Marie Antoinette's banal comment to the royal mistress that, "there are a lot of people at Versailles today", Mme du Barry was satisfied and the crisis, for the most part, dissipated. There was, however, a further level of animosity from the view of the Mesdames raised by this situation - they felt somewhat 'betrayed' in their stance against du Barry.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lever|2006}}{{page?}}</ref> Later, Marie Antoinette became more polite to the comtesse, pleasing Louis XV.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=87–90, 97–99}}.</ref>


] by Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty c.1775]]
From the beginning, the Dauphine had to contend with constant letters from her mother, who wrote to her daughter regularly and who received secret reports from Mercy d'Argenteau on her daughter's behaviour. Marie Antoinette would write home in the early days saying that she missed her dear home. Though the letters were touching, in later years, Marie Antoinette said she feared her mother more than she loved her.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=80–81}}.</ref> The Dauphine was constantly criticised by her mother for her inability to "inspire passion" in her husband, who rarely slept with her and had no interest in doing so, being more interested in his hobbies such as lock-making and hunting. The Empress went so far as saying directly to Marie Antoinette that she was no longer pretty, and had lost all her grace.
The Queen spent heavily on fashion, luxuries, and gambling, though the country was facing a grave financial crisis and the population was suffering. ] created dresses for her, and hairstyles such as '']s'', up to three feet (90&nbsp;cm) high, and the '']—''a spray of feather plumes. She and her court also adopted the English fashion of dresses made of ], a material banned in France from 1686 until 1759 to protect local French woolen and silk industries, ] and ].<ref>{{cite book|first1=Michael|last1=Batterberry|first2=Ariane|last2=Ruskin Batterberry|title=Fashion, the mirror of history|publisher=Greenwich House|location=Greenwich, Connecticut|date=1977|isbn=978-0-517-38881-5|page=190}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=150–51}}</ref> As a result of all these fashion activities, Marie Antoinette presided over one of the most important and fashionable courts in history and she was dominant over all of the other ladies of the court; as for her bearing and appearance the queen was very majestic and charismatic in spite of the fact that she gained much weight over the years due to her many pregnancies.


By the time of the ] of 1775, a series of riots, due to the high price of flour and bread, had damaged her reputation among the general public. Eventually, Marie Antoinette's reputation was no better than that of the favourites of previous kings. Many French people were beginning to blame her for the degrading economic situation, suggesting the country's inability to pay off its debt was the result of her wasting the crown's money.<ref>{{harvnb|Erickson|1991|pp=163}}</ref> In her correspondence, Marie Antoinette's mother, Maria Theresa, expressed concern over her daughter's spending habits, citing the civil unrest it was beginning to cause.<ref>Thomas, Chantal. ''The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie Antoinette''. Translated by Julie Rose. New York: Zone Books, 2001, p. 51.</ref>
], by ] (1769).]]
] (1771), ], Vienna.]]


As early as 1774, Marie Antoinette had begun to befriend some of her male admirers, such as the ], the ], and ],<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=140–45}}</ref>{{sfn|d'Arneth|Geffroy|1874|pp=400–410}} and also formed deep friendships with various ladies at court. Most noted was ], related to the royal family through her marriage into the ]. On 19 September 1774, she appointed her superintendent of her household,<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=129–31}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=131–32}}; {{harvnb|Bonnet|1981}}</ref> an appointment she soon transferred to her new favourite, the ].
To make up for the lack of affection from her husband and the endless criticism of her mother, Marie Antoinette began to spend more on gambling and clothing, with cards and horse-betting, as well as trips to the city and new clothing, shoes, pomade and rouge.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=141}}.</ref> She was expected by tradition to spend money on her attire, so as to outshine other women at Court, being the leading example of fashion in Versailles (the previous queen, ], had died in 1768, two years prior to Marie Antoinette's arrival).


In 1774, she took under her patronage her former music teacher, the German opera composer ], who remained in France until 1779.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=111–13}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Howard |first1=Patricia |title=Gluck: An Eighteenth-century Portrait in Letters and Documents |date=1995 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-816385-5 |pages=105–15, 240–45}}</ref>
Marie Antoinette also began to form deep friendships with various ladies in her retinue. Most noted were the sensitive and "pure" widow, the ], whom she appointed as Superintendent of her Household, and the fun-loving, down-to-earth ], who eventually formed the cornerstone of the Queen's inner circle of friends (''Société Particulière de la Reine'').<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=129–131}}.</ref> The duchesse de Polignac later became the Governess of the royal children (''Gouvernante des Enfants de France''), and was a friend of both Marie Antoinette and Louis. The closeness of the Dauphine's friendship with these ladies, influenced by various popular publications which promoted such friendships, later caused accusations of ] to be lodged against these women.<ref>{{Harvtxt|Fraser|2001|pp=131–132}}; Bonnet, ''Un choix sans équivoque'', Paris (1981)</ref> Others taken into her confidence at this time included her husband's brother, the comte d'Artois; their youngest sister, Madame Élisabeth; her sister-in-law, the ]; and ], her former music teacher, whom she took under her patronage upon his arrival in France.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=111–113}}.</ref>


===Motherhood, changes at court and intervention in politics (1778–1781)===
On 27 April 1774, a week after the ''première'' of Gluck's opera, '']'', which had secured the Dauphine's position as a patron of the arts, Louis XV fell ill. On 4 May, the dying king was pressured to send the comtesse du Barry away from Versailles; on 10 May, at three in the afternoon, he died of ] at the age of sixty-four.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=113–116}}.</ref> Louis-Auguste was crowned King Louis XVI of France on 11 June 1775 at the cathedral of ]. Marie Antoinette was not crowned alongside him, merely accompanying him during the coronation ceremony.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=132–137}}.</ref>
Amidst the atmosphere of a wave of '']'', the Holy Roman Emperor ] came to France incognito, using the name Comte de Falkenstein, for a six-week visit during which he toured Paris extensively and was a guest at Versailles. He met his sister and her husband on 18 April 1777 at the ], and spoke frankly to his brother-in-law, curious as to why the royal marriage had not been consummated, arriving at the conclusion that no obstacle to the couple's conjugal relations existed save the Queen's lack of interest and the King's unwillingness to exert himself.<ref>Lever, Evelyne, ''Louis XVI'', Fayard, Paris, 1985, pp. 289–91</ref>


In a letter to his brother ], Joseph II described them as "a couple of complete blunderers."<ref>{{Harvnb|Cronin|1974|pp=158–59}}</ref> He disclosed to Leopold that the inexperienced—then still only 22-year-old—Louis XVI had confided in him the course of action he had been undertaking in their marital bed; saying Louis XVI "introduces the member," but then "stays there without moving for about two minutes," withdraws without having completed the act and "bids goodnight."{{sfn|Fraser|2002b|p=156}}
==Reign: 1774–1792==
===1774–1778: The early years===
From the outset, despite how she was portrayed in contemporary ], the new queen had very little political influence with her husband. Louis, who had been influenced as a child by anti-Austrian sentiments in the court, blocked many of her candidates, including ],<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=136–137}}.</ref> from taking important positions, aided and abetted by his two most important ministers, Chief Minister ] and Foreign Minister ]. All three were anti-Austrian, and were wary of the potential repercussions of allowing the queen&nbsp;– and, through her, the Austrian empire&nbsp;– to have any say in French policy.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=124–127}}.</ref>
]


Suggestions that Louis suffered from ], which was relieved by ], have been discredited.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.historyofcircumcision.net/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=80|title=Circumcision and phimosis in eighteenth century France|website=History of Circumcision|access-date=16 December 2016}}</ref> Nevertheless, following Joseph's intervention, the marriage was finally consummated in August 1777.<ref>{{Harvnb|Cronin|1974|p=159}}</ref> Eight months later, in April 1778, it was suspected that the queen was pregnant, which was officially announced on 16 May.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=160–61}}</ref> Marie Antoinette's daughter, ], ''Madame Royale'', was born at Versailles on 19 December 1778.<ref name="Fraser 2001 166–170"/><ref>{{Harvnb|Cronin|1974|p=161}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Hibbert|2002|p=23}}</ref> The child's paternity was contested in the ''libelles'', as were all her children's.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=169}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Fraser |first=Antonia |title=Marie Antoinette: The Journey |publisher=Phoenix |year=2006 |isbn=9780753821404 |pages=182–193}}</ref>
] visited Marie Antoinette and her husband on 7 February 1775 at the ].]]


In the middle of the queen's pregnancy, two events occurred which had a profound effect on her later life: the return of her friend, the Swedish diplomat Count ]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/12096119/Marie-Antoinettes-torrid-affair-with-Swedish-count-revealed-in-decoded-letters.html|title=Marie-Antoinette's torrid affair with Swedish count revealed in decoded letters|website=The Telegraph|last=Samuel|first=Henry|date=12 January 2016}}</ref> to Versailles for two years, and her brother's ] of ], contested by ] and Prussia.<ref>{{Harvnb|Cronin|1974|pp=162–64}}</ref> Marie Antoinette pleaded with her husband for the French to intercede on behalf of Austria. The ], signed on 13 May 1779, ended the brief conflict, with the Queen imposing French mediation at her mother's insistence and Austria's gaining the ] territory of at least 100,000 inhabitants—a strong retreat from the early French position which was hostile towards Austria. This gave the impression, partially justified, that the Queen had sided with Austria against France.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=158–71}}</ref>{{sfn|d'Arneth|Geffroy|1874|pp=168–170, 180–182, 210–212}}
Marie Antoinette's situation became more precarious when, on 6 August 1775, her sister-in-law, the ], gave birth to a son, the ] (who later became the presumptive heir to the French throne when his father, the ], became King Charles X of France in 1824). This resulted in release of a plethora of graphic satirical pamphlets, which mainly centered on the king's impotence and the queen's searching for sexual relief elsewhere, with men and women alike. Among her rumored lovers were her close friend, the princesse de Lamballe, and her handsome brother-in-law, the comte d'Artois, with whom the queen had a good rapport.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=137–139}}.</ref>


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 ].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style|last=Kindersley|first=Dorling|publisher=DK Publishing|year=2012|location=New York|pages=146–49}}</ref> The new fashion called for a simpler feminine look, typified first by the rustic ] style and later by the '']'', a layered muslin dress Marie Antoinette wore in a 1783 ] portrait.<ref>{{Harvnb|Cronin|1974|pp=127–28}}</ref> In 1780 she began to participate in amateur plays and musicals in the ] built for her by ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=174–79}}</ref>
This caused the queen to plunge further into the costly diversions of buying her dresses from ] and ], simply to enjoy herself. On one famed occasion, she played for three days straight with players from Paris, straight up until her 21st birthday. She also began to attract various male admirers whom she accepted into her inner circles, including the ], the duc de Coigny, and ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=140–145}}.</ref>


]'', a 1783 portrait of Marie Antoinette that was criticised for showing what was described as improper and informal attire for a queen. In response to the criticism, it was repainted with the queen in a blue silk dress.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150318103947/http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1047&context=art_journal|date=18 March 2015}} Kelly Hall: "Impropriety, Informality and Intimacy in Vigée Le Brun's Marie Antoinette en Chemise", pp. 21–28. Providence College Art Journal, 2014.</ref>]]
She was given free rein to renovate the '']'', a small château on the grounds of Versailles, which was given to her as a gift by Louis XVI on 15 August 1774; she concentrated mainly on horticulture, redesigning in the English mode the garden, which in the previous reign had been an arboretum of introduced species. Although the ''Petit Trianon'' had been built for Louis XV's mistress, ], it became associated with Marie Antoinette's perceived extravagance. Rumors circulated that she plastered the walls with gold and diamonds.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=150–151}}.</ref>
Repayment of the French debt remained a difficult problem, further exacerbated by Vergennes and also by Marie Antoinette prodding<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Larkin|first=T. Lawrence|date=2010|title=A "Gift" Strategically Solicited and Magnanimously Conferred|journal=Winterthur Portfolio|volume=44|issue=1|pages=31–76|doi=10.1086/651087|jstor=10.1086/651087|s2cid=142922208|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/651087 | issn = 0084-0416}}</ref> Louis XVI to involve France in the ]. The primary motive for the queen's involvement in political affairs in this period may arguably have had more to do with court factionalism than any true interest on her part in politics themselves,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marie-Antoinette-queen-of-France|title=Marie-Antoinette {{!}} Biography & French Revolution|work=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=3 February 2018}}</ref> but she played an important role in aiding the ] by securing Austrian and ] support for France, which resulted in the establishment of the ] that stopped Britain's attack, and by weighing in decisively for the nomination of ], as Minister of War and ] as Secretary of the Navy in 1780, who helped ] defeat the British in the American Revolutionary War, which ended in 1783.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=152, 171, 194–95}}</ref>


Marie Antoinette's second pregnancy ended in a miscarriage early in July 1779, as confirmed by letters between the Queen and her mother, although some historians believed that she may have experienced bleeding related to an irregular menstrual cycle, which she mistook for a lost pregnancy.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202001555/http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1965&context=theses|date=2 February 2017}} (retrieved 1 October 2016).</ref>
"...the innovativeness of Marie Antoinette's country retreat would attract her subjects’ fierce disapproval, even as it aimed to bolster her autonomy and enhance her prestige," (Weber 132).


Her third pregnancy was affirmed in March 1781, and on 22 October she gave birth to ], Dauphin of France.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ntv.co.jp/marie/works/catalog_en.pdf|title=From Vienna to Versailles: from Imperial Princess to Crown Prince}}</ref>
An even bigger problem, however, was the debt incurred by France during the Seven Years' War, still unpaid. It was further exacerbated by Vergennes' prodding Louis XVI to get involved in ]'s war with its ], due to France's traditional rivalry with Great Britain.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=152}}.</ref>


Empress Maria Theresa died on 29 November 1780 in Vienna. Marie Antoinette feared that the death of her mother would jeopardise the Franco-Austrian alliance, as well as, ultimately, herself, but her brother, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, wrote to her that he had no intention of breaking the alliance.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_JD1AAQAAMAAJ |title=Marie Antoinette; Joseph II, und Leopold II |last=Arneth |first=Alfred |date=1866 |location=Leipzig / Paris / Vienna |publisher=K.F. Köhler / Ed. Jung-Treuttel / Wilhelm Braumüller |page= (footnote) |language=fr, de}}</ref>
In the midst of preparations for sending help to France, and in the atmosphere of the first wave of ''libelles'', Holy Roman ] came to call on his sister and brother-in-law on 18 April 1777, the subsequent six-week visit in Versailles a part of the attempt to figure out why their marriage had not been consummated.


It was due to Joseph's intervention that, on 30 August 1777, the marriage was officially consummated. Eight months later, in April, it was suspected that the queen was finally pregnant with her first child. This was confirmed on 16 May 1778.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=160–162}}.</ref> A second visit from Joseph II, which took place in July 1781 to reaffirm the Franco-Austrian alliance and also to see his sister, was tainted by false rumours{{Sfn|Fraser|2002|p=186}} that Marie Antoinette was sending money to him from the French treasury.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=184–87}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Price|1995|pp=55–60}}</ref>


===Declining popularity (1782–1785)===
===1778–1781: Motherhood===
Despite the general celebration over the birth of an heir, Marie Antoinette's political influence, such as it was, was perceived to greatly benefit Austria.<ref>Fraser, pp. 232–36</ref> During the ], in which her brother Joseph attempted to open the ] river for naval passage, Marie Antoinette succeeded in obliging Vergennes to pay huge financial compensation to Austria. Finally, the Queen was able to obtain her brother's support against ] in the American Revolution and she neutralized French hostility to his alliance with Russia.<ref>{{cite book |title=Lettres de Marie Antoinette |author=Le Marquis de Beaucourt |date=1895 |volume=ii |pages=42–44}}</ref>{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=350–353}}
], by ] (1778).]]
]'s gardens, by ] (1785).]]
In the middle of her pregnancy, two events occurred which had a profound impact on the queen's later life. First, there was the return of the handsome Swede, ] - whom she had met previously on New Year's Day, 1774, while she was still Dauphine - to Versailles for two years. Secondly, the king's wealthy but spiteful cousin, the ], was disgraced due to his questionable conduct during the ] against the British. In addition, Marie Antoinette's brother, the Emperor Joseph, began making claims on the throne of ] based upon his second marriage to the princess ]. Marie Antoinette pleaded with her husband for the French to help intercede on behalf of Austria but was rebuffed by the king and his ministers. The ], signed on 13 May 1779, ended the brief conflict, but the incident once more showed the limited influence that the queen had in politics.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=164–166}}.</ref>


In 1782, after the governess of the royal children, the ], went bankrupt and resigned, Marie Antoinette appointed her favourite, the ], to the position.<ref>{{Harvnb|Cronin|1974|p=193}}</ref> This decision met with disapproval from the court as the duchess was considered to be of too modest origins to occupy such an exalted position. In contrast, both the king and the queen trusted Madame de Polignac completely, gave her a thirteen-room apartment in Versailles and paid her well.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=198–201}}</ref> The entire Polignac family benefited greatly from royal favour in titles and positions, but its sudden wealth and lavish lifestyle outraged most aristocratic families, who resented the Polignacs' dominance at court, and also fueled the increasing popular disapproval of Marie Antoinette, mostly in Paris.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Price |first1=Munro |title=The Road from Versailles: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the Fall of the French Monarchy |date=2003 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-312-26879-4 |pages=14–15, 72}}</ref> De Mercy wrote to the empress: "It is almost unexampled that in so short a time, the royal favour should have brought such overwhelming advantages to a family".<ref>{{Harvnb|Zweig|2002|p=121}}</ref>
Marie Antoinette's daughter, ], given the honorific title at birth of '']'', was finally born at Versailles, after a particularly difficult labour, on 19 December 1778, following an ordeal where the queen literally collapsed from suffocation and hemorrhaging. The queen's bedroom was packed with courtiers watching the birth, and the doctor aiding her supposedly caused the excessive bleeding by accident. The windows had to be torn out to revive her. This incident has a variant: some sources purport that it was the Princesse de Lamballe who lost consciousness, and to prevent the queen from doing the same, the king himself - rather unusually - let in some air by tearing off the tapes that sealed the windows.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hibbert|first=Christopher|title=The Days of the French Revolution|year=2002|publisher=Harper Perennial|isbn=0688169783|pages=23}}</ref> In any case, as a result of this harrowing experience, the queen and the king banned most courtiers from entering her bedchamber for subsequent labours.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=166–170}}.</ref>


In June 1783, Marie Antoinette's new pregnancy was announced, but on the night of 1–2 November, her 28th birthday, she suffered a miscarriage.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Wheeler |first1=Bonnie |title=Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady |last2=Parsons |first2=John Carmi |year=2003 |pages=288}}</ref>
The baby's paternity was contested in the ] but not by the king himself, who was close to his daughter.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=169}}.</ref>


In 1783 the Queen played a decisive role in the nomination of ], a close friend of ], as ], and of the ] as the Minister of the Royal Household, making him perhaps the strongest and most conservative minister of the reign.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Charles-Alexandre de Calonne {{!}} French statesman |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Alexandre-de-Calonne|access-date=2021-12-16|website=Britannica |language=en}}</ref> 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. More than that, the ], the minister of war, requiring four ] of nobility as a condition for the appointment of officers, mainly served the interest of older noble families including poorer provincial ones, who were widely seen as a reactionary interest group by ambitious members of the middle and professional classes, by some more recent nobility, and even by the Parisian populace and press. The measure also blocked the access of 'commoners', mainly sons of members of the professional classes, and of more recently elevated nobility to important positions in the armed forces. As such, the decree became an important grievance for social classes that had been habitually supportive of the monarchy and established order, and which went on to supply the bulk of the early leadership of the French Revolution.<ref name="Fraser 2001 218–20">{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=218–20}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Price |first1=Munro |title=Preserving the Monarchy: The Comte de Vergennes 1774-1787 |date=1995 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-46566-3 |pages=30–35, 145–50}}</ref>
The birth of a daughter meant that pressure to have a male heir continued, and Marie Antoinette wrote about her worrisome health, which might have contributed to a miscarriage in July 1779. Antonia Fraser expresses doubts as to whether there was a pregnancy in 1779, ascribing the queen's belief that she had a miscarriage to Antoinette's irregular menstrual cycle. The memoirs of the queen's lady-in-waiting, Madame Campan, state explicitly that the miscarriage came about after the queen exerted herself too strenuously in closing a window in her carriage, felt that she had hurt herself, and lost the child eight days later. Campan adds that the king spent a morning consoling the queen at her bedside, and swore to secrecy all those who were aware of the accident.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=172}}.</ref>


Count ], after his return from America in June 1783, was accepted into the Queen's private society. There were claims that the two were romantically involved,<ref>{{cite book |last=Farr |first=Evelyn |title=Marie-Antoinette and Count Fersen: The Untold Love Story |date=12 October 2013 |publisher=Peter Owen Publishers |isbn=978-0720610017 |edition=2nd Revised}}</ref> but since most of their correspondence has been lost, destroyed, or redacted, for many years there was no conclusive evidence.<ref name="Fraser202">{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=202}}</ref> Starting in 2016, scientists at the ] (CRCC), uncovered some of the redacted text of the queen's letters to Fersen.<ref>{{Cite web |author=Joseph Bamat |date=12 January 2016 |title=Science sheds new light on Marie Antoinette 'love affair' |url=https://www.france24.com/en/20160112-marie-antoinette-love-letters-science-france |publisher=France24}}</ref> The revealed texts do not mention a physical relationship, but do confirm a very strong emotional relationship.<ref>{{cite book |last=Farr |first=Evelyn |title=I Love You Madly: Marie-Antoinette and Count Fersen: The Secret Letters |date=1 July 2016 |publisher=Peter Owen Publishers |isbn=978-0720618778}}</ref>
Meanwhile, the queen began to institute changes in the customs practised at court, with the approval of the king. Some changes, such as the abolition of segregated dining spaces, had already been instituted for some time and had been met with disapproval from the older generation. More importantly was the abandonment of heavy make-up and the popular wide-hooped ] for a more simple feminine look, typified first by the rustic ] and later by the 'gaulle,' a simple muslin dress that she wore in a 1783 ] portrait. She also began to participate in amateur plays and musicals, starting in 1780, in a theatre built for her and other courtiers who wished to indulge in the delights of acting and singing.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=174–179}}.</ref>


Around this time, ] describing farcical sexual deviance including the Queen and her friends in the court were growing in popularity around the country. The ''Portefeuille d'un talon rouge'' was one of the earliest, including the queen and a variety of other nobles in a political statement decrying the immoral practices of the court. As time went on, these came to focus more on the queen. They described amorous encounters with a wide range of figures, from the Duchess of Polignac to Louis XV. As these attacks increased, they were connected with the public's dislike of her association with the rival nation of Austria. It was publicly suggested that her supposed behaviour was learned at the Austrian court, particularly lesbianism, which was known as the "German vice".<ref>Hunt, Lynn. "The Many Bodies of Marie Antoinette: Political Pornography and the Problem of the Feminine in the French Revolution". In ''The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New Controversies'' 2nd edition, ed. ]. New York and London: Routledge, 1998, pp. 201–18.</ref> Her mother again expressed concern for the safety of her daughter, and she began to use Austria's ambassador to France, ], to provide information on Marie Antoinette's safety and movements.<ref>Thomas, Chantal. ''The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie Antoinette''. Translated by Julie Rose. New York: Zone Books, 2001, pp. 51–52.</ref>
In 1780, two candidates who had been supported by Marie Antoinette for positions, the ], and the ], were appointed Minister of the Navy and Minister of War, respectively. Though many believed it was entirely the support of the queen that enabled them to secure their positions, in truth it was mostly that of Finance Minister ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=183–184}}.</ref>


In 1783, the Queen was busy with the creation of her "]", a rustic retreat built by her favoured architect, ], according to the designs of the painter ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Lever|2006|p=158}}</ref> Its creation, however, caused another uproar when its cost became widely known.<ref>Fraser, pp. 206–08</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gutwirth |first1=Madelyn |title=The Twilight of the Goddesses: Women and Representation in the French Revolutionary Era |date=1992 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-1787-2 |pages=103, 178–85, 400–05}}</ref> However, the hamlet was not an eccentricity of Marie Antoinette's. It was en vogue at the time for nobles to have recreations of small villages on their properties. In fact, the design was copied from that of ]. It was also significantly smaller and less intricate than many other nobles'.{{sfn|Fraser|2002b|p=207}} Around this time she accumulated a library of 5,000 books. Those on music, often dedicated to her, were the most read, though she also liked to read history.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=208}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bombelles |first1=Marc-Marie marquis de |title=Journal |volume=1: 1780-1784 |date=1977 |publisher=Droz |pages=258–65 |language=fr}}</ref>
]'', portrait of the queen in a "muslin" dress, by ] (1783). This controversial portrait was viewed by her critics to be improper for a queen.]]


She sponsored the arts, in particular music. Marie Antoinette preferred to hold her musicales in the salon of her '']'' in the Palace of Versailles, or in the ]. She limited the audience to her intimate circle and a few musicians, among them the ]. "Admitted to perform music with the Queen,"{{sfn|Banat|2006|p=151-152}} Saint-Georges probably played his violin sonatas for two instruments, with Her Majesty playing the ]. She also supported some scientific endeavours, encouraging and witnessing the first launch of a '']'', a ] for the first time in human history; this extraordinary feat which represented a turning point in human civilization was done by ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Cronin|1974|pp=204–05}}</ref>
Later that year, Empress Maria Theresa's health began to give way due to ] and an unnamed respiratory problem. She died on 29 November 1780, in Vienna, at the age of sixty-three, and was mourned throughout Europe. Though Marie Antoinette was worried that the death of her mother would jeopardise the Franco-Austrian alliance (as well as, ultimately, herself), Emperor Joseph reassured her through his own letters (as the empress had not stopped writing to Marie Antoinette until shortly before her death) that he had no intention of breaking the alliance.


On 27 April 1784, ]'s play '']'' premiered in Paris. Initially banned by the king due to its negative portrayal of the nobility, the play was finally allowed to be publicly performed because of the Queen's support and its overwhelming popularity at court, where secret readings of it had been given by Marie Antoinette. The play was a disaster for the image of the monarchy and aristocracy. It inspired ]'s '']'', which premiered in Vienna on 1 May 1786.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=214–15}}</ref>
Three months after the empress' death, it was rumoured that Marie Antoinette was pregnant again, which was confirmed in March 1781. Another royal visit from Joseph II in July, partially to reaffirm the Franco-Austrian alliance and also a means of seeing his sister again, was tainted with false rumours that Marie Antoinette was siphoning treasury money to him.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=184–187}}.</ref>


], by ]]]
On 22 October 1781, the queen gave birth to ], who bore the title ], as was customary for the eldest son of the King of France. The reaction to the birth of an heir was best summed up by the words of Louis XVI himself, as he wrote them down in his hunting journal: ''"Madame, you have fulfilled our wishes and those of France, you are the mother of Dauphin"''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=187–188}}.</ref> He would, according to courtiers, try to frame sentences to put in the phrase "my son the Dauphin" in the weeks to come.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=191}}.</ref> It also helped that, three days before the birth, the majority of the fighting in the ] had been concluded with the surrender of ] at ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=194}}.</ref>
On 24 October 1784, putting the Baron de Breteuil in charge of its acquisition, Louis XVI bought the ] from ] in the name of his wife, which she wanted due to their expanding family. She wanted to be able to own her own property, one that was actually hers, to then have the authority to bequeath it to "whichever of my children I wish,"{{Sfn|Fraser|2002|p=217}} choosing the child she thought could use it rather than it going through patriarchal inheritance laws or whims. It was proposed that the cost could be covered by other sales, such as that of the ''château Trompette'' in Bordeaux.{{sfn|Fraser|2002b|p=217}} This was unpopular, particularly with those factions of the nobility who disliked the Queen, but also with a growing percentage of the population, who disapproved of a queen of France independently owning a private residence. The purchase of Saint-Cloud thus damaged the public's image of the Queen even further. The château's high price, almost 6 million ], plus the substantial extra cost of redecorating, ensured that much less money was going towards repaying France's substantial debt.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=216–20}}</ref>{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=358–360}}


On 27 March 1785, Marie Antoinette gave birth to a second son, Louis Charles, who bore the title of ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=224–25}}</ref> The fact that the birth occurred exactly nine months after Fersen's return did not escape the attention of many, leading to doubt as to the parentage of the child and to a noticeable decline of the Queen's reputation in public opinion.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lever|2006|p=189}}</ref> The majority of Marie Antoinette's and Louis XVII's biographers believe that the young prince was the biological son of Louis XVI, including ] and ], who believe that Fersen and Marie Antoinette were indeed romantically involved.<ref>Stefan Zweig, ''Marie Antoinette: The portrait of an average woman'', New York, 1933, pp. 143, 244–47</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=267–69}}</ref><ref>], ''Marie-Antoinette: A Portrait'', London, 1993</ref><ref>Évelyne Lever, ''Marie-Antoinette : la dernière reine'', Fayard, Paris, 2000</ref><ref>Simone Bertière, ''Marie-Antoinette: l'insoumise'', Le Livre de Poche, Paris, 2003</ref><ref>Jonathan Beckman, ''How to ruin a Queen: Marie Antoinette, the Stolen Diamonds and the Scandal that shook the French throne'', London, 2014</ref><ref>Munro Price, ''The Fall of the French Monarchy: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the baron de Breteuil'', London, 2002</ref><ref>Deborah Cadbury, ''The Lost King of France: The tragic story of Marie-Antoinette's Favourite Son'', London, 2003, pp. 22–24</ref> Fraser has also noted that the birthdate matches up perfectly with a known conjugal visit from the King.{{Sfn|Fraser|2002|p=217}}
===1782–1785: Declining popularity===
Despite the general celebration over the birth of the Dauphin, Marie Antoinette's political influence, such as it was, did not benefit Austria. Instead, after the death of the comte de Maurepas, the influence of Vergennes was strengthened, and she was again left out of political affairs. The same happened during the so-called ], in which her brother Joseph attempted to open up the ] for naval passage. Later, another attempt by him to claim ] was rebuffed as being against French interests.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=197}}.</ref>


Courtiers at Versailles noted in their diaries that the date of the child's conception corresponded perfectly with a period when the King and the Queen had spent much time together, but these details were ignored amid attacks on the Queen's character.<ref>Cadbury, p. 23</ref> These suspicions of illegitimacy, along with the continued publication of the ''libelles'' and never-ending cavalcades of court intrigues, the actions of Joseph II in the ], the purchase of Saint-Cloud and the ] combined to turn popular opinion sharply against the Queen, and the image of a licentious, spendthrift, empty-headed foreign queen was quickly taking root in the French psyche.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=226}}</ref>
When accused of being a "dupe" by her brother for her political inaction, Marie Antoinette responded that she had little power. The king rarely talked to her about policy, and his anti-Austrian education as a child fortified his refusals in allowing his wife any participation in his decisions. As a result, she had to pretend to his ministers that she was in his full confidence in order to get the information she wanted. This led the court to believe she had more power than she did. As she wrote,''"Would it be wise of me to have scenes with his (Louis XVI's) ministers over matters on which it is practically certain the King would not support me?"''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=197–198}}.</ref>


A second daughter, her last child, ], ''Madame Sophie'', was born on 9 July 1786 and lived only eleven months until 19 June 1787. She was named after the King's aunt, ].{{Sfn|Fraser|2002|p=244}}
]


===Prelude to the Revolution: scandals and the failure of reforms (1786–1789)===
Her temperament was more suited to personally directing the education of her children. This was against the traditions of Versailles, where the queen usually had little say over the '']'', as the royal children were called, and they were instead handed over to various courtiers who fought over the privilege. In particular, after the royal governess at the time of the Dauphin's birth, the ], went bankrupt and was forced to resign, there was a controversy over who should replace her. Marie Antoinette appointed her favourite, the ], to the position. This met with disapproval from the court, as the duchess was considered to be of too "immodest" a birth to occupy such an exalted position. On the other hand, both the king and queen trusted Mme de Polignac completely, and the duchess had children of her own to whom the queen had become attached.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=198–201}}.</ref>
====Diamond necklace scandal====
{{Main|Affair of the Diamond Necklace}}
], in France]]
Marie Antoinette began to abandon her more carefree activities to become increasingly involved in politics in her role as queen of France.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=248–52}}</ref> By publicly showing her attention to the education and care of her children, the queen sought to improve the dissolute image she had acquired in 1785 from the "Diamond Necklace Affair", in which public opinion had falsely accused her of criminal participation in defrauding the jewelers Boehmer and Bassenge of the price of an expensive diamond necklace they had originally created for ].


The main actors in the scandal were ], ], ], and ], Countess de La Motte, a descendant of an illegitimate child of ] of the ]. Marie Antoinette had profoundly disliked Rohan since the time he had been the French ambassador to Vienna when she was a child. Despite his high clerical position at the Court, she never addressed a word to him. Others involved were ], alias ''Baronne d'Oliva'', a prostitute who happened to look like Marie Antoinette; ], a forger; ], an Italian adventurer; and the Count de La Motte, Jeanne de Valois' husband. Madame de La Motte tricked Rohan into buying the necklace as a gift to Marie Antoinette, for him to gain the queen's favour.
In June 1783, Marie Antoinette was pregnant again. That same month, Count Axel von Fersen returned from America, in order to secure a military appointment, and he was accepted into her private society. He left in September to become a captain of the bodyguard for his sovereign, ], the king of Sweden, who was conducting a tour of Europe. Marie Antoinette suffered a miscarriage on the night of 1–2 November 1783, prompting more fears for her health.<ref name="Fraser202">{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=202}}.</ref>


When the affair was discovered, those involved, except de La Motte and Rétaux de Villette, who both managed to flee, were arrested, tried, convicted, and either imprisoned or exiled. Madame de La Motte was sentenced for life to confinement in the ], which also served as a prison for women. Judged by the ], Rohan was found innocent of any wrongdoing and allowed to leave the ]. Marie Antoinette, who had insisted on the arrest of the Cardinal, was dealt a heavy personal blow, as was the monarchy, and despite the fact that the guilty parties were tried and convicted, the affair proved to be extremely damaging to her reputation, which never recovered from it.{{citation needed|date=December 2016}}
Trying to calm her mind, during Fersen's first visit, and later after his return on 7 June 1784, the queen occupied herself with the creation of the '']'', a model hamlet in the garden of the Petit Trianon with a mill and twelve cottages, nine of which are still standing. The Hameau was one of Marie Antoinette's contributions to augmenting the chateau at Versailles and it can to this day be viewed by the public. Its creation, however, unexpectedly caused another uproar when the actual price of the ''Hameau'' was inflated by her critics. In truth, it was copied from another, far grander "model village" built in 1774 for the prince de Condé on his estate at ]. The comtesse de Provence's version included windmills and a marble dairyhouse.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=206–207}}.</ref> Started in 1783 and finished in 1787, to designs of the Queen's favoured architect, ], the hamlet was complete with ], ], and ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Lever|2006|pp=158}}.</ref> Public records indicate that in 1781 the Comtesse de Provence's bought land for her Hameau which was completed in 1783, just before work started on the Queen's Hameau.<ref>Bernd H. Dams and Andrew Zega "Folie de Batir."page 130–131</ref> Also, the "Temple of Love" (a physical structure built as a part of the Queen's Hameau) bears a marked and striking resemblance to the rotunda of the ], which was the folie built by the ] situated in her Hameau.<ref>Seulliet, Philippe. World Of Interiors "Swan Song: Music Pavillion of the Last Queen of France." World of Interiors. July 2008 Page 116</ref>


====Failure of political and financial reforms====
In addition to the creation of the Hameau, Marie Antoinette had other notable interests and activities. She became an avid reader of historical novels, and her scientific interest was piqued enough to become a witness to the launching of ]. She was fascinated by ]'s "back to nature" philosophy, as well as the culture of the ] of ] and their worship of the sun, about which she had books in her library. Briefly, she even sought out important British personages such as the Prime Minister, ], and the British ambassador to France, the ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=208}}.</ref> She also developed an interest in learning English, and while she never became fluent, she was able to write in broken English to her friend, the ], whose life was very similar to her own.
Suffering from an acute case of depression, the King began to seek the advice of his wife. In her new role and with increasing political power, the Queen tried to improve the awkward situation brewing between the Parlement and the King.<ref name="Fraser248-250"/> This change of the queen's position signaled the end of the Polignacs' influence and their impact on the finances of the Crown.


Continuing deterioration of the financial situation despite cutbacks to the royal retinue and court expenses ultimately forced the King, the Queen and the Controller-General of Finances, ], at the urging of Vergennes, to call a session of the ], after a hiatus of 160 years. The assembly was held for the purpose of initiating necessary financial reforms, but the Assembly refused to cooperate. The first meeting took place on 22 February 1787, nine days after the death of Vergennes on 13 February. Marie Antoinette did not attend the meeting and her absence resulted in accusations that the Queen was trying to undermine its purpose.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=246–48}}</ref>{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=419–420}} The Assembly was a failure. It did not pass any reforms and, instead, fell into a pattern of defying the King. On the urging of the Queen, Louis XVI dismissed Calonne on 8 April 1787.<ref name="Fraser248-250">{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=248–50}}</ref>
Despite the many things which she did in her spare time, her primary concern became the health of the Dauphin, which was beginning to fail. By the time Fersen returned to Versailles in 1784, it was widely thought that the sickly Dauphin would not live to be an adult. As a consequence, it was rumored that the king and queen were attempting to have another child.<ref name="Fraser202"/> During this time, ]' play '']'' premiered in Paris. After initially having been banned by the king due to its negative portrayal of the nobility, the play was ironically finally allowed to be publicly performed because of its overwhelming popularity at court, where secret readings of it had been given.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=214–215}}.</ref>


On 1 May 1787 ], ] and one of the queen's political allies was appointed by the King at her urging to replace Calonne, first as Controller-General of Finances and then as ]. He began to institute more cutbacks at court while trying to restore the royal absolute power weakened by the Parlement.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=250–60}}</ref> Brienne was unable to improve the financial situation, and since he was the Queen's ally, this failure adversely affected her political position. The continued poor financial climate of the country resulted in the 25 May dissolution of the Assembly of Notables because of its inability to function, and the lack of solutions was blamed on the Queen.<ref name="Fraser 2001 218–20"/>
In August 1784, the queen reported that she was pregnant again. With the future enlargement of her family in mind, she bought the ], a place she had always loved, from the ], the father of the previously disgraced ]. She intended to leave it as an inheritance to her younger children without stipulation. She later realized that her children would not apreciate it. This, along with the rise of Enlightenment ideas, is what made her leave her inheritance to her niece, Marie sans-culottes.This was a hugely unpopular acquisition, particularly with some factions of the nobility who already disliked her, but also with a growing percentage of the population who felt shocked that a French queen might own her own residence independent of the king. Despite having the ] working on her behalf, the purchase did not help the public's frivolous image of the queen. The château's expensive price, almost 6 million ], added with the substantial extra cost of redecorating it, ensured that there was less money going towards repaying France's substantial debt.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=216–220}}.</ref>


France's financial problems were the result of a combination of factors: several expensive wars; a large royal family whose expenditures were paid for by the state; and an unwillingness on the part of most members of the privileged classes, aristocracy, and clergy, to help defray the costs of the government out of their own pockets by relinquishing some of their financial privileges. As a result of the public perception that she had single-handedly ruined the national finances, Marie Antoinette was given the nickname of "Madame Déficit" in the summer of 1787.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=254–55}}</ref> While the sole fault for the financial crisis did not lie with her, Marie Antoinette was the biggest obstacle to any major reform effort. She had played a decisive role in the disgrace of the reformer ministers of finance, ] (in 1776), and ] (first dismissal in 1781). If the secret expenses of the Queen were taken into account, court expenses were much higher than the official estimate of 7% of the state budget.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=254–60}}</ref>
On 27 March 1785, Marie Antoinette gave birth to a second son, ], who was created the ]. The fact that this delivery occurred exactly nine months following Fersen's visit did not escape the attention of many, and although there is much doubt and historical speculation about the parentage of this child, public opinion towards her decreased noticeably.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lever|2006|p=189}}</ref> Nonetheless, Louis Charles was visibly stronger than the sickly ], the new baby was affectionately nicknamed by the queen, ''chou d'amour''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=224–225}}.</ref> This naturally led to suspicions of illegitimacy once more. These suspicions along with the continued publication of the ''libelles'', a never-ending cavalcade of court intrigues, the actions of Joseph II in the Kettle War, and her purchase of Saint-Cloud combined to sharply turn popular opinion against the queen, and the image of a licentious, spendthrift, empty-headed foreign queen was fast taking root in the French psyche.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=226}}.</ref> A second daughter, ], was born on 9 July 1786 and died on 19 June 1787.


] (1787) of Marie Antoinette and her children Marie Thérèse, Louis Charles (on her lap), and Louis Joseph, was meant to help her reputation by depicting her as a mother and in simple, yet stately attire.]] ], 1787.]]
], ''Mademoiselle Sophie'', by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1786).]]


The queen attempted to fight back with propaganda portraying her as a caring mother, most notably in the painting by ] exhibited at the ] in August 1787, showing her with her children.<ref>Facos, p. 12.</ref><ref>Schama, p. 221.</ref> Around the same time, Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy escaped from prison and fled to London, where she published damaging slander concerning her supposed amorous affair with the Queen.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=255–58}}</ref>
The continuing deterioration of the financial situation in France, although cutbacks in the royal retinue had been made, ultimately forced the king, in collaboration with his current Minister of Finance, ], to call the ], after a hiatus of 160 years. The assembly was held to try to pass some of the reforms needed to alleviate the financial situation when the ]s refused to cooperate. The first meeting of the assembly took place on 22 February 1787, at which Marie Antoinette was not present. Later, her absence resulted in her being accused of trying to undermine the purpose of the assembly .<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=246–248}}.</ref>


The political situation in 1787 worsened when, at Marie Antoinette's urging, the '']'' was exiled to ] on 15 August. It further deteriorated when Louis XVI tried to use a '']'' on 11 November to impose legislation. The new ] publicly protested the king's actions, and was subsequently exiled to his ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=257–58}}</ref> The May Edicts issued on 8 May 1788 were also opposed by the public and parlement. Finally, on 8 August, Louis XVI announced his intention to bring back the ], the traditional elected legislature of the country, which had not been convened since 1614.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=258–59}}</ref>
However, the Assembly was a failure with or without the queen, as it did not pass any reforms and instead fell into a pattern of defying the king, demanding other reforms and for the acquiescence of the Parlements. As a result, the king dismissed Calonne on 8 April 1787; Vergennes died on 13 February. The king, once more ignoring the queen's pro-Austrian candidate, appointed a childhood friend, the ], to replace Vergennes as Foreign Minister.<ref name="Fraser248-250">{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=248–250}}.</ref>


While from late 1787 up to his death in June 1789 Marie Antoinette's primary concern was the continued deterioration of the health of the Dauphin, who suffered from ],<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=260–61}}</ref> she was directly involved in the exile of the ''Parlement'', the May Edicts, and the announcement regarding the Estates General. She did participate in the ], the first queen to do this in over 175 years (since ] had been named ''Chef du Conseil du Roi'', between 1614 and 1617), and she was making the major decisions behind the scene and in the Royal Council.
During this time, even as her candidate was rejected, the queen began to abandon her more carefree activities to become more involved in politics than ever before, and mostly against the interests of Austria. This was for a variety of reasons. First, her children were '']'', and thus their future as leaders of France needed to be assured. Second, by concentrating on her children, the queen sought to improve the dissolute image she had acquired from the "]", as a result of which it was implied that she had participated in a crime to defraud the crown jewelers of the cost of a very expensive diamond necklace. Third, the king had begun to withdraw from a decision making role in government due to the onset of an acute case of ] from all the pressures he was under. The symptoms of this depression were passed off as drunkenness by the ''libelles''. As a result, Marie Antoinette finally emerged as a politically viable entity, although that was never her actual intention. In her new capacity as a politician with a degree of power, the queen tried her best to help the situation brewing between the assembly and the king.<ref name="Fraser248-250"/>


Marie Antoinette was instrumental in the reinstatement of ] as Finance Minister on 26 August 1788, 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.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=263–65}}</ref>{{sfn|Lever|2001|pp=448–453}}
This change in her political role signaled the beginning of the end of the influence of the duchesse de Polignac, as Marie Antoinette began to dislike the duchesse's huge expenditures and their impact on the finances of the Crown. The duchesse left for England in May, leaving her children behind in Versailles. Also in May, ], the ] and one of the queen's political allies, was appointed by the king to replace Calonne as the Finance Minister. He began instituting more cutbacks at court.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=250–255}}.</ref>


On the eve of the opening of the ] the Queen attended the mass celebrating its return. As soon as it opened on 5 May 1789, the fracture between the democratic Third Estate (consisting of bourgeois and radical aristocrats) and the conservative nobility of the Second Estate widened, and Marie Antoinette knew that her rival, the Duke of Orléans, who had given money and bread to the people during the winter, would be acclaimed by the crowd, much to her detriment.<ref>{{cite book |title=A diary of the French Revolution 1789–93 |last=Morris |first=Gouverneur |date=1939 |pages=66–67 |editor=Beatrix Cary Davenport |location=Boston |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015011239764&seq=9}}</ref>
Brienne, though, was not able to improve the financial situation. Since he was her ally, this failure adversely affected the queen's political position. The continued poor financial climate of the country resulted in the 25 May dissolution of the Assembly of Notables because of its inability to get things done. This lack of solutions was wrongly blamed on the queen. In reality, the blame should have been placed on a combination of several other factors. There had been too many expensive wars, a too-large royal family whose large frivolous expenditures far exceeded those of the queen, and an unwillingness on the part of many of the aristocrats in charge to help defray the costs of the government out of their own pockets with higher taxes. Marie Antoinette earned the nickname of "Madame Déficit" in the summer of 1787 as a result of the public perception that she had single-handedly ruined the finances of the nation.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=254–255}}.</ref>


The death of the Dauphin on 4 June, which deeply affected his parents, was virtually ignored by the French people,<ref>Nicolardot, Louis, ''Journal de Louis Seize'', 1873, pp. 133–38</ref> who were instead preparing for the next meeting of the Estates General and hoping for a resolution to the bread crisis. As the Third Estate declared itself a ] and took the ], and as people either spread or believed rumours that the Queen wished to bathe in their blood, Marie Antoinette went into mourning for her eldest son.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=274–78}}</ref> Her role was decisive in urging the King to remain firm and not concede to popular demands for reforms. In addition, she showed her determination to use force to crush the forthcoming revolution.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=279–82}}</ref>{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=462–467}}
The queen attempted to fight back with her own propaganda that portrayed her as a caring mother, most notably with the portrait of her and her children done by ], which premiered at the ] in August 1787. This attack strategy was eventually dropped, however, because of the death of the queen's youngest child, Sophie. Around the same time, ] escaped from ] in France and fled to London, where she published more damaging lies concerning her supposed "affair" with the queen.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=255–258}}.</ref>


==French Revolution before Varennes (1789–1791)==
The political situation in 1787 began to worsen when the '']'' was exiled, and culminated on 11 November, when the king tried to use a '']'' to force through legislation. He was unexpectedly challenged by his formerly disgraced cousin, the ], who had inherited the title of ] at the recent death of his father. The new duc d'Orléans publicly protested the king's actions, and was subsequently exiled. The May Edicts issued on 8 May 1788, were also opposed by the public. Finally, on 8 July and 8 August, the king announced his intention to bring back the ], the traditional elected legislature of the country which had not been convened since 1614.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=258–259}}.</ref>
The situation escalated on 20 June as the Third Estate, which had been joined by several members of the clergy and radical nobility, found the door to its appointed meeting place closed by order of the King.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Doyle|first=William|title=The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford University Press|year=1990|pages=100–105}}</ref> It thus met at the tennis court in Versailles and took the ] not to separate before it had given a constitution to the nation.
] (1788)]]


On 11 July at Marie Antoinette's urging, Necker was dismissed and replaced by Breteuil, the queen's choice to crush the Revolution with mercenary Swiss troops under the command of one of her favourites, ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=280–85}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Morris|1939|pp=130–35}}</ref> At the news, Paris was besieged by riots that culminated in the ] on 14 July.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=282–84}}</ref>{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=474–478}} On 15 July ] was named commander-in-chief of the newly formed ].<ref name="Fraser 2001 284–289">{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=284–89}}</ref><ref name="Browning1885">{{cite book |title=Despatches of Earl Gower |editor-first1=Oscar |editor-last1=Browning |location=Cambridge |publisher =Cambridge University Press|date=1885 |pages=70–75, 245–50}}</ref>
Marie Antoinette was not directly involved with the exile of the ''Parlement'', the May Edicts or with the announcement regarding the Estates General. Her primary concern in late 1787 and 1788 was instead the improved health of the Dauphin. He was suffering from ], which in his case had twisted and curved his spinal column severely. He was brought to the château at ] in the hope that its country air would help the young boy recover. Unfortunately, the move did little to alleviate the Dauphin's condition, which gradually continued to deteriorate.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=260–261}}.</ref>


] in Paris, and the arrest of its Governor ], 14 July 1789]]
The queen, however, was present with her daughter, ''Madame Royale'', when ] visited Versailles seeking help against the British. More importantly she was instrumental in the recall of Jacques Necker as Finance Minister on 26 August, a popular move, even though she herself was worried that the recall would again go against her if Necker was unsuccessful in reforming the country's finances.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=263–265}}.</ref>


In the days following the storming of the Bastille, for fear of assassination, and ordered by the King, the ] began on 17 July with the departure of the ], the ], cousins of the King,<ref>''Journal d'émigration du prince de Condé. 1789–1795'', publié par le comte de Ribes, Bibliothèque nationale de France. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307191951/http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6530679p/f28.image|date=7 March 2016}}</ref> and the unpopular Polignacs. Marie Antoinette, whose life was as much in danger, remained with the King, whose power was gradually being taken away by the ].<ref name="Fraser 2001 284–289"/><ref>Castelot, ''Charles X'', Librairie Académique Perrin, Paris, 1988, pp. 78–79</ref><ref name="Browning1885" />
Her prediction began to come true when bread prices started to rise due to the severe 1788–1789 winter. The Dauphin 's condition worsened even more, riots broke out in Paris in April, and on 26 March, Louis XVI himself almost died from a fall off the roof.


The ] by the National Constituent Assembly on 4 August 1789 and the ] (''La Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen''), drafted by Lafayette with the help of ] and adopted on 26 August, paved the way to a ] (4 September 1791 – 21 September 1792).<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=289}}</ref>{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=484–485}} Despite these dramatic changes, life at the court continued, while the situation in Paris was becoming critical because of bread shortages in September. On 5 October, a ] and forced the royal family to move to the ] in Paris, where they lived under a form of house arrest under the watch of Lafayette's National Guard, while the ] and ] were allowed to reside in the ], where they remained until they went into exile on 20 June 1791.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.senat.fr/evenement/archives/presidence1.html|title=dossiers d'histoire – Le Palais du Luxembourg – Sénat|website=senat.fr|access-date=18 October 2015|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304093643/http://www.senat.fr/evenement/archives/presidence1.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
''"Come, Léonard, dress my hair, I must go like an actress, exhibit myself to a public that may hiss me"'', the queen quipped to her hairdresser, who was one of her "ministers of fashion" (Weber), as she prepared for the Mass celebrating the return of the Estates General on 4 May 1789. She knew that her rival, the duc d'Orléans, who had given money and bread to the people during the winter, would be popularly acclaimed by the crowd much to her detriment. The Estates General convened the next day.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=270–273}}.</ref>


Marie Antoinette continued to perform charitable functions and attend religious ceremonies, but dedicated most of her time to her children.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=304–08}}</ref> She also played an important political, albeit not public, role between 1789 and 1791 when she had a complex set of relationships with several key actors of the early period of the French Revolution. One of the most important was Necker, the Prime Minister of Finances (''Premier ministre des finances'').<ref>''Discours prononcé par M. Necker, Premier Ministre des Finances, à l'Assemblée Nationale, le 24. Septembre 1789''. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221203145325/https://books.google.fr/books?id=OSh8riUvV_UC&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&dq=necker+premier+ministre+des+finances&source=bl&ots=j1FO3K8sSy&sig=deQBeYTngT_4IybHN8BCis-xEIA&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0CDsQ6AEwA2oVChMI8JShrtiSxwIVxVUUCh1I_wCi#v=onepage&q=necker%20premier%20ministre%20des%20finances&f=false|date=3 December 2022}}</ref> Despite her dislike of him, she played a decisive role in his return to the office. She blamed him for his support of the Revolution and did not regret his resignation in 1790.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=315}}</ref>{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=536–537}}
During the month of May, the Estates General began to fracture between the democratic ] (consisting of the bourgeoisie and radical nobility), and the royalist nobility of the ], while the king's brothers began to become more hardline. Despite these developments, the queen could only think about her son, the dying Dauphin. His mother at his side, the seven-year old boy passed away at Meudon on 4 June, succumbing to tuberculosis, and leaving the title of Dauphin to his younger brother Louis Charles. His death, which would have normally been nationally mourned, was virtually ignored by the French people, who were instead preparing for the next meeting of the Estates General and a hopeful resolution to the bread crisis. As the Third Estate declared itself a ] and took the ], and as others listened to rumors that the queen wished to bathe in their blood, Marie Antoinette went into mourning for her eldest son.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=274–278}}.</ref>


Lafayette, one of the former ] (1775–1783), served as the warden of the royal family in his position as commander-in-chief of the National Guard. Despite his dislike of the Queen—he detested her as much as she detested him and at one time had even threatened to send her to a convent—he was persuaded by the ], ], to work and collaborate with her, and allowed her to see Fersen a number of times. He even went as far as exiling the Duke of Orléans, who was accused by the queen of fomenting trouble. His relationship with the King was more cordial. As a liberal aristocrat, he did not want the fall of the monarchy but rather the establishment of a liberal one, similar to that of ], based on cooperation between the King and the people, as was to be defined in the ].
===July 1789–1792: The French Revolution===
], depicting the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789.]]


Despite her attempts to remain out of the public eye, Marie Antoinette was falsely accused in the ''libelles'' of having an affair with Lafayette, whom she loathed,<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=319}}</ref> and, as was published in ''Le Godmiché Royal'' ("The Royal Dildo"), of having a sexual relationship with the English baroness Lady Sophie Farrell of Bournemouth, a well-known lesbian of the time. Publication of such calumnies continued to the end, climaxing at her trial with an accusation of incest with her son. There is no evidence to support the accusations.
The situation began to escalate violently in June as the National Assembly began to demand more rights, and Louis XVI began to push back with efforts to suppress the Third Estate. However, the king's ineffectiveness and the queen's unpopularity undermined the monarchy as an institution, and so these attempts failed. Then, on 11 July, Necker was dismissed. Paris was besieged by riots at the news, which culminated in the ] on 14 July.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=282–284}}.</ref>


===Mirabeau===
In the days and weeks that followed, many of the most conservative, reactionary royalists, including the ] and the ], fled France for fear of assassination. Marie Antoinette, whose life was the most in danger, stayed behind in order to help the king promote stability, even as his power was gradually being taken away by the ], which was now ruling Paris and conscripting men to serve in the ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=284–289}}.</ref>
A significant achievement of Marie Antoinette in that period was the establishment of an alliance with ], the most important lawmaker in the assembly. Like Lafayette, Mirabeau was a liberal aristocrat. He had joined the Third Estate and was not against the monarchy, but wanted to reconcile it with the Revolution. He also wanted to be a minister and was not immune to corruption. On the advice of Mercy, Marie Antoinette opened secret negotiations with him and both agreed to meet privately at the ] on 3 July 1790, where the royal family was allowed to spend the summer, free of the radical elements who watched their every move in Paris.{{sfnm|Castelot|1962|1p=334|Lever|1991|2pp=528–530}} At the meeting, Mirabeau was much impressed by the queen, and remarked in a letter to ], ], that she was the only person the King had by him: ''La Reine est le seul homme que le Roi ait auprès de Lui.''<ref>''Mémoires de Mirabeau'', tome VII, p. 342.</ref> An agreement was reached turning Mirabeau into one of her political allies: Marie Antoinette promised to pay him 6000 ] per month and one million if he succeeded in his mission to restore the King's authority.{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=524–527}}


The only time the royal couple returned to Paris in that period was on 14 July to attend the '']'', an official ceremony held at the ] in commemoration of the fall of the Bastille one year earlier. At least 300,000 persons participated from all over France, including 18,000 National Guards, with ], bishop of ], celebrating a mass at the ''autel de la Patrie'' ("altar of the fatherland"). The King was greeted at the event with loud cheers of "Long live the King!", especially when he took the oath to protect the nation and to enforce the laws voted by the Constitutional Assembly. There were even cheers for the Queen, particularly when she presented the dauphin to the public.{{sfnm|Fraser|2001|1pp=314–316|Castelot|1962|2p=335}}
By the end of August, the ] (''La Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen'') was adopted, which officially created the beginning of a constitutional monarchy in France.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=289}}.</ref> Despite this, the king was still required to perform certain court ceremonies, even as the situation in Paris became worse due to a bread shortage in September. On 5 October, a ] and forced the royal family, along with the ], his wife and ], to move to Paris under the watchful eye of the ''Garde Nationale''. The king and queen were installed in the ] under surveillance.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=298–304}}.</ref> During this limited house arrest, Marie Antoinette conveyed to her friends that she did not intend to involve herself any further in French politics, as everything, whether or not she was involved, would inevitably be attributed to her anyway and she feared the repercussions of further involvement.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=304}}.</ref>


Mirabeau sincerely wanted to reconcile the Queen with the people, and she was happy to see him restoring much of the King's powers, such as his authority over foreign policy, and the right to declare war. Over the objections of Lafayette and his allies, the King was given a suspensive veto allowing him to veto any laws for a period of four years. With time, Mirabeau would support the Queen, even more, going as far as to suggest that Louis XVI "adjourn" to ] or ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=313}}</ref> This leverage with the Assembly ended with the death of Mirabeau in April 1791, despite the attempt of several moderate leaders of the Revolution to contact the queen to establish some basis of cooperation with her.
Despite the situation, Marie Antoinette was still required to perform charitable functions and to attend certain religious ceremonies, which she did. Most of her time, however, was dedicated to her children.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=304–308}}.</ref>


===Civil Constitution of the Clergy===
].]]
In March 1791 ] had condemned the ], reluctantly signed by Louis XVI, which reduced the number of bishops from 132 to 93, imposed the election of bishops and all members of the clergy by departmental or district assemblies of electors, and reduced the pope's authority over the Church. Religion played an important role in the life of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, both raised in the Roman Catholic faith. The Queen's political ideas and her belief in the absolute power of monarchs were based on France's long-established tradition of the ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zevin |first=Alexander |date=Spring 2007 |title=Marie Antoinette and The Ghosts of the French Revolution |journal=Cineaste |volume=32 |issue=2 |pages=32–34 |via=Academic Search Ultimate}}</ref>


On 18 April, as the royal family prepared to leave for Saint-Cloud to attend Easter mass celebrated by a refractory priest, a crowd, soon joined by the National Guard (disobeying Lafayette's orders), prevented their departure from Paris, prompting Marie Antoinette to declare to Lafayette that she and her family were no longer free. This incident fortified her in her determination to leave Paris for personal and political reasons, not alone, but with her family. Even the King, who had been hesitant, accepted his wife's decision to flee with the help of foreign powers and counter-revolutionary forces.{{sfnm|Fraser|2001|1pp=321–323|Lever|1991|2pp=542–552|Castelot|1962|3pp=336–339}} Fersen and Breteuil, who represented her in the courts of Europe, were put in charge of the escape plan, while Marie Antoinette continued her negotiations with some of the moderate leaders of the French Revolution.{{sfnm|Fraser|2001|1pp=321–325|Castelot|1962|2pp=340–341}}
Despite her attempts to remain out of the public eye, she was falsely accused in the ''libelles'' of having an affair with the commander of the ''Garde Nationale'', the ]. In reality, she loathed the marquis for his liberal tendencies and for being partially responsible for the royal family's forced departure from Versailles.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=319}}.</ref> This was not the only accusation Marie Antoinette faced from such "libelles." In such pamphlets as "''Le Godmiché Royal''", (translated, "''The Royal Dildo''"), it was suggested that she routinely engaged in deviant sexual acts of various sorts. Most famously with the English Baroness 'Lady Sophie Farrell' of Bournemouth, a renowned lesbian of the time.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/early_american_literature/v040/40.1comment.pdf |title=Project MUSE&nbsp;— Early American Literature&nbsp;— Charles Brockden Brown's Ormond and Lesbian Possibility in the Early Republic |publisher=Muse.jhu.edu |date= |accessdate=2010-08-01}}</ref> From acting as a tribade, (in her case in the lesbian sense), to sleeping with her son, Marie Antoinette was constantly an object of rumor and false accusations of committing sexual acts with partners other than the king. Later, allegations of this sort (from incest to orgiastic excesses) were used to justify her execution. Ultimately, none of the charges of sexual depravity have any credible evidentiary support. Marie Antoinette was simply an easy target for rumor and criticism.


==Flight, arrest at Varennes and return to Paris (21–25 June 1791)==
Constantly monitored by revolutionary spies within her own household, the queen played little or no part in the writing of the ], which greatly weakened the king's authority. She, nevertheless, hoped for a future where her son would still be able to rule, convinced that the violence would soon pass.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=320–321}}.</ref>
{{Main|Flight to Varennes}}
] on the night of 21–22 June 1791, by ], 1854]]


During this time, there were many plots designed to help members of the royal family escape. The queen rejected several because she would not leave without the king. Other opportunities to rescue the family were ultimately frittered away by the indecisive king. Once the king finally did commit to a plan, his indecision played an important role in its poor execution and ultimate failure. In an ] to the ] stronghold of ] planned by ] and the ], some members of the royal family were to pose as the servants of a wealthy Russian baroness. Initially, the queen rejected the plan because it required her to leave with only her son. She wished instead for the rest of the royal family to accompany her. The king wasted time deciding upon which members of the family should be included in the venture, what the departure date should be, and the exact path of the route to be used. After many delays, the escape ultimately occurred on 21 June 1791, and was a failure. The entire family was captured twenty-four hours later at ] and taken back to Paris within a week.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=333–348}}.</ref> There had been several plots designed to help the royal family escape, which the Queen had rejected because she would not leave without the King, or which had ceased to be viable because of the King's indecision. Once Louis XVI finally did commit to a plan, its poor execution was the cause of its failure. In an elaborate attempt known as the Flight to Varennes to reach the ] stronghold of ], some members of the royal family were to pose as the servants of an imaginary "Mme de Korff", a wealthy Russian baroness, a role played by ], governess of the royal children.


The result of the fiasco was a further decline in the popularity of both the king and queen. The ] Party successfully exploited the failed escape to advance its radical agenda. Its members called for the end to any type of monarchy in France.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=350–352}}.</ref> After many delays, the escape was ultimately attempted on 21 June 1791, but the entire family was arrested less than 24 hours later at ] and taken back to Paris within a week. The escape attempt destroyed much of the remaining support of the population for the King.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=325–48}}</ref>{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=555–568}}


Upon learning of the capture of the royal family, the ] sent three representatives, ], ] and ] to Varennes to escort Marie Antoinette and her family back to Paris. On the way to the capital they were jeered and insulted by the people as never before. The prestige of the French monarchy had never been at such a low level. During the trip, Barnave, the representative of the moderate party in the Assembly, protected Marie Antoinette from the crowds, and even ] took pity on the royal family. Brought safely back to Paris, they were met with total silence by the crowd. Thanks to Barnave, the royal couple was not brought to trial and was publicly ] of any crime in relation with the attempted escape.{{sfnm|Lever|1991|1pp=569–575|Castelot|1962|2pp=385–398}}
Though the ] was adopted on 3 September, Marie Antoinette hoped through the end of 1791 that the political drift she saw occurring toward representative democracy could be stopped and rolled back. She fervently hoped that the constitution would prove unworkable, and also that her brother, the new Austrian emperor, ], would find some way to defeat the revolutionaries. However, she was unaware that Leopold was more interested in taking advantage of France's state of chaos for the benefit of Austria than in helping his sister and her family.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=354–359}}.</ref>


Marie Antoinette's first Lady of the Bedchamber, ], wrote about what happened to the Queen's hair on the night of 21–22 June, "...in a single night, it had turned white as that of a seventy-year-old woman." (''En une seule nuit ils étaient devenus blancs comme ceux d'une femme de soixante-dix ans.'')<ref>''Mémoires de Madame Campan, première femme de chambre de Marie-Antoinette'', Le Temps retrouvé, Mercure de France, Paris, 1988, p. 272, {{ISBN|2-7152-1566-5}}</ref>
The result of Leopold's aggressive tendencies, and those of his son ], who succeeded him in March, was that France declared war on Austria on 20 April 1792. This caused the queen to be viewed as an enemy, even though she was personally against Austrian claims on French lands. The situation became compounded in the summer when French armies were continually being defeated by the Austrians and the king vetoed several measures that would have restricted his power even further. During this time, due to her husband's political activities, Marie-Antoinette received the nickname of "Madame Veto".<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=365–368}}.</ref>


==Radicalization of the Revolution after Varennes (1791–92)==
] on 20 June 1792.]]
], damaged with a pike by a revolutionary.]]


After their return from Varennes and until the ] on 10 August 1792, the Queen, her family and entourage were held under tight surveillance by the National Guard in the Tuileries, where the royal couple was guarded night and day. Four guards accompanied the Queen wherever she went, and her bedroom door had to be left open at night. Her health also began to deteriorate, thus further reducing her physical activities.<ref>{{cite book |title=Lettres de Marie Antoinette |author=Le Marquis de Beaucourt |date=1895 |volume=ii |pages=364–78}}</ref>{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=576–580}}
On 20 June, "a mob of terrifying aspect" broke into the Tuileries and made the king wear the '']'' (red Phrygian cap) to show his loyalty to France.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=368}}.</ref>


On 17 July 1791, with the support of Barnave and his friends, Lafayette's ''Garde Nationale'' ] on the crowd that had assembled on the ] to sign a petition demanding the ] of the King. The estimated number of those killed varies between 12 and 50. Lafayette's reputation never recovered from the event and, on 8 October, he resigned as commander of the National Guard. Their enmity continuing, Marie Antoinette played a decisive role in defeating him in his aims to become the mayor of Paris in November 1791.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=350, 360–71}}</ref>
The vulnerability of the king was exposed on 10 August when an armed mob, on the verge of forcing its way into the Tuileries Palace, forced the king and the royal family to seek refuge at the Legislative Assembly. An hour and a half later, the palace was invaded by the mob who massacred the ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=373–379}}.</ref> On 13 August, the royal family was imprisoned in the tower of the ] in the ] under conditions considerably harsher than their previous confinement in the Tuileries.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=382–386}}.</ref>


As her correspondence shows, while Barnave was taking great political risks in the belief that the Queen was his political ally and had managed, despite her unpopularity, to secure a moderate majority ready to work with her, Marie Antoinette was not considered sincere in her cooperation with the moderate leaders of the French Revolution, which ultimately ended any chance to establish a moderate government.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=353–54}}</ref> Moreover, the view that the unpopular queen was controlling the King further degraded the royal couple's standing with the people, which the ] successfully exploited after their return from Varennes to advance their radical agenda to abolish the monarchy.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=350–52}}</ref> This situation lasted until the spring of 1792.{{sfnm|Fraser|2001|1pp=357–358|Castelot|1962|2pp=408–409}}
A week later, many of the royal family's attendants, among them the '']'', were taken in for interrogation by the ]. Transferred to the ''La Force'' prison, she was one of the victims of the ], killed on 3 September. Her head was affixed on a pike and marched through the city. Although Marie Antoinette did not see the head of her friend as it was paraded outside her prison window, she fainted upon learning about the gruesome end that had befallen her faithful companion.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=389}}.</ref>


Marie Antoinette continued to hope that the military coalition of European kingdoms would succeed in crushing the Revolution. She counted most on the support of her Austrian family. After the death of her brother Joseph II in 1790, his successor and younger brother, ],<ref>{{Cite web|title=Marie Antoinette as queen of France|url=https://www.habsburger.net/en/chapter/marie-antoinette-queen-france|access-date=15 December 2020|website=Die Welt der Habsburger|language=en}}</ref> was willing to support her to a limited degree.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mark |first=Harrison W. |date=2022-09-09 |title=Declaration of Pillnitz |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Declaration_of_Pillnitz/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240404071650/https://www.worldhistory.org/Declaration_of_Pillnitz/ |archive-date=2024-04-04 |access-date=2024-06-01 |website=World History Encyclopedia |language=en}}</ref> It was her hope that the threat of Austria's advancing military would deter further escalation of revolutionary violence. In a letter to her brother, penned in September 1791, Marie Antoinette expressed how she expected the revolution to react: "...it will be effected by the approach of the war and not by the war itself. The King, his powers restored, will be entrusted with negotiations with the foreign powers, and the princes will return, in the general tranquillity, to reassume their ranks at his court and in the nation."<ref>{{cite web|title=Marie Antoinette's View of the Revolution (8 September 1791)|url=https://revolution.chnm.org/d/331|access-date=21 January 2024|website=LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION|date=8 September 1791 |language=en}}</ref> In the same letter, she wrote that the fall of France's monarchy and the subsequent rise of revolutionary principles would be "destructive to all governments."
On 21 September, the fall of the monarchy was officially declared, and the ] became the legal authority of France. The royal family was re-styled as the non-royal "]s". Preparations for the trial of the king in a court of law began.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=392}}.</ref>


Upon Leopold's death in 1792, his son, ], a conservative ruler, was ready to support the cause of the French royal couple more vigorously because he feared the consequences of the French Revolution and its ideas for the monarchies of Europe, particularly, for Austria's influence in the continent.{{Citation needed|date=August 2016}}
Charged with undermining the ], Louis was separated from his family and tried in December. He was found guilty by the Convention, led by the Jacobins who rejected the idea of keeping him as a hostage. However, the sentence did not come until one month later, when he was condemned to execution by ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=395–398}}.</ref>


Barnave had advised the Queen to call back Mercy, who had played such an important role in her life before the Revolution, but Mercy had been appointed to another foreign diplomatic position{{Where|date=August 2016}} and could not return to France. At the end of 1791, ignoring the danger she faced, the ''Princesse de Lamballe'', who was in London, returned to the Tuileries. As for Fersen, despite the strong restrictions imposed on the Queen, he was able to see her a final time in February 1792.{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=599–601}}
===1793: "Widow Capet" and death===
], 16 October 1793)]]
]


==Events leading to the abolition of the monarchy on 10 August 1792==
Louis was executed on 21 January 1793, at the age of thirty-eight.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=399}}.</ref> The result was that the "Widow Capet", as the former queen was called after the death of her husband, plunged into deep mourning; she refused to eat or do any exercise. There is no knowledge of her proclaiming her son as ]; however, the ], in exile, recognised his nephew as the new king of France and took the title of Regent. Marie-Antoinette's health rapidly deteriorated in the following months. By this time she suffered from ] and possibly ], which caused her to hemorrhage frequently.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=404–405, 408}}.</ref>
Leopold's and Francis II's strong action on behalf of Marie Antoinette led to France's declaration of war on Austria on 20 April 1792. This resulted in the Queen being viewed as an enemy, although she was personally against Austrian claims to French territories on European soil. That summer, the situation was compounded by multiple defeats of the ] by the Austrians, in part because Marie Antoinette passed on military secrets to them.<ref name="Fraser365–68">{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=365–68}}</ref> In addition, at the insistence of his wife, Louis XVI vetoed several measures that would have further restricted his power, earning the royal couple the nicknames "Monsieur Veto" and "Madame Veto",<ref name="Fraser365–68" />{{sfn|Lever|1991|pp=607–609}} nicknames then prominently featured in different contexts, including La ].


Barnave remained the most important advisor and supporter of the Queen, who was willing to work with him as long as he met her demands, which he did to a large extent. Barnave and the moderates comprised about 260 lawmakers in the new ]; the radicals numbered around 136, and the rest around 350. Initially, the majority was with Barnave, but the Queen's policies led to the radicalization of the Assembly and the moderates lost control of the legislative process. The moderate government collapsed in April 1792 to be replaced by a radical majority headed by the '']''. The Assembly then passed a series of laws concerning the Church, the aristocracy and the formation of new National Guard units; all were vetoed by Louis XVI. While Barnave's faction had dropped to 120 members, the new ''Girondin'' majority controlled the legislative assembly with 330 members. The two strongest members of that government were ], who was minister of interior, and General ], the minister of foreign affairs. Dumouriez sympathized with the royal couple and wanted to save them but he was rebuffed by the Queen.{{sfnm|Castelot|1962|1pp=415–416|Lever|1991|2pp=591–592}}
Despite her condition, the debate as to her fate was the central question of the National Convention after Louis's death. There were those who had been advocating her death for some time, while some had the idea of exchanging her for French prisoners of war or for a ransom from the Holy Roman Emperor. ] advocated exile to America.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=398, 408}}.</ref> Starting in April, however, a ] was formed, and men such as ] were beginning to call for Antoinette's trial; by the end of May, the ] had been chased out of power and arrested.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=411–412}}.</ref> Other calls were made to "retrain" the Dauphin, to make him more pliant to revolutionary ideas. This was carried out when the eight year old boy Louis Charles was separated from Antoinette on 3 July, and given to the care of a cobbler.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=412–414}}.</ref> On 1 August, she herself was taken out of the Tower and entered into the ] as Prisoner No. 280.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=414–415}}.</ref> Despite various attempts to get her out, such as the Carnation Plot in September, Marie Antoinette refused when the plots for her escape were brought to her attention.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=418}}.</ref>


Marie Antoinette's actions in refusing to collaborate with the ''Girondins'', in power between April and June 1792, led them to denounce the treason of the Austrian comity, a direct allusion to the Queen. After ] sent a letter to the King denouncing the Queen's role in these matters, urged by the Queen, Louis XVI disbanded{{citation needed|date=July 2015}} the government, thus losing his majority in the Assembly. Dumouriez resigned and refused a post in any new government. At this point, the tide against royal authority intensified in the population and political parties, while Marie Antoinette encouraged the King to veto the new laws voted by the Legislative Assembly in 1792.{{sfn|Castelot|1962|p=418}} In August 1791, the ] threatened an invasion of France. This led in turn to a French declaration of war in April 1792, which led to the ] and to the events of August 1792, which ended the monarchy.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=371–73}}</ref>
She was finally tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 14 October. Unlike the king, who had been given time to prepare a defence, the queen's trial was far more of a sham, considering the time she was given (less than one day). Among the things she was accused of (most, if not all, of the accusations were untrue and probably lifted from rumours begun by ''libelles'') were orchestrating orgies in Versailles, sending millions of livres of treasury money to Austria, plotting to kill the Duke of Orléans, ] with her son, declaring her son to be the new king of France and orchestrating the massacre of the Swiss Guards in 1792.


], facing the mob that had broken into the ] on 20 June 1792: ] ]]
The most infamous charge was that she sexually abused her son. This was according to Louis Charles, who, through his coaching by Hébert and his guardian, accused his mother. After being reminded that she had not answered the charge of incest, Marie Antoinette protested emotionally to the accusation, and the women present in the courtroom&nbsp;– the market women who had stormed the palace for her entrails in 1789&nbsp;– ironically began to support her.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=429–435}}.</ref> She had been composed throughout the trial until this accusation was made, to which she finally answered, "If I have not replied it is because Nature itself refuses to respond to such a charge laid against a mother."


On 20 June 1792, "a mob of terrifying aspect" broke into the Tuileries, made the King wear the '']'' (red Phrygian cap) to show his loyalty to the Revolution, insulted Marie Antoinette, accusing her of betraying France, and threatened her life. In consequence, the Queen asked Fersen to urge the foreign powers to carry out their plans to invade France and to issue a manifesto in which they threatened to destroy Paris if anything happened to the royal family. The ], issued on 25 July 1792, triggered the ]<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=368, 375–78}}</ref> when the approach of an armed mob on its way to the Tuileries Palace forced the royal family to seek refuge at the Legislative Assembly. Ninety minutes later, the palace was invaded by the mob, who massacred the ].{{sfnm|Fraser|2001|1pp=373–379|Castelot|1962|2pp=428–435}} On 13 August the royal family was imprisoned in the tower of the ] in the ] under conditions considerably harsher than those of their previous confinement in the Tuileries.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=382–86}}</ref>
However, in reality the outcome of the trial had already been decided by the Committee of Public Safety around the time the Carnation Plot was uncovered, and she was declared guilty of treason in the early morning of 16 October, after two days of proceedings.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=424–425, 436}}.</ref> Back in her cell, she composed a moving letter to her sister-in-law ], affirming her clear conscience, her Catholic faith and her feelings for her children. The letter did not reach Élisabeth.<ref>{{citation|url=http://teaattrianon.blogspot.com/2007/05/last-letter-of-marie-antoinette.html|title=Last Letter of Marie-Antoinette |author=|date=26 May 2007|work=Tea at Trianon}}</ref>


A week later, several of the royal family's attendants, among them the ''Princesse de Lamballe'', were taken for interrogation by the ]. Transferred to the ], after a rapid judgment, ] was ] on 3 September. Her head was affixed on a pike and paraded through the city to the Temple for the Queen to see. Marie Antoinette was prevented from seeing it, but fainted upon learning of it.{{sfnm|Fraser|2001|1p=389|Castelot|1962|2pp=442–446}}
] and Queen Marie Antoinette, sculptures by ] and ] in the ], (photo Eric Pouhier).]]
On the same day, her hair was cut off and she was driven through Paris in an open cart, wearing a simple white dress.
At 12:15 pm, two and a half weeks before her thirty-eighth birthday, she was executed at the ''Place de la Révolution'' (present-day '']'').<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=440}}.</ref><ref>, ].</ref> Her last words were "Pardon me sir, I meant not to do it", to ] the executioner, whose foot she had accidentally stepped on after climbing the scaffold. Her body was thrown into an ] in the ], rue d'Anjou, (which was closed the following year).


On 21 September 1792, France was declared a republic, the monarchy was abolished and the ] became the governing body of the ]. The royal family name was downgraded to the non-royal "]". Preparations began for the trial of the former king in a court of law.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=392}}</ref>
Her sister-in-law Élisabeth was executed in 1794 and her son died in prison in 1795. Her daughter returned to Austria in a prisoner exchange, married and died childless in 1851.<ref>{{citation|url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/biography/marieantoinette.html|title=Marie Antoinette |author=Richard Covington|date=November 2006|magazine=Smithsonian magazine}}</ref>


===Louis XVI's trial and execution===
Both her body and that of Louis XVI were exhumed on 18 January 1815, during the ], when the ''comte de Provence'' had become King Louis XVIII. Christian burial of the royal remains took place three days later, on 21 January, in the necropolis of French Kings at the ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=411, 447}}.</ref>
{{main|Execution of Louis XVI}}
Charged with treason against the French Republic, Louis XVI was separated from his family and ] in December. He was found guilty by the Convention, led by the Jacobins who rejected the idea of keeping him as a hostage. On 15 January 1793, by a majority of six votes, he was condemned to death by ] and executed on 21 January 1793.{{sfnm|Fraser|2001|1pp=395–399|Castelot|1962|2pp=447–453}}


==Marie Antoinette in the Temple==
==Historical legacy and popular culture==
The former queen, now called "Widow Capet", plunged into deep mourning. She still hoped her son ], whom the exiled ], Louis XVI's brother, had recognized as Louis XVI's successor, would one day rule France. The royalists and the ], including those preparing the insurrection in ], supported Marie Antoinette and the return to the monarchy. Throughout her imprisonment and up to her execution, Marie Antoinette could count on the sympathy of conservative factions and social-religious groups which had turned against the Revolution, and also on wealthy individuals ready to bribe republican officials to facilitate her escape.{{sfn|Castelot|1962|pp=453–457}} These plots all failed. While imprisoned in the Tower of the Temple, Marie Antoinette, her children and ] were insulted, some of the guards going as far as blowing smoke in the former queen's face. Strict security measures were taken to assure that Marie Antoinette was not able to communicate with the outside world. Despite these measures, several of her guards were open to bribery and a line of communication was kept with the outside world.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Marie Antoinette: Last Queen of France|url=https://janeausten.co.uk/blogs/society-figures/marie-antoinette-last-queen-of-france|access-date=2021-12-13|website=Jane Austen Centre and the Jane Austen Online Gift Shop|language=en|archive-date=13 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211213021603/https://janeausten.co.uk/blogs/society-figures/marie-antoinette-last-queen-of-france|url-status=dead}}</ref>
{{Main|Marie Antoinette in popular culture}}
Marie Antoinette's effect on the Revolution of France started well before 1789. By simply having a nationality of an Austrian origin, she was easily a target of ridicule and criticism. By altering several of the King's decisions, such as the removal of Jacques Necker from the office of finance Minister, introducing her political views to Louis XVI, and acting directly with the political assemblies of France, Marie Antoinette made an impact on the revolution that should not be taken lightly. With words placed in her mouth by the ''libelles'', and rumors of illegitimate sexual encounters circulating throughout France, Marie Antoinette became an object of disgust and questionable motives. With these accusations reflecting onto the crown of the King, the legitimacy of the monarchy came into question. Without her influence on the King, his advisors, and the general public of France, the stability of the crown may not have been in question in the intensity that it was throughout the entirety of the revolutionary period.


After Louis's execution, Marie Antoinette's fate became a central question of the National Convention. While some advocated her death, others proposed exchanging her for French prisoners of war or for a ransom from the Holy Roman Emperor. ] advocated exile to America.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=398, 408}}</ref> In April 1793, during the ], a ], dominated by ], was formed, and men such as ] began to call for Marie Antoinette's trial. By the end of May, the ''Girondins'' had been chased from power.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=411–12}}</ref> Calls were also made to "retrain" the eight-year-old Louis XVII, to make him pliant to revolutionary ideas. To carry this out, Louis Charles was separated from his mother on 3 July after a struggle during which his mother fought in vain to retain her son, who was handed over to ], a cobbler and representative of the ]. Until her removal from the Temple, Marie Antoinette spent hours trying to catch a glimpse of her son, who, within weeks, had been made to turn against her, accusing his mother of wrongdoing.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=412–14}}</ref>
In popular culture, the phrase "]" is often attributed to Marie Antoinette. However, there is no evidence to support that she ever uttered this phrase, and it is now generally regarded as a ''"journalistic cliché"''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=xviii, 160}}; {{Harvnb|Lever|2006|pp=63–5}}; Susan S. Lanser, article 'Eating Cake: The (Ab)uses of Marie-Antoinette,' published in ''Marie-Antoinette: Writings on the Body of a Queen'', (ed. Dena Goodman), pp. 273–290</ref> It originally appeared in Book VI of the first part (finished in 1767, published in 1782) of ]'s putative autobiographical work, ].<ref>Published posthumously, the ''Confessions'' were two distinct works, the first, books I through VI, was written between 1765 and 1767, and published in 1782; the second, books VII through XII, was written in 1769-1770, and published in 1789.</ref>
<blockquote>
''Enfin je me rappelai le pis-aller d’une grande princesse à qui l’on disait que les paysans n’avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit : Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.''
</blockquote>
{{quote|Finally I recalled the stopgap solution of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: "Let them eat ]."}}
Rousseau ascribed these words to an unnamed "great princess", and no other source for this anecdote is known.


===Conciergerie===
==Titles from birth to death==
On the night of 1 August, at 1:00 in the morning, Marie Antoinette was transferred from the Temple to an isolated cell in the ] as 'Prisoner nº 280'. Leaving the Tower she bumped her head against the ] of a door, which prompted one of her guards to ask her if she was hurt, to which she answered, "No! Nothing now can hurt me."<ref>Funck-Brentano, Frantz: ''Les Derniers jours de Marie-Antoinette'', Flammarion, Paris, 1933</ref> This was the most difficult period of her captivity. She was under constant surveillance with no privacy. The "]" ({{lang|fr|Le complot de l'œillet}}), an attempt to help her escape at the end of August, was foiled due to the inability to corrupt all the guards.<ref>{{Harvnb|Furneaux|1971|pp=139–42}}</ref> She was attended by ], who took care of her as much as she could.{{sfn|Fraser|2001|p=437}} At least once she received a visit by a Catholic priest.<ref>G. Lenotre: ''The Last Days of Marie Antoinette'', 1907.</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=416–20}}</ref>
*'''2 November 1755 - 19 April 1770''': ''Her Royal Highness'' Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria
*'''19 April 1770 - 10 May 1774''': ''Her Royal Highness'' The Dauphine of France
*'''10 May 1774 - 1 October 1791''': ''Her Majesty'' The Queen of France
*'''1 October 1791 - 21 September 1792''': ''Her Majesty'' The Queen of the French
*'''21 January 1793 - 16 October 1793''': Widow Capet


==Trial and execution (14–16 October 1793)==
==Ancestry==
], 16 October 1793]]
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] on 16 October 1793: at left, Sanson, the executioner, showing Marie Antoinette's head to the people. Anonymous, 1793]]
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Marie Antoinette was tried by the ] on 14 October 1793. Some historians believe the outcome of the trial had been decided in advance by the ] around the time the Carnation Plot was uncovered.{{sfn|Castelot|1962|pp=496–500}} She and her lawyers were given less than one day to prepare her defense. Among the accusations, many previously published in the ], were: orchestrating orgies in Versailles, sending millions of livres of treasury money to Austria, planning the massacre of the National Guards in 1792,<ref>''Procès de Louis XVI, de Marie-Antoinette, de Marie-Elisabeth et de Philippe d'Orléans'', Recueil de pièces authentiques, Années 1792, 1793 et 1794, De Mat, imprimeur-libraire, Bruxelles, 1821, p. 473</ref> declaring her son to be the new king of France, and ], a charge made by her son Louis-Charles, pressured into doing so by the radical ] who controlled him.
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This last accusation drew an emotional response from Marie Antoinette, who refused to respond to this charge, instead appealing to all mothers present in the room. Their reaction comforted her since these women were not otherwise sympathetic to her.{{sfnm|Castelot|1957|1pp=380–385|Fraser|2001|2pp=429–435}} Upon being pressed further by a juror to address the accusations of incest, the queen replied, "If I did not respond, it was because it would be against nature for a mother to reply to such an accusation. On this I appeal to all mothers who may be here." When a juror, ], told Robespierre of this over dinner, Robespierre broke his plate in anger, declaring "That imbecile Hébert!"<ref>{{cite book|last=Hardman|first=John|title=Marie-Antoinette: The Making of a French Queen|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2019|page=304}}</ref>
==Notes==

{{Reflist|colwidth=20em}}
Early on 16 October, Marie Antoinette 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 ] because of her intelligence activities in the interest of the enemy; the latter charge alone was enough to condemn her to death.<ref>''Le procès de Marie-Antoinette'', Ministère de la Justice, 17 October 2011, (French) {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921132933/http://www.justice.gouv.fr/histoire-et-patrimoine-10050/proces-historiques-10411/le-proces-de-marie-antoinette-22697.html|date=21 September 2015}}</ref> At worst, she and her lawyers had expected life imprisonment.<ref>{{Harvnb|Furneaux|1971|pp=150–54}}</ref> In the hours left to her, she composed a letter to her sister-in-law ], affirming her clear conscience, her Catholic faith, and her love and concern for her children. The letter did not reach Élisabeth.<ref>{{citation |author=Elena Maria Vidal |author-link=Elena Maria Vidal |url=http://teaattrianon.blogspot.com/2007/05/last-letter-of-marie-antoinette.html |title=Last Letter of Marie-Antoinette |date=26 May 2007 |work=Tea at Trianon}}</ref> Her will was part of the collection of papers of ] found under his bed and was published by ].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zwx_FBzaUxEC&q=Courtois&pg=PA101|title=Papiers inédits trouvés chez Robespierre, Saint-Just, Payan, etc. supprimés ou omis par Courtois...|first1=Edme-Bonaventure|last1=Courtois|first2=Maximilien de|last2=Robespierre|date=31 January 2019|publisher=Baudoin|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Documents intéressant E.B. Courtois. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 55e Année, No. 254 (Octobre–Décembre 1983), pp. 624–28|journal=Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française|volume=55|issue=254|pages=624–35|jstor = 41915129|last1 = Chevrier|first1 = M. -R|last2=Alexandre|first2=J.|last3=Laux|first3=Christian|last4=Godechot|first4=Jacques|last5=Ducoudray|first5=Emile|year=1983}}</ref>

Preparing for her execution, she had to change clothes in front of her guards. She wanted to wear a black dress but was forced to wear a plain white dress, white being the colour worn by widowed queens of France. Her hair was shorn, her hands bound painfully behind her back and she was put on a rope leash. Unlike her husband, who had been taken to his execution in a carriage (''carrosse''), she had to sit in an open cart (''charrette'') for the hour it took to convey her from the Conciergerie via the ] thoroughfare to reach the guillotine erected in the Place de la Révolution, the present-day ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Furneaux|1971|pp=155–56|}}</ref> She maintained her composure, despite the insults of the jeering crowd. A ] priest was assigned to hear her final confession. He sat by her in the cart, but she ignored him all the way to the scaffold as he had pledged his allegiance to the republic.{{sfnm|Castelot|1957|1pp=550–558|Lever|1991|2p=660}}

Marie Antoinette was executed by beheading by guillotine at 12:15pm on 16 October 1793 during the French Revolution.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|p=440}}</ref><ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091101184818/http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1793-10-23-03-001&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1793-10-23-03&pageId=undefined |date=1 November 2009 }}, '']''.</ref> Her last words are recorded as, "Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Je ne l'ai pas fait exprès" or "Pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose", after accidentally stepping on her executioner's shoe.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://thoughtcatalog.com/oliver-miller/2012/05/famous-last-words-2/|title=Famous Last Words|date=23 May 2012}}</ref> ] was employed to make a ] of her head.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Marie_Tussaud.aspx|title=Marie Tussaud|website=encyclopedia.com|access-date=28 March 2016}}</ref> Her body was thrown into an ] in the ], located close by in rue d'Anjou. Because its capacity was exhausted the cemetery was closed the following year, on 25 March 1794.<ref>Ragon, Michel, ''L'espace de la mort, Essai sur l'architecture, la décoration et l'urbanisme funéraires'', Michel Albin, Paris, 1981, {{ISBN|978-2-226-22871-0}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221203145327/https://books.google.fr/books?id=a9ZY3Kv0jtYC&pg=PT125&lpg=PT125&dq=cimeti%C3%A8re+de+la+madeleine+ferm%C3%A9+en+1794&source=bl&ots=U55hqYOABk&sig=A-0nSU6aAWpd__C0Cu9pFaSQGlA&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAmoVChMIvcHKqZ7dyAIVg1YaCh2zww8Z#v=onepage&q=cimeti%C3%A8re%20de%20la%20madeleine%20ferm%C3%A9%20en%201794&f=false|date=3 December 2022}}</ref>

===Foreign response===
After her execution, Marie Antoinette became a symbol abroad, and a controversial figure of the French Revolution. Some used her as a scapegoat to blame for the events of the Revolution. ], writing in 1821, claimed that "Her inordinate gambling and dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois, and others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and her opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led herself to the Guillotine," adding that "I have ever believed that, had there been no Queen, there would have been no revolution."<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.bartleby.com/400/prose/471.html |title=Passages from his autobiography |date=1854 |language=en |publisher=] |access-date=17 May 2021}}</ref>

], the chapel constructed on the grounds where she was initially buried]]

In his 1790 treatise, '']'', which was written during Marie Antoinette's imprisonment in Paris, but prior to her execution, ] lamented that "the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever" and now "Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex."<ref>{{cite book |last=Burke|first=Edmund|year=1790 |title= Reflections on the Revolution in France, And on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris |edition= 1|publisher= J.Dodsley in Pall Mall |publication-date=1790 |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/reflections00burkuoft/page/n119/mode/2up |access-date=7 September 2021}}</ref> After receiving the news, ], Queen of Naples and close sister to Marie Antoinette, spiraled into a state of mourning and an anger against the revolutionaries. She quickly suspended protections of reformers and intellectuals in Naples, allowed Neapolitan bishops wide latitude to halt the secularization of the country, and offered succor to the overflowing number of '']'' fleeing from revolutionary France, many of whom were granted pensions.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/maria-carolina-1752-1814#:~:text=On%20October%2015%2C%201767%2C%20the,journey%20to%20Italy%2C%20Josepha%20died.&text=Maria%20Carolina%20cried%20and%20entreated,Neapolitan%20match%20must%20be%20cursed |title=Maria Carolina (1752–1814) |date= 2019 |language=en |publisher=] |access-date=17 May 2021}}</ref>

===Bourbon Restoration===
Both Marie Antoinette's and Louis XVI's bodies were exhumed on 18 January 1815, during the ], when the Count of Provence ascended the newly reestablished throne as ], King of France and of ]. Christian burial of the royal remains took place three days later, on 21 January, in the necropolis of French kings at the ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=411, 447}}</ref>

==Legacy==
For many revolutionary figures, Marie Antoinette was the symbol of what was wrong with the old regime in France. The onus of having caused the financial difficulties of the nation was placed on her shoulders by the revolutionary tribunal,<ref>{{cite book|first=Lynn|last=Hunt|chapter=The Many Bodies of Marie Antoinette: Political Pornography and the Problem of the Feminine in the French Revolution|title=The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New Controversies|edition=2nd|editor-first=Gary|editor-last=Kates|pages=|publisher=]|location=London, England|date=1998|isbn=978-0415358330|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/frenchrevolution00kate/page/201}}</ref> and under the new republican ideas of what it meant to be a member of a nation, her Austrian descent and continued correspondence with the competing nation made her a traitor.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Thomas|last=Kaiser|title=From the Austrian Committee to the Foreign Plot: Marie-Antoinette, Austrophobia, and the Terror|journal=French Historical Studies|publisher=]|location=Durham, North Carolina|volume=26|issue=4|date=Fall 2003|pages=579–617|doi=10.1215/00161071-26-4-579|s2cid=154852467}}</ref> The people of France saw her death as a necessary step toward completing the revolution. Furthermore, her execution was seen as a sign that the revolution had done its work.<ref>{{cite book|first=Chantal|last=Thomas|title=The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie Antoinette|translator=Julie Rose|publisher=Zone Books|location=New York City|date=2001|isbn=0942299396|page=149}}</ref>

Marie Antoinette is also known for her taste for fine things, and her commissions from famous craftsmen, such as ], suggest more about her enduring legacy as a woman of taste and patronage. For instance, a writing table attributed to Riesener, now located at ], bears witness to Marie Antoinette's desire to escape the oppressive formality of court life, when she decided to move the table from the queen's boudoir, de la Meridienne, at Versailles to her humble interior, the ]. Her favourite objects filled her small, private chateau and reveal aspects of Marie Antoinette's character that have been obscured by satirical political prints, such as those in Les Tableaux de la Révolution.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://waddesdon.org.uk/blog/celebrating-marie-antoinette-on-her-birthday/|title=Celebrating Marie-Antoinette on her birthday|last=Jenner|first=Victoria|date=12 November 2019|website=Waddesdon Manor|access-date=18 November 2019}}</ref> She owned several instruments.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rouillac.com/snf1264|title=Le 13e piano de Marie-Antoinette ? - Mardi 09 mai 2017|website=www.rouillac.com}}</ref> In 1788 she bought a piano made by ].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cobbecollection.co.uk/collection/12-marie-antoinettes-square-piano/|title=MARIE ANTOINETTE'S PIANO}}</ref>

A catalog of Marie Antoinette's personal library of 736 volumes was published by ] in 1863, using his pseudonym P. L. Jacob.<ref>P. L. Jacob. ''Bibliothèque de la reine Marie-Antoinette au Petit Trianon d'après l'inventaire original dressé par ordre de la convention : catalogue avec des notes inédites du marquis de Paulmy''. Paris: Jules Gay, 1863.</ref> The listed books were from her library at the Petit Trianon, including many found in her boudoir, and mostly consist of novels and plays. A random selection of her books includes ''Histoire de Mademoiselle de Terville'' by ], ''Le Philosophe parvenu ou Lettres et pièces originales contenant les aventures d'Eugène Sans-Pair'' by ], and ''Oeuvres mêlées... contenant des tragédies et différents ouvrages en vers et en prose'' by ]. A larger and more official library belonging to Marie Antoinette was kept at the ] in ].<ref>"Marie Antoinette", ''LibraryThing'' https://www.librarything.com/profile/MarieAntoinette {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211024000721/https://www.librarything.com/profile/MarieAntoinette |date=24 October 2021 }} Accessed October 23, 2021.</ref>

Long after her death, Marie Antoinette remains a major historical figure linked with conservatism, the ], wealth and fashion. She has been the subject of a number of books, films, and other media. Politically engaged authors have deemed her the quintessential representative of ], western ] and ]. Some of her contemporaries, such as Thomas Jefferson, attributed to her the start of the French Revolution.<ref name="Jefferson">{{cite book|first=Thomas|last=Jefferson|author-link=Thomas Jefferson|title=Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IJpuhuAIzo8C&q=%E2%80%9CI+have+ever+believed+that+had+there+been+no+queen%2C+there+would+have+been+no+revolution.%E2%80%9D+%E2%80%A6Thomas+Jefferson&pg=PA92|publisher=Courier Dover Publications|location=Mineola, New York|access-date=29 March 2013|quote=I have ever believed that had there been no queen, there would have been no revolution.|isbn=978-0486137902|date=2012}}</ref>

==In popular culture==
{{Main|Cultural depictions of Marie Antoinette}}
The phrase "]" is often conventionally attributed to Marie Antoinette, but there is no evidence that she ever uttered it, and it is now generally regarded as a journalistic cliché.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2001|pp=xviii, 160}}; {{Harvnb|Lever|2006|pp=63–65}}; {{Harvnb|Lanser|2003|pp=273–90}}.</ref> This phrase originally appeared in Book VI of the first part of ]'s autobiographical work '']'', finished in 1767 and published in 1782: "''Enfin Je me rappelai le pis-aller d'une grande Princesse à qui l'on disait que les paysans n'avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit: Qu'ils mangent de la brioche''" ("Finally I recalled the stopgap solution of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: 'Let them eat ]{{'"}}). Rousseau ascribes these words to a "great princess", but the purported writing date precedes Marie Antoinette's arrival in France. Some think that he invented it altogether.<ref>{{Harvnb|Johnson|1990|p=17}}.</ref>

In the United States, expressions of gratitude to France for its help in the American Revolution included naming a city ], in 1788.<ref>Sturtevant, pp. 14, 72.</ref> Her life has been the subject of many films, such as '']'' (1938) and '']'' (2006).<ref>{{Citation |last=Dyke |first=W. S. Van |title=Marie Antoinette |date=1938-08-26 |type=Biography, Drama, History |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030418/ |access-date=2024-06-01 |others=Norma Shearer, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore |publisher=Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) |last2=Duvivier |first2=Julien}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Coppola |first=Sofia |title=Marie Antoinette |date=2006-10-20 |type=Biography, Drama, History |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0422720/ |access-date=2024-06-01 |others=Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Rip Torn |publisher=Columbia Pictures, Pricel, Tohokushinsha Film Corporation (TFC)}}</ref> There is a book about Marie Antoinette by ] called '']''.<ref name="msnbc">{{cite news |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna15292100 |title=Dunst puts fresh face on 'Marie Antoinette' |date=October 23, 2006 |agency=Associated Press |publisher=] |access-date=December 11, 2008 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120916205912/http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/15292100/ |archive-date=September 16, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,208285,00.html |title=Kirsten Dunst Poses as Marie Antoinette in Vogue |date=August 14, 2006 |agency=Associated Press |publisher=] |access-date=December 10, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070128001838/http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C208285%2C00.html |archive-date=January 28, 2007}}</ref>

In 2020, a silk shoe that belonged to her was sold in an auction in the Palace of Versailles for 43,750 euros ($51,780).<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/marie-antoinette-s-silk-slipper-fetches-us-50-000-at-auction-1.5189823 |title=Marie Antoinette's silk slipper fetches US$50,000 at auction |date=15 November 2020 |language=en |publisher=] |access-date=26 February 2021}}</ref>

In 2022, her story was dramatised by a ] and ] English-language ].

In the ] in ], ] band ]'s performance showed a depiction of the freshly severed head of Marie Antoinette singing, in reference to the French Revolution.

== Family tree ==
<div style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; overflow:auto; width: 90%;">
{{chart top |width=100%|Simplified family tree illustrating the Bourbon-Habsburg-Lorraine connections<ref>{{Harvnb|Fraser|2002}}</ref>}}
{{Tree chart/start |style= line-height:100% |align=center
}}
{{chart |border=0| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Louis|Louis=]}}
{{chart |border=0| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |,|-|-|^|-|-|-|.|}}
{{chart |border=0| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Leopold| |Louis| |Henrietta|j|Philip|j|-|-|-|-|-|-|v|Liselotte|Leopold=]|Louis=]|Philip=]|Liselotte=]|Henrietta=]}}
{{chart |border=0| | | | | | | |,|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|^|-|-|-|-|*|-|-|-|-|*|-|-|-|*|-|-|.| | | |!|}}
{{chart |border=0| | | | | | |Joseph| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |D|~|~|~|~|J| | | |:| |Charles| |Liselotte|v|Leo|Joseph=]|Charles=]|grandson=<small>great-grandson</small>|Liselotte=]|Leo=]<!---<br><small>Duke of Lorraine</small>--->}}
{{chart |border=0| |,|-|-|-|-|-|^|-|-|-|.| | | | | | | | | | |Marie|v|Louis| | | | | | | | |:| | |!| | | | | |!||Louis=]|Marie=]}}
{{chart |border=0|Amalia|v|Charles| | | |Josepha|v|August| | | | |,|-|-|-|+|-|-|-|.| | | | | | | |:| | |!| | | | | |!|Amalia=]|Josepha=]|Louis=]|Charles=]|August=]}}
{{chart |border=0| |,|-|^|-|.| | | |,|-|-|-|+|-|-|-|.| | | |!| | |Mesdames| |Louise| | | | | | |:| |Theresa|-|v|-|Francis|Mesdames='']''|Louise=]|Theresa=]|Francis=]}}
{{chart |border=0|Josepha| |MaxJos| |Clemens| |Albert| |Josephe|v|Louis| | |,|-|-|-|+|-|-|-|.| | | |:| | | | | |!|Josepha=]<br><small>m. {{nowrap|Joseph II}}</small>|MaxJos=]|Clemens=]|Albert=]<br><small>m. Maria Christina</small>|Josephe=]|Louis=]|Louise=]}}
{{chart |border=0| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |!| | | | |Isabella| |Ferdinand| |Luisa| |Philip| | | | |!|Isabella=]<br><small>m. {{nowrap|Joseph II}}</small>|Ferdinand=]<br><small>m. Maria Amalia</small>|Luisa=]|Philip=]}}
{{chart |border=0| | | | | |,|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|v|-|^|-|.| | | |,|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|v|-|^|-|v|-|-|v|-|-|-|.|}}
{{chart |border=0| | | | |Provence| |Artois| |Clotilde| |Elisabeth| |Louis|-|Antonia| |Joseph| |Christina| |Leopold| |Amalia| |Carolina| |Ferdinand| |Max|Joseph=]|Christina=]|Leopold=]|Amalia=]|Carolina=]|Ferdinand=]|Antonia='''Marie Antoinette'''|Max=]|Louis=''']'''|Provence=]|Artois=]|Clotilde=]|Elisabeth=]}}
{{chart |border=0| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |!|}}
{{chart |border=0| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Francis|Francis=]}}
{{chart/end}}
<div style="text-align:left;">
'''Notes:'''
Solid vertical lines indicate parent-child relationship, while dashed lines represent more distant ancestor-descendant connections.
</div>
{{chart bottom}}
</div>

==Children==
{{Hidden top|expanded=yes|title=Children of Marie Antoinette|titlestyle=text-align:center; background: #CCDDCC; border:1px solid black}}
{| style="text-align:center; width:100%" class="wikitable"
! width=20% | Name !! width=100px | Portrait !! Lifespan !! Age !! Notes
|-
| ''']'''<br /> ''Madame Royale''
|| ]
||19 December 1778 –<br /> 19 October 1851
||{{Age in years, months and days|1778|12|19|1851|10|19}}
||Married her cousin, ], the eldest son of the future ].
|-
| ''']'''<br />''Dauphin de France''
|| ]
||22 October 1781 –<br /> 4 June 1789
||{{Age in years, months and days|1781|10|22|1789|6|4}}
|| Contracted tuberculosis and died in childhood on the very day the Estates General convened.
|-
| ''']'''<br /> ''(nominally) King of France and Navarre''
|| ]
|| 27 March 1785 –<br /> 8 June 1795
||{{Age in years, months and days|1785|3|27|1795|6|8}}
|| Died in childhood; no issue. He was never officially king, nor did he rule. His title was bestowed by his royalist supporters and acknowledged implicitly by his uncle's later adoption of the regnal name Louis XVIII rather than Louis XVII, upon the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814.
|-
| ''']'''
|| ]
|| 9 July 1786 –<br /> 19 June 1787
||{{Age in years, months and days|1786|7|9|1787|6|19}}
|| Died in the Palace of Versailles at the age of 11 months after suffering several days of convulsions, possibly related to tuberculosis.<ref>Fraser, Antonia, ''Marie Antoinette, The Journey'', Anchor Books, USA, 2001, p. 257, {{ISBN|0-385-48949-8}}.</ref>
|-
|}
{{hidden bottom}}

In addition to her biological children, Marie Antoinette adopted four children: "Armand" ], a poor orphan adopted in 1776; ], a Senegalese ] boy given to the queen as a present by ] in 1787, but whom she instead freed, baptized, adopted and placed in a pension; ], daughter of two servants at the palace, who was raised as the playmate of her daughter Marie-Thérèse and whom she adopted after the death of her mother in 1788; and "Zoe" ], 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.<ref name="ReferenceA">Philippe Huisman, Marguerite Jallut: ''Marie Antoinette'', Stephens, 1971.</ref>

Of these, only Armand, Ernestine, and Zoe actually lived with the royal family: Jean Amilcar, along with the elder siblings of Zoe and Armand who were also formally foster children of the royal couple, simply lived at the queen's expense until her imprisonment, which proved fatal for at least Amilcar, as he was evicted from the boarding school when the fee was no longer paid, and reportedly starved to death on the street.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Armand and Zoe had a position which was more similar to that of Ernestine; Armand lived at court with the king and queen until he left them at the outbreak of the Revolution because of his republican sympathies, and Zoe was chosen to be the playmate of the dauphin, just as Ernestine had once been selected as the playmate of Marie-Thérèse, and later sent away to her sisters in a convent boarding school before the Flight to Varennes in 1791.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>


==References== ==References==
===Notes===
{{portal|Kingdom of France}}
{{Reflist|20em}}
*{{cite book |last= Fraser |first=Antonia |authorlink=Antonia Fraser |title= Marie Antoinette, The Journey |year=2001 |publisher=Anchor |isbn=0-7538-1305-X | ref=harv}}

*{{cite book |last= Hermann|first= Eleanor|title= Sex With The Queen|year= 2006|publisher= Harper/Morrow |isbn=0-0608-4673-9}}
===Bibliography===
*{{cite book |last=Lever|first=Évelyne|title=The Last Queen of France|year=2006|publisher=Portrait |isbn=0749950846|pages=189 | ref=harv }}
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book |last= Wollstonecraft|first= Mary|title= An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution and the Effect it Has Produced in Europe|year= 1795|publisher= St. Paul's}}
* {{cite book |editor-last1=d'Arneth |editor-first1=Alfred Ritter |editor-last2=Geffroy |editor-first2=A. |title=Correspondance secrète entre Marie-Thérèse et le comte de Mercy-Argenteau, avec les lettres de Marie-Thérèse et de Marie-Antoinette |date=1874 |publisher=Firmin-Didot |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=72cvAAAAMAAJ |language=fr |volume=3}}
* {{cite book |last1=Banat |first1=Gabriel |title=The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow |date=2006 |publisher=Pendragon Press |isbn=978-1-57647-109-8 |location=Hillsdale, New York |oclc= |url=https://archive.org/details/chevalierdesaint0000bana/page/n5/mode/2up |url-access=registration}}
* {{cite book |title=Un choix sans équivoque: recherches historiques sur les relations amoureuses entre les femmes, XVIe–XXe siècle |first=Marie-Jo |last=Bonnet |year=1981 |location=Paris |publisher=Denoël |language=fr |oclc=163483785}}
* {{cite book |title=Queen of France: a biography of Marie Antoinette |url=https://archive.org/details/queenoffrancebio00cast |url-access=registration |first=André |last=Castelot |author-link=André Castelot |location=New York |publisher=Harper & Brothers |year=1957 |others=trans. Denise Folliot |oclc=301479745}}
* {{cite book |first=André |last=Castelot |title=Marie-Antoinette |publisher=Librairie académique Perrin |location=Paris, France |date=1962 |isbn=978-2262048228}}
* {{cite book |last1=Cronin |first1=Vincent |title=Louis and Antoinette |date=1974 |publisher=Collins |isbn=978-0-00-211494-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6CMxAQAAIAAJ |language=en}}
** {{cite book |last=Cronin |first=Vincent |author-link=Vincent Cronin |title=Louis and Antoinette |publisher=The Harvill Press |location=London |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-00-272021-2}}
* {{cite book |title=La folie de bâtir: pavillons d'agrément et folies sous l'Ancien Régime |first1=Bernd H. |last1=Dams |first2=Andrew |last2=Zega |author-link2=Andrew Zega |others=trans. Alexia Walker |publisher=Flammarion |year=1995 |isbn=978-2-08-201858-6}}
* {{cite book |last=Facos |first=Michelle |author-link=Michelle Facos |title=An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Art |year=2011 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vk4WgsO2OZsC&pg=PA12 |access-date=1 September 2011 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-136-84071-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Farr |first=Evelyn |title=Marie-Antoinette and Count Fersen: The Untold Love Story |year=2013 |publisher=Peter Owen Publishers |isbn=978-0720610017 |edition=2nd Revised}}
* {{cite book |last1=Furneaux |first1=Rupert |title=The Last Days of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. |date=1971 |publisher=John Day Company |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kutnAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}
* {{cite book |last=Fraser |first=Antonia |author-link=Antonia Fraser |title=Marie Antoinette |edition=1st |publisher=N.A. Talese/Doubleday |location=New York |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-385-48948-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/marieantoinettej00fras}}
* {{cite book |last=Fraser |first=Antonia |title=Marie Antoinette: The Journey |edition=2nd |publisher=Anchor Books |location=Garden City |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-385-48949-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/marieantoinette00anto_0}}
** {{Cite book |last=Fraser |first=Antonia |title=Marie Antoinette: The Journey |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |year=2002b |isbn=9781400033287}}
* {{cite book |last=Hermann |first=Eleanor |title=Sex with the Queen |year=2006 |publisher=Harper/Morrow |isbn=978-0-06-084673-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/sexwithqueen900y00herm}}
* {{cite book |last=Hibbert |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Hibbert |title=The Days of the French Revolution |year=2002 |publisher=Harper Perennial |isbn=978-0-688-16978-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/daysoffrenchre00hibb}}
* {{cite book |last=Johnson |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Johnson (writer) |title=Intellectuals |publisher=Harper & Row |location=New York |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-06-091657-2 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/intellectuals00johnrich}}
* {{cite book |first=Susan S. |last=Lanser |chapter=Eating Cake: The (Ab)uses of Marie-Antoinette |title=Marie-Antoinette: Writings on the Body of a Queen |editor-first=Dena |editor-last=Goodman |publisher=Psychology Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-415-93395-7}}
* {{cite book |last1=Lever |first1=Evelyne |title=Marie Antoinette |date=1991 |publisher=Fayard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nZulswEACAAJ |language=en}}
* {{cite book |last1=Lever |first1=Evelyne |title=Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France |date=24 September 2001 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-312-28333-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WNX1tQCA-w0C |language=en}}
** {{cite book |last=Lever |first=Évelyne |author-link=Évelyne Lever |title=Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France |publisher=Portrait |location=London |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-7499-5084-2}}
* {{cite book |last=Schama |first=Simon |author-link=Simon Schama |title=Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution |year=1989 |publisher=Vintage |location=New York |isbn=978-0-679-72610-4 |title-link=Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution}}
* {{cite journal |last=Seulliet |first=Philippe |journal=World of Interiors |title=Swan Song: Music Pavilion of the Last Queen of France |date=July 2008 |number=7}}
* {{cite book |last=Sturtevant |first=Lynne |title=A Guide to Historic Marietta, Ohio |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mm08vgAACAAJ |access-date=1 September 2011 |year=2011 |publisher=The History Press |isbn=978-1-60949-276-2}}
* {{cite book |title=Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution |isbn=978-0-312-42734-4 |first=Caroline |last=Weber |author-link=Caroline Weber (author) |publisher=Picador |year=2007}}
* {{cite book |last=Wollstonecraft |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Wollstonecraft |title=An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution and the Effect it Has Produced in Europe |year=1795 |publisher=St. Paul's}}
{{refend}}


==Further reading== ==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
*] ''Louis and Antoinette''. (1974) Collins. ISBN 0-8095-9216-9
* {{cite book |title=Marie Antoinette's Head: The Royal Hairdresser, the Queen, and the Revolution |last=Bashor |first=Will |publisher=Lyons Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0762791538 |page=320 |author-link=Will Bashor}}
*]''The Royal Diaries- Marie Antoinette, Princess of Versailles: Austria-France, 1769''. (2000) Scholastic. ISBN 0-4390-7666-8
* {{Cite book |title=To the Scaffold |last=Erickson |first=Carolly |publisher=William Morrow and Company, Inc. |year=1991 |isbn=0-312-32205-4 |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/toscaffoldlifeof00eric}}
*] ''Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France''. (2000) St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-28333-4
* {{cite book |title=I Love You Madly: Marie-Antoinette and Count Fersen: The Secret Letters |last=Farr |first=Evelyn |year=2016 |publisher=Peter Owen Publishers |isbn=978-0720618778}}
*] ''The Fatal Friendship''. (1972) Gyldendal. ISBN 0-931933-33-1
* {{cite book |title=Bibliothèque de la reine Marie-Antoinette au Petit Trianon d'après l'inventaire original dressé par ordre de la convention : catalogue avec des notes inédites du marquis de Paulmy |last=Jacob |first=P.L. |year=1863 |publisher=Jules Gay |oclc=12097301}}
*] ''Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette''. (2006) Morrow. ISBN 0-0608-2539-1
* {{Cite journal |author=Kaiser, Thomas |title=From the Austrian Committee to the Foreign Plot: Marie-Antoinette, Austrophobia, and the Terror |journal=French Historical Studies |volume=26 |issue=4 |date=Fall 2003 |pages=579–617 |doi=10.1215/00161071-26-4-579 |s2cid=154852467}}
* ] ''Vive Madame la Dauphine&nbsp;– Book one of the Marie Antoinette Trilogy.'' (2008) ISBN 978-0955410024
* {{Cite book |title=The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New Controversies 2nd ed |last=Kates |first=Gary |publisher=Routledge |year=1998 |isbn=0-415-35833-7 |pages= |url=https://archive.org/details/frenchrevolution00kate/page/201}}
*] ''The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette''. (1999) trans. by Julie Rose. Zone Books. 0-9422-9939-6
* {{cite book |title=The Royal Diaries: Marie Antoinette, Princess of Versailles: Austria-France, 1769 |last=Lasky |first=Kathryn |publisher=Scholastic |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-439-07666-1 |location=New York |author-link=Kathryn Lasky |url=https://archive.org/details/marieantoinettep00lask}}
*] ''Trianon: A Novel of Royal France''. (2000) Neumann Press ISBN 978-0911845969
* {{cite book |title=The Fatal Friendship: Marie Antoinette, Count Fersen and the flight to Varennes |last=Loomis |first=Stanley |publisher=Davis-Poynter |year=1972 |isbn=978-0-7067-0047-3 |location=London |author-link=Stanley Loomis}}
*] ''Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution''. (2006) Henry Holt and Co. ISBN 0-8050-7949-1
* {{cite book |title=There Were Three of Us in the Relationship: The Secret Letters of Marie Antoinette |last=MacLeod |first=Margaret Anne |publisher=Isaac MacDonald |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-9559991-0-9 |location=Irvine, Scotland}}
*] "Marie Antoinette The Portrait of an Average Woman" (1932) ISBN 4-87187-855-4
* {{cite book |title=Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette |last=Naslund |first=Sena Jeter |publisher=William Morrow |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-06-082539-3 |location=New York |author-link=Sena Jeter Naslund |url=https://archive.org/details/abundancenovelof00nasl}}
*]There Were Three Of Us In The Relationship&nbsp;— The Secret Letters of Marie Antoinette&nbsp;— Paperback Book | ''http://www.marieantoinetteletters.co.uk''.
* {{cite book |title=Vive Madame la Dauphine: A Biographical Novel |last=Romijn |first=André |publisher=Roman House |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-9554100-2-4 |location=Ripon}}
* {{cite book |title=The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette |last=Thomas |first=Chantal |publisher=Zone Books |others=Trans. Julie Rose |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-942299-40-3 |location=New York |author-link=Chantal Thomas}}
* {{cite book |title=Trianon: A Novel of Royal France |last=Vidal |first=Elena Maria |publisher=Neumann Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-911845-96-9 |location=Long Prairie, MN |author-link=Elena Maria Vidal}}
* {{cite book |title=Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman |last=Zweig |first=Stefan |publisher=Grove Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-8021-3909-2 |location=New York |author-link=Stefan Zweig |url=https://archive.org/details/marieantoinettep00zwei_0}}
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==External links== ==External links==
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* - A site with a sympathetic bend, and contains a great deal of information.
* - Many articles on all things Antoinette, from Versailles to Trianon to the most obscure details of life in Royal France, by historian and author ].
* - Official movie site for the Sofia Coppola picture.
* - IMDB page
* - IMDB page
* {{CathEncy|wstitle=Marie Antoinette}}
* from the Petit-Trianon palace, based on 1863 printed catalog, online at ].
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{{s-ref|Weber, Caroline. Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006.}}

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|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen
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Latest revision as of 10:53, 25 December 2024

Queen of France from 1774 to 1792 For other uses, see Marie Antoinette (disambiguation).

Marie Antoinette
Portrait, c. 1775
Queen consort of France
Tenure10 May 1774 – 21 September 1792
BornArchduchess Maria Antonia of Austria
(1755-11-02)2 November 1755
Hofburg, Vienna, Archduchy of Austria, Holy Roman Empire
Died16 October 1793(1793-10-16) (aged 37)
Place de la Révolution, Paris, France
Cause of deathExecution by guillotine
Burial21 January 1815
Basilica of Saint-Denis
Spouse Louis XVI ​ ​(m. 1770; died 1793)
Issue
Names
  • German: Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna
  • French: Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne
HouseHabsburg-Lorraine
FatherFrancis I, Holy Roman Emperor
MotherMaria Theresa
SignatureMarie Antoinette's signature
Coat of armsCoat of arms of Marie Antoinette of Austria

Marie Antoinette (/ˌæntwəˈnɛt, ˌɒ̃t-/; French: [maʁi ɑ̃twanɛt] ; Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last Queen of France prior to the French Revolution and the establishment of the French First Republic. Marie Antoinette was the wife of Louis XVI. Born Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria, she was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. She married Louis Auguste, Dauphin of France, in May 1770 at the age of 14. She then became the Dauphine of France. On 10 May 1774, her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI and she became queen.

As queen, Marie Antoinette became increasingly a target of criticism by opponents of the domestic and foreign policies of Louis XVI, and those opposed to the monarchy in general. The French libelles accused her of being profligate, promiscuous, having illegitimate children, and harboring sympathies for France's perceived enemies, including her native Austria. She was falsely accused of defrauding the Crown's jewelers in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, but the accusations damaged her reputation further. During the French Revolution, she became known as Madame Déficit because the country's financial crisis was blamed on her lavish spending and her opposition to social and financial reforms proposed by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and Jacques Necker.

Several events were linked to Marie Antoinette during the Revolution after the government placed the royal family under house arrest in the Tuileries Palace in October 1789. The June 1791 attempted flight to Varennes and her role in the War of the First Coalition were immensely damaging to her image among French citizens. On 10 August 1792, the attack on the Tuileries forced the royal family to take refuge at the Assembly, and they were imprisoned in the Temple Prison on 13 August 1792. On 21 September 1792, France was declared a republic and the monarchy was abolished. Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. Marie Antoinette's trial began on 14 October 1793; two days later, she was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason and executed by beheading by guillotine on 16 October 1793 at the Place de la Révolution during the French Revolution.

Early life (1755–1770)

Archduchess Maria Antonia depicted at seven years of age in a 1762 watercolor portrait by Jean-Étienne Liotard

Marie Antoinette, full name Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, was born on 2 November 1755 at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Archduchy of Austria, at 20:30. She was the youngest daughter and 15th child of Empress Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg monarchy, and her husband Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. Maria Theresa gave birth to all of her previous children without any problems. During the birth of her last daughter, serious complications arose, and doctors even feared for the life of the mother. Her godparents were Joseph I and Mariana Victoria, King and Queen of Portugal; Archduke Joseph and Archduchess Maria Anna acted as proxies for their newborn sister.

Maria Antonia was born on All Souls' Day, a Catholic day of mourning, and during her childhood her birthday was instead celebrated the day before, on All Saints' Day, due to the connotations of the date. Shortly after her birth she was placed under the care of the governess of the imperial children, Countess von Brandeis. Maria Antonia was raised together with her sister, Maria Carolina of Austria, who was three years older, and with whom she had a lifelong close relationship. Maria Antonia had a difficult but ultimately loving relationship with her mother, who referred to her as "the little Madame Antoine".

Maria Antonia spent her formative years between the Hofburg Palace and Schönbrunn, the imperial summer residence in Vienna, where on 13 October 1762, when she was seven, she met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, two months her junior and a child prodigy. Despite the private tutoring she received, the results of her schooling were less than satisfactory. At the age of 10 she could not write correctly in German or in any language commonly used at court, such as French or Italian, and conversations with her were stilted. Under the teaching of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Maria Antonia developed into a good musician. She learned to play the harp, the harpsichord and the flute. She sang during the family's evening gatherings, as she was known to have had a beautiful voice. She also excelled at dancing, had "exquisite" poise, and loved dolls.

Maria Antonia by Martin van Meytens c.1767-1768

The death of her older sister Maria Josepha from smallpox during the epidemic in Vienna in October 1767 made an everlasting impression on the young Maria Antonia. Maria Antonia, in her later life, recalled the ailing Maria Josepha taking her in her arms. She told her that she would not be traveling to Naples to marry King Ferdinand IV of Naples, to whom she was betrothed, but for the family vault.

Later in 1768, Mathieu-Jacques de Vermond was dispatched by Louis XV to tutor Marie Antoinette as she became the future wife to Louis XVI. Serving as an educator, Abbé de Vermond found her to be unsatisfactorily educated and lacking in, at the age of 13, important writing skills. Nonetheless, he also complimented her, stating "her character, her heart, are excellent". He found her "more intelligent than has been generally supposed," but since "she is rather lazy and extremely frivolous, she is hard to teach".

Under the recommendation of Étienne François de Choiseul, Duke of Choiseul, a strong supporter of her prospective marriage, Maria Antonia also received a makeover to bring her more in line with the fashion of French royalty. This included the straightening of her teeth by a French dentist, the diversification of her wardrobe, and hairstyles reminiscent of Madame de Pompadour. She was also instructed by Jean-Georges Noverre, who taught her to walk in the gliding fashion characteristic of the court of Versailles.

Dauphine of France (1770–1774)

Archduchess Maria Antonia depicted at age 13 in a 1769 portrait by Joseph Ducreux, which was sent to the Palace of Versailles in May 1769
Queen Marie Antoinette of France, at age 16 depicted in a pastel portrait drawn in Versailles by Joseph Kranzinger and sent to her mother, Empress Maria Theresa, in Austria

Following the Seven Years' War and the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, Empress Maria Theresa decided to end hostilities with her longtime enemy, King Louis XV of France. Their common desire to destroy the ambitions of Prussia and Great Britain, and to secure a definitive peace between their respective countries led them to seal their alliance with a marriage: on 7 February 1770, Louis XV formally requested the hand of Maria Antonia for his eldest surviving grandson and heir, Louis Auguste, Duke of Berry and Dauphin of France.

Maria Antonia formally renounced her rights to Habsburg domains, and on 19 April 1770 she was married by proxy with Louis Auguste at the Augustinian Church, Vienna, with her brother Archduke Ferdinand standing in for the Dauphin. On 14 May 1770 she met her husband at the edge of the forest of Compiègne. Upon her arrival in France, she adopted the French version of her name: Marie Antoinette. A further ceremonial wedding took place on 16 May 1770 in the Palace of Versailles and, after the festivities, the day ended with the ritual bedding. The couple's longtime failure to consummate the marriage plagued the reputations of the royal couple for the next seven years.

The initial reaction to the marriage between Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI was mixed. On the one hand, the Dauphine was beautiful, personable and well-liked by the common people. Her first official appearance in Paris on 8 June 1773 was a resounding success. On the other hand, those opposed to the alliance with Austria had a difficult relationship with Marie Antoinette, as did others who disliked her for more personal or petty reasons.

Madame du Barry proved a troublesome foe to the new dauphine. She was Louis XV's mistress and had considerable political influence over him. In 1770 she was instrumental in ousting Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, who had helped orchestrate the Franco-Austrian Alliance and Marie Antoinette's marriage, and in exiling his sister, the Duchess of Gramont, one of Marie Antoinette's ladies-in-waiting. Marie Antoinette was persuaded by her husband's aunts to refuse to acknowledge du Barry, which some saw as a political blunder that jeopardized Austria's interests at the French court. Marie Antoinette's mother and the Austrian ambassador to France, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, who sent the Empress secret reports on Marie Antoinette's behaviour, pressured Marie Antoinette to speak to Madame du Barry, which she grudgingly agreed to do on New Year's Day 1772. She merely commented to her, "There are a lot of people at Versailles today", but it was enough for Madame du Barry, who was satisfied with this recognition, and the crisis passed.

Two days after the death of Louis XV in 1774, Louis XVI exiled du Barry to the Abbaye du Pont-aux-Dames in Meaux, pleasing both his wife and aunts. Two and a half years later, at the end of October 1776, Madame du Barry's exile ended and she was allowed to return to her beloved château at Louveciennes, but she was never permitted to return to Versailles.

Queen of France and Navarre (1774–1792)

Marie Antoinette by Joseph Hickel c.1773

Early years (1774–1778)

On 10 May 1774, upon the death of Louis XV, the Dauphin ascended the throne as King Louis XVI of France and Navarre with Marie Antoinette as his queen consort. At the outset, the new queen had limited political influence with her husband, who, with the support of his two most important ministers, Chief Minister Maurepas and Foreign Minister Vergennes, blocked several of her candidates from assuming important positions, including Choiseul. The queen did play a decisive role in the disgrace and exile of the most powerful of Louis XV's ministers, the Duc d'Aiguillon.

On 24 May 1774, two weeks after the death of Louis XV, the king gave his wife the Petit Trianon, a small château on the grounds of Versailles that had been built by Louis XV for his mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Louis XVI allowed Marie Antoinette to renovate it to suit her own tastes; soon rumours circulated that she had plastered the walls with gold and diamonds.

Queen Marie Antoinette wearing court grand habit by Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty c.1775

The Queen spent heavily on fashion, luxuries, and gambling, though the country was facing a grave financial crisis and the population was suffering. Rose Bertin created dresses for her, and hairstyles such as poufs, up to three feet (90 cm) high, and the panachea spray of feather plumes. She and her court also adopted the English fashion of dresses made of indienne, a material banned in France from 1686 until 1759 to protect local French woolen and silk industries, percale and muslin. As a result of all these fashion activities, Marie Antoinette presided over one of the most important and fashionable courts in history and she was dominant over all of the other ladies of the court; as for her bearing and appearance the queen was very majestic and charismatic in spite of the fact that she gained much weight over the years due to her many pregnancies.

By the time of the Flour War of 1775, a series of riots, due to the high price of flour and bread, had damaged her reputation among the general public. Eventually, Marie Antoinette's reputation was no better than that of the favourites of previous kings. Many French people were beginning to blame her for the degrading economic situation, suggesting the country's inability to pay off its debt was the result of her wasting the crown's money. In her correspondence, Marie Antoinette's mother, Maria Theresa, expressed concern over her daughter's spending habits, citing the civil unrest it was beginning to cause.

As early as 1774, Marie Antoinette had begun to befriend some of her male admirers, such as the Baron de Besenval, the Duc de Coigny, and Count Valentin Esterházy, and also formed deep friendships with various ladies at court. Most noted was Marie-Louise, Princesse de Lamballe, related to the royal family through her marriage into the Penthièvre family. On 19 September 1774, she appointed her superintendent of her household, an appointment she soon transferred to her new favourite, the Duchess of Polignac.

In 1774, she took under her patronage her former music teacher, the German opera composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, who remained in France until 1779.

Motherhood, changes at court and intervention in politics (1778–1781)

Amidst the atmosphere of a wave of libelles, the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II came to France incognito, using the name Comte de Falkenstein, for a six-week visit during which he toured Paris extensively and was a guest at Versailles. He met his sister and her husband on 18 April 1777 at the Château de la Muette, and spoke frankly to his brother-in-law, curious as to why the royal marriage had not been consummated, arriving at the conclusion that no obstacle to the couple's conjugal relations existed save the Queen's lack of interest and the King's unwillingness to exert himself.

In a letter to his brother Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Joseph II described them as "a couple of complete blunderers." He disclosed to Leopold that the inexperienced—then still only 22-year-old—Louis XVI had confided in him the course of action he had been undertaking in their marital bed; saying Louis XVI "introduces the member," but then "stays there without moving for about two minutes," withdraws without having completed the act and "bids goodnight."

Suggestions that Louis suffered from phimosis, which was relieved by circumcision, have been discredited. Nevertheless, following Joseph's intervention, the marriage was finally consummated in August 1777. Eight months later, in April 1778, it was suspected that the queen was pregnant, which was officially announced on 16 May. Marie Antoinette's daughter, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, Madame Royale, was born at Versailles on 19 December 1778. The child's paternity was contested in the libelles, as were all her children's.

In the middle of the queen's pregnancy, two events occurred which had a profound effect on her later life: the return of her friend, the Swedish diplomat Count Axel von Fersen the Younger to Versailles for two years, and her brother's claim to the throne of Bavaria, contested by Saxony and Prussia. Marie Antoinette pleaded with her husband for the French to intercede on behalf of Austria. The Peace of Teschen, signed on 13 May 1779, ended the brief conflict, with the Queen imposing French mediation at her mother's insistence and Austria's gaining the Innviertel territory of at least 100,000 inhabitants—a strong retreat from the early French position which was hostile towards Austria. This gave the impression, partially justified, that the Queen had sided with Austria against France.

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. The new fashion called for a simpler feminine look, typified first by the rustic robe à la polonaise style and later by the gaulle, a layered muslin dress Marie Antoinette wore in a 1783 Vigée-Le Brun portrait. In 1780 she began to participate in amateur plays and musicals in the Théâtre de la Reine built for her by Richard Mique.

Marie Antoinette with a Rose, a 1783 portrait of Marie Antoinette that was criticised for showing what was described as improper and informal attire for a queen. In response to the criticism, it was repainted with the queen in a blue silk dress.

Repayment of the French debt remained a difficult problem, further exacerbated by Vergennes and also by Marie Antoinette prodding Louis XVI to involve France in the American Revolutionary War. The primary motive for the queen's involvement in political affairs in this period may arguably have had more to do with court factionalism than any true interest on her part in politics themselves, but she played an important role in aiding the American Revolution by securing Austrian and Russian support for France, which resulted in the establishment of the First League of Armed Neutrality that stopped Britain's attack, and by weighing in decisively for the nomination of Philippe Henri, Marquis de Ségur, as Minister of War and Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix as Secretary of the Navy in 1780, who helped George Washington defeat the British in the American Revolutionary War, which ended in 1783.

Marie Antoinette's second pregnancy ended in a miscarriage early in July 1779, as confirmed by letters between the Queen and her mother, although some historians believed that she may have experienced bleeding related to an irregular menstrual cycle, which she mistook for a lost pregnancy.

Her third pregnancy was affirmed in March 1781, and on 22 October she gave birth to Louis Joseph Xavier François, Dauphin of France.

Empress Maria Theresa died on 29 November 1780 in Vienna. Marie Antoinette feared that the death of her mother would jeopardise the Franco-Austrian alliance, as well as, ultimately, herself, but her brother, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, wrote to her that he had no intention of breaking the alliance.

A second visit from Joseph II, which took place in July 1781 to reaffirm the Franco-Austrian alliance and also to see his sister, was tainted by false rumours that Marie Antoinette was sending money to him from the French treasury.

Declining popularity (1782–1785)

Despite the general celebration over the birth of an heir, Marie Antoinette's political influence, such as it was, was perceived to greatly benefit Austria. During the Kettle War, in which her brother Joseph attempted to open the Scheldt river for naval passage, Marie Antoinette succeeded in obliging Vergennes to pay huge financial compensation to Austria. Finally, the Queen was able to obtain her brother's support against Great Britain in the American Revolution and she neutralized French hostility to his alliance with Russia.

In 1782, after the governess of the royal children, the Princesse de Guéméné, went bankrupt and resigned, Marie Antoinette appointed her favourite, the Duchess of Polignac, to the position. This decision met with disapproval from the court as the duchess was considered to be of too modest origins to occupy such an exalted position. In contrast, both the king and the queen trusted Madame de Polignac completely, gave her a thirteen-room apartment in Versailles and paid her well. The entire Polignac family benefited greatly from royal favour in titles and positions, but its sudden wealth and lavish lifestyle outraged most aristocratic families, who resented the Polignacs' dominance at court, and also fueled the increasing popular disapproval of Marie Antoinette, mostly in Paris. De Mercy wrote to the empress: "It is almost unexampled that in so short a time, the royal favour should have brought such overwhelming advantages to a family".

In June 1783, Marie Antoinette's new pregnancy was announced, but on the night of 1–2 November, her 28th birthday, she suffered a miscarriage.

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. More than that, the decree by de Ségur, the minister of war, requiring four quarterings of nobility as a condition for the appointment of officers, mainly served the interest of older noble families including poorer provincial ones, who were widely seen as a reactionary interest group by ambitious members of the middle and professional classes, by some more recent nobility, and even by the Parisian populace and press. The measure also blocked the access of 'commoners', mainly sons of members of the professional classes, and of more recently elevated nobility to important positions in the armed forces. As such, the decree became an important grievance for social classes that had been habitually supportive of the monarchy and established order, and which went on to supply the bulk of the early leadership of the French Revolution.

Count Axel von Fersen, after his return from America in June 1783, was accepted into the Queen's private society. There were claims that the two were romantically involved, but since most of their correspondence has been lost, destroyed, or redacted, for many years there was no conclusive evidence. Starting in 2016, scientists at the Centre for Research and Restoration of Museums of France (CRCC), uncovered some of the redacted text of the queen's letters to Fersen. The revealed texts do not mention a physical relationship, but do confirm a very strong emotional relationship.

Around this time, pamphlets describing farcical sexual deviance including the Queen and her friends in the court were growing in popularity around the country. The Portefeuille d'un talon rouge was one of the earliest, including the queen and a variety of other nobles in a political statement decrying the immoral practices of the court. As time went on, these came to focus more on the queen. They described amorous encounters with a wide range of figures, from the Duchess of Polignac to Louis XV. As these attacks increased, they were connected with the public's dislike of her association with the rival nation of Austria. It was publicly suggested that her supposed behaviour was learned at the Austrian court, particularly lesbianism, which was known as the "German vice". Her mother again expressed concern for the safety of her daughter, and she began to use Austria's ambassador to France, Comte de Mercy, to provide information on Marie Antoinette's safety and movements.

In 1783, the Queen was busy with the creation of her "hamlet", a rustic retreat built by her favoured architect, Richard Mique, according to the designs of the painter Hubert Robert. Its creation, however, caused another uproar when its cost became widely known. However, the hamlet was not an eccentricity of Marie Antoinette's. It was en vogue at the time for nobles to have recreations of small villages on their properties. In fact, the design was copied from that of Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé. It was also significantly smaller and less intricate than many other nobles'. Around this time she accumulated a library of 5,000 books. Those on music, often dedicated to her, were the most read, though she also liked to read history.

She sponsored the arts, in particular music. Marie Antoinette preferred to hold her musicales in the salon of her Petit appartement de la reine in the Palace of Versailles, or in the Théâtre de la Reine. She limited the audience to her intimate circle and a few musicians, among them the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. "Admitted to perform music with the Queen," Saint-Georges probably played his violin sonatas for two instruments, with Her Majesty playing the fortepiano. She also supported some scientific endeavours, encouraging and witnessing the first launch of a Montgolfière, a hot air balloon for the first time in human history; this extraordinary feat which represented a turning point in human civilization was done by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier.

On 27 April 1784, Pierre Beaumarchais's play The Marriage of Figaro premiered in Paris. Initially banned by the king due to its negative portrayal of the nobility, the play was finally allowed to be publicly performed because of the Queen's support and its overwhelming popularity at court, where secret readings of it had been given by Marie Antoinette. The play was a disaster for the image of the monarchy and aristocracy. It inspired Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, which premiered in Vienna on 1 May 1786.

A 1784 portrait of Marie Antoinette with her two eldest children, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte and the Dauphin Louis Joseph, in the garden of Petit Trianon, by Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller

On 24 October 1784, putting the Baron de Breteuil in charge of its acquisition, Louis XVI bought the Château de Saint-Cloud from Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans in the name of his wife, which she wanted due to their expanding family. She wanted to be able to own her own property, one that was actually hers, to then have the authority to bequeath it to "whichever of my children I wish," choosing the child she thought could use it rather than it going through patriarchal inheritance laws or whims. It was proposed that the cost could be covered by other sales, such as that of the château Trompette in Bordeaux. This was unpopular, particularly with those factions of the nobility who disliked the Queen, but also with a growing percentage of the population, who disapproved of a queen of France independently owning a private residence. The purchase of Saint-Cloud thus damaged the public's image of the Queen even further. The château's high price, almost 6 million livres, plus the substantial extra cost of redecorating, ensured that much less money was going towards repaying France's substantial debt.

On 27 March 1785, Marie Antoinette gave birth to a second son, Louis Charles, who bore the title of Duke of Normandy. The fact that the birth occurred exactly nine months after Fersen's return did not escape the attention of many, leading to doubt as to the parentage of the child and to a noticeable decline of the Queen's reputation in public opinion. The majority of Marie Antoinette's and Louis XVII's biographers believe that the young prince was the biological son of Louis XVI, including Stefan Zweig and Antonia Fraser, who believe that Fersen and Marie Antoinette were indeed romantically involved. Fraser has also noted that the birthdate matches up perfectly with a known conjugal visit from the King.

Courtiers at Versailles noted in their diaries that the date of the child's conception corresponded perfectly with a period when the King and the Queen had spent much time together, but these details were ignored amid attacks on the Queen's character. These suspicions of illegitimacy, along with the continued publication of the libelles and never-ending cavalcades of court intrigues, the actions of Joseph II in the Kettle War, the purchase of Saint-Cloud and the Affair of the Diamond Necklace combined to turn popular opinion sharply against the Queen, and the image of a licentious, spendthrift, empty-headed foreign queen was quickly taking root in the French psyche.

A second daughter, her last child, Marie Sophie Hélène Béatrix, Madame Sophie, was born on 9 July 1786 and lived only eleven months until 19 June 1787. She was named after the King's aunt, Princess Sophie of France.

Prelude to the Revolution: scandals and the failure of reforms (1786–1789)

Diamond necklace scandal

Main article: Affair of the Diamond Necklace
A reconstruction of the diamond necklace in the Château de Breteuil, in France

Marie Antoinette began to abandon her more carefree activities to become increasingly involved in politics in her role as queen of France. By publicly showing her attention to the education and care of her children, the queen sought to improve the dissolute image she had acquired in 1785 from the "Diamond Necklace Affair", in which public opinion had falsely accused her of criminal participation in defrauding the jewelers Boehmer and Bassenge of the price of an expensive diamond necklace they had originally created for Madame du Barry.

The main actors in the scandal were Cardinal de Rohan, Prince de Rohan-Guéméné, Grand Almoner of France, and Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, Countess de La Motte, a descendant of an illegitimate child of Henry II of France of the House of Valois. Marie Antoinette had profoundly disliked Rohan since the time he had been the French ambassador to Vienna when she was a child. Despite his high clerical position at the Court, she never addressed a word to him. Others involved were Nicole Lequay, alias Baronne d'Oliva, a prostitute who happened to look like Marie Antoinette; Rétaux de Villette, a forger; Alessandro Cagliostro, an Italian adventurer; and the Count de La Motte, Jeanne de Valois' husband. Madame de La Motte tricked Rohan into buying the necklace as a gift to Marie Antoinette, for him to gain the queen's favour.

When the affair was discovered, those involved, except de La Motte and Rétaux de Villette, who both managed to flee, were arrested, tried, convicted, and either imprisoned or exiled. Madame de La Motte was sentenced for life to confinement in the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, which also served as a prison for women. Judged by the Parlement of Paris, Rohan was found innocent of any wrongdoing and allowed to leave the Bastille. Marie Antoinette, who had insisted on the arrest of the Cardinal, was dealt a heavy personal blow, as was the monarchy, and despite the fact that the guilty parties were tried and convicted, the affair proved to be extremely damaging to her reputation, which never recovered from it.

Failure of political and financial reforms

Suffering from an acute case of depression, the King began to seek the advice of his wife. In her new role and with increasing political power, the Queen tried to improve the awkward situation brewing between the Parlement and the King. This change of the queen's position signaled the end of the Polignacs' influence and their impact on the finances of the Crown.

Continuing deterioration of the financial situation despite cutbacks to the royal retinue and court expenses ultimately forced the King, the Queen and the Controller-General of Finances, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, at the urging of Vergennes, to call a session of the Assembly of Notables, after a hiatus of 160 years. The assembly was held for the purpose of initiating necessary financial reforms, but the Assembly refused to cooperate. The first meeting took place on 22 February 1787, nine days after the death of Vergennes on 13 February. Marie Antoinette did not attend the meeting and her absence resulted in accusations that the Queen was trying to undermine its purpose. The Assembly was a failure. It did not pass any reforms and, instead, fell into a pattern of defying the King. On the urging of the Queen, Louis XVI dismissed Calonne on 8 April 1787.

On 1 May 1787 Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse and one of the queen's political allies was appointed by the King at her urging to replace Calonne, first as Controller-General of Finances and then as Chief Minister. He began to institute more cutbacks at court while trying to restore the royal absolute power weakened by the Parlement. Brienne was unable to improve the financial situation, and since he was the Queen's ally, this failure adversely affected her political position. The continued poor financial climate of the country resulted in the 25 May dissolution of the Assembly of Notables because of its inability to function, and the lack of solutions was blamed on the Queen.

France's financial problems were the result of a combination of factors: several expensive wars; a large royal family whose expenditures were paid for by the state; and an unwillingness on the part of most members of the privileged classes, aristocracy, and clergy, to help defray the costs of the government out of their own pockets by relinquishing some of their financial privileges. As a result of the public perception that she had single-handedly ruined the national finances, Marie Antoinette was given the nickname of "Madame Déficit" in the summer of 1787. While the sole fault for the financial crisis did not lie with her, Marie Antoinette was the biggest obstacle to any major reform effort. She had played a decisive role in the disgrace of the reformer ministers of finance, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (in 1776), and Jacques Necker (first dismissal in 1781). If the secret expenses of the Queen were taken into account, court expenses were much higher than the official estimate of 7% of the state budget.

This State Portrait of Marie Antoinette and her three surviving children, Marie Thérèse, Louis Charles (on her lap) and Louis Joseph holding up the drape of an empty bassinet signifying the recent death of Marie's fourth child Sophie was meant to improve her reputation by depicting her as a mother in simple, yet stately attire, by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1787.

The queen attempted to fight back with propaganda portraying her as a caring mother, most notably in the painting by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun exhibited at the Royal Académie Salon de Paris in August 1787, showing her with her children. Around the same time, Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy escaped from prison and fled to London, where she published damaging slander concerning her supposed amorous affair with the Queen.

The political situation in 1787 worsened when, at Marie Antoinette's urging, the Parlement of Paris was exiled to Troyes on 15 August. It further deteriorated when Louis XVI tried to use a lit de justice on 11 November to impose legislation. The new Duke of Orléans publicly protested the king's actions, and was subsequently exiled to his Château de Villers-Cotterêts. The May Edicts issued on 8 May 1788 were also opposed by the public and parlement. Finally, on 8 August, Louis XVI announced his intention to bring back the Estates General, the traditional elected legislature of the country, which had not been convened since 1614.

While from late 1787 up to his death in June 1789 Marie Antoinette's primary concern was the continued deterioration of the health of the Dauphin, who suffered from tuberculosis, she was directly involved in the exile of the Parlement, the May Edicts, and the announcement regarding the Estates General. She did participate in the King Council, the first queen to do this in over 175 years (since Marie de' Medici had been named Chef du Conseil du Roi, between 1614 and 1617), and she was making the major decisions behind the scene and in the Royal Council.

Marie Antoinette was instrumental in the reinstatement of Jacques Necker as Finance Minister on 26 August 1788, 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.

On the eve of the opening of the Estates General the Queen attended the mass celebrating its return. As soon as it opened on 5 May 1789, the fracture between the democratic Third Estate (consisting of bourgeois and radical aristocrats) and the conservative nobility of the Second Estate widened, and Marie Antoinette knew that her rival, the Duke of Orléans, who had given money and bread to the people during the winter, would be acclaimed by the crowd, much to her detriment.

The death of the Dauphin on 4 June, which deeply affected his parents, was virtually ignored by the French people, who were instead preparing for the next meeting of the Estates General and hoping for a resolution to the bread crisis. As the Third Estate declared itself a National Assembly and took the Tennis Court Oath, and as people either spread or believed rumours that the Queen wished to bathe in their blood, Marie Antoinette went into mourning for her eldest son. Her role was decisive in urging the King to remain firm and not concede to popular demands for reforms. In addition, she showed her determination to use force to crush the forthcoming revolution.

French Revolution before Varennes (1789–1791)

The situation escalated on 20 June as the Third Estate, which had been joined by several members of the clergy and radical nobility, found the door to its appointed meeting place closed by order of the King. It thus met at the tennis court in Versailles and took the Tennis Court Oath not to separate before it had given a constitution to the nation.

On 11 July at Marie Antoinette's urging, Necker was dismissed and replaced by Breteuil, the queen's choice to crush the Revolution with mercenary Swiss troops under the command of one of her favourites, Pierre Victor, Baron de Besenval de Brünstatt. At the news, Paris was besieged by riots that culminated in the storming of the Bastille on 14 July. On 15 July Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette was named commander-in-chief of the newly formed National Guard.

The Storming of the Bastille in Paris, and the arrest of its Governor Bernard-René de Launay, 14 July 1789

In the days following the storming of the Bastille, for fear of assassination, and ordered by the King, the emigration of members of the high aristocracy began on 17 July with the departure of the Count of Artois, the Condés, cousins of the King, and the unpopular Polignacs. Marie Antoinette, whose life was as much in danger, remained with the King, whose power was gradually being taken away by the National Constituent Assembly.

The abolition of feudal privileges by the National Constituent Assembly on 4 August 1789 and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (La Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen), drafted by Lafayette with the help of Thomas Jefferson and adopted on 26 August, paved the way to a Constitutional Monarchy (4 September 1791 – 21 September 1792). Despite these dramatic changes, life at the court continued, while the situation in Paris was becoming critical because of bread shortages in September. On 5 October, a crowd from Paris descended upon Versailles and forced the royal family to move to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, where they lived under a form of house arrest under the watch of Lafayette's National Guard, while the Count of Provence and his wife were allowed to reside in the Petit Luxembourg, where they remained until they went into exile on 20 June 1791.

Marie Antoinette continued to perform charitable functions and attend religious ceremonies, but dedicated most of her time to her children. She also played an important political, albeit not public, role between 1789 and 1791 when she had a complex set of relationships with several key actors of the early period of the French Revolution. One of the most important was Necker, the Prime Minister of Finances (Premier ministre des finances). Despite her dislike of him, she played a decisive role in his return to the office. She blamed him for his support of the Revolution and did not regret his resignation in 1790.

Lafayette, one of the former military leaders in the American War of Independence (1775–1783), served as the warden of the royal family in his position as commander-in-chief of the National Guard. Despite his dislike of the Queen—he detested her as much as she detested him and at one time had even threatened to send her to a convent—he was persuaded by the mayor of Paris, Jean Sylvain Bailly, to work and collaborate with her, and allowed her to see Fersen a number of times. He even went as far as exiling the Duke of Orléans, who was accused by the queen of fomenting trouble. His relationship with the King was more cordial. As a liberal aristocrat, he did not want the fall of the monarchy but rather the establishment of a liberal one, similar to that of Great Britain, based on cooperation between the King and the people, as was to be defined in the Constitution of 1791.

Despite her attempts to remain out of the public eye, Marie Antoinette was falsely accused in the libelles of having an affair with Lafayette, whom she loathed, and, as was published in Le Godmiché Royal ("The Royal Dildo"), of having a sexual relationship with the English baroness Lady Sophie Farrell of Bournemouth, a well-known lesbian of the time. Publication of such calumnies continued to the end, climaxing at her trial with an accusation of incest with her son. There is no evidence to support the accusations.

Mirabeau

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. Like Lafayette, Mirabeau was a liberal aristocrat. He had joined the Third Estate and was not against the monarchy, but wanted to reconcile it with the Revolution. He also wanted to be a minister and was not immune to corruption. On the advice of Mercy, Marie Antoinette opened secret negotiations with him and both agreed to meet privately at the Château de Saint-Cloud on 3 July 1790, where the royal family was allowed to spend the summer, free of the radical elements who watched their every move in Paris. At the meeting, Mirabeau was much impressed by the queen, and remarked in a letter to Auguste Marie Raymond d'Arenberg, Comte de la Marck, that she was the only person the King had by him: La Reine est le seul homme que le Roi ait auprès de Lui. An agreement was reached turning Mirabeau into one of her political allies: Marie Antoinette promised to pay him 6000 livres per month and one million if he succeeded in his mission to restore the King's authority.

The only time the royal couple returned to Paris in that period was on 14 July to attend the Fête de la Fédération, an official ceremony held at the Champ de Mars in commemoration of the fall of the Bastille one year earlier. At least 300,000 persons participated from all over France, including 18,000 National Guards, with Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, celebrating a mass at the autel de la Patrie ("altar of the fatherland"). The King was greeted at the event with loud cheers of "Long live the King!", especially when he took the oath to protect the nation and to enforce the laws voted by the Constitutional Assembly. There were even cheers for the Queen, particularly when she presented the dauphin to the public.

Mirabeau sincerely wanted to reconcile the Queen with the people, and she was happy to see him restoring much of the King's powers, such as his authority over foreign policy, and the right to declare war. Over the objections of Lafayette and his allies, the King was given a suspensive veto allowing him to veto any laws for a period of four years. With time, Mirabeau would support the Queen, even more, going as far as to suggest that Louis XVI "adjourn" to Rouen or Compiègne. This leverage with the Assembly ended with the death of Mirabeau in April 1791, despite the attempt of several moderate leaders of the Revolution to contact the queen to establish some basis of cooperation with her.

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

In March 1791 Pope Pius VI had condemned the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, reluctantly signed by Louis XVI, which reduced the number of bishops from 132 to 93, imposed the election of bishops and all members of the clergy by departmental or district assemblies of electors, and reduced the pope's authority over the Church. Religion played an important role in the life of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, both raised in the Roman Catholic faith. The Queen's political ideas and her belief in the absolute power of monarchs were based on France's long-established tradition of the divine right of kings.

On 18 April, as the royal family prepared to leave for Saint-Cloud to attend Easter mass celebrated by a refractory priest, a crowd, soon joined by the National Guard (disobeying Lafayette's orders), prevented their departure from Paris, prompting Marie Antoinette to declare to Lafayette that she and her family were no longer free. This incident fortified her in her determination to leave Paris for personal and political reasons, not alone, but with her family. Even the King, who had been hesitant, accepted his wife's decision to flee with the help of foreign powers and counter-revolutionary forces. Fersen and Breteuil, who represented her in the courts of Europe, were put in charge of the escape plan, while Marie Antoinette continued her negotiations with some of the moderate leaders of the French Revolution.

Flight, arrest at Varennes and return to Paris (21–25 June 1791)

Main article: Flight to Varennes
Arrest of the royal family at the house of the registrar of passports at Varennes on the night of 21–22 June 1791, by Thomas Falcon Marshall, 1854

There had been several plots designed to help the royal family escape, which the Queen had rejected because she would not leave without the King, or which had ceased to be viable because of the King's indecision. Once Louis XVI finally did commit to a plan, its poor execution was the cause of its failure. In an elaborate attempt known as the Flight to Varennes to reach the royalist stronghold of Montmédy, some members of the royal family were to pose as the servants of an imaginary "Mme de Korff", a wealthy Russian baroness, a role played by Louise-Élisabeth de Croÿ de Tourzel, governess of the royal children.

After many delays, the escape was ultimately attempted on 21 June 1791, but the entire family was arrested less than 24 hours later at Varennes and taken back to Paris within a week. The escape attempt destroyed much of the remaining support of the population for the King.

Upon learning of the capture of the royal family, the National Constituent Assembly sent three representatives, Antoine Barnave, Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve and Charles César de Fay de La Tour-Maubourg to Varennes to escort Marie Antoinette and her family back to Paris. On the way to the capital they were jeered and insulted by the people as never before. The prestige of the French monarchy had never been at such a low level. During the trip, Barnave, the representative of the moderate party in the Assembly, protected Marie Antoinette from the crowds, and even Pétion took pity on the royal family. Brought safely back to Paris, they were met with total silence by the crowd. Thanks to Barnave, the royal couple was not brought to trial and was publicly exonerated of any crime in relation with the attempted escape.

Marie Antoinette's first Lady of the Bedchamber, Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan, wrote about what happened to the Queen's hair on the night of 21–22 June, "...in a single night, it had turned white as that of a seventy-year-old woman." (En une seule nuit ils étaient devenus blancs comme ceux d'une femme de soixante-dix ans.)

Radicalization of the Revolution after Varennes (1791–92)

Marie-Antoinette, c. 1792. Unfinished portrait by Alexander Kucharsky, damaged with a pike by a revolutionary.

After their return from Varennes and until the storming of the Tuileries on 10 August 1792, the Queen, her family and entourage were held under tight surveillance by the National Guard in the Tuileries, where the royal couple was guarded night and day. Four guards accompanied the Queen wherever she went, and her bedroom door had to be left open at night. Her health also began to deteriorate, thus further reducing her physical activities.

On 17 July 1791, with the support of Barnave and his friends, Lafayette's Garde Nationale opened fire on the crowd that had assembled on the Champ de Mars to sign a petition demanding the deposition of the King. The estimated number of those killed varies between 12 and 50. Lafayette's reputation never recovered from the event and, on 8 October, he resigned as commander of the National Guard. Their enmity continuing, Marie Antoinette played a decisive role in defeating him in his aims to become the mayor of Paris in November 1791.

As her correspondence shows, while Barnave was taking great political risks in the belief that the Queen was his political ally and had managed, despite her unpopularity, to secure a moderate majority ready to work with her, Marie Antoinette was not considered sincere in her cooperation with the moderate leaders of the French Revolution, which ultimately ended any chance to establish a moderate government. Moreover, the view that the unpopular queen was controlling the King further degraded the royal couple's standing with the people, which the Jacobins successfully exploited after their return from Varennes to advance their radical agenda to abolish the monarchy. This situation lasted until the spring of 1792.

Marie Antoinette continued to hope that the military coalition of European kingdoms would succeed in crushing the Revolution. She counted most on the support of her Austrian family. After the death of her brother Joseph II in 1790, his successor and younger brother, Leopold II, was willing to support her to a limited degree. It was her hope that the threat of Austria's advancing military would deter further escalation of revolutionary violence. In a letter to her brother, penned in September 1791, Marie Antoinette expressed how she expected the revolution to react: "...it will be effected by the approach of the war and not by the war itself. The King, his powers restored, will be entrusted with negotiations with the foreign powers, and the princes will return, in the general tranquillity, to reassume their ranks at his court and in the nation." In the same letter, she wrote that the fall of France's monarchy and the subsequent rise of revolutionary principles would be "destructive to all governments."

Upon Leopold's death in 1792, his son, Francis, a conservative ruler, was ready to support the cause of the French royal couple more vigorously because he feared the consequences of the French Revolution and its ideas for the monarchies of Europe, particularly, for Austria's influence in the continent.

Barnave had advised the Queen to call back Mercy, who had played such an important role in her life before the Revolution, but Mercy had been appointed to another foreign diplomatic position and could not return to France. At the end of 1791, ignoring the danger she faced, the Princesse de Lamballe, who was in London, returned to the Tuileries. As for Fersen, despite the strong restrictions imposed on the Queen, he was able to see her a final time in February 1792.

Events leading to the abolition of the monarchy on 10 August 1792

Leopold's and Francis II's strong action on behalf of Marie Antoinette led to France's declaration of war on Austria on 20 April 1792. This resulted in the Queen being viewed as an enemy, although she was personally against Austrian claims to French territories on European soil. That summer, the situation was compounded by multiple defeats of the French Revolutionary Army by the Austrians, in part because Marie Antoinette passed on military secrets to them. In addition, at the insistence of his wife, Louis XVI vetoed several measures that would have further restricted his power, earning the royal couple the nicknames "Monsieur Veto" and "Madame Veto", nicknames then prominently featured in different contexts, including La Carmagnole.

Barnave remained the most important advisor and supporter of the Queen, who was willing to work with him as long as he met her demands, which he did to a large extent. Barnave and the moderates comprised about 260 lawmakers in the new Legislative Assembly; the radicals numbered around 136, and the rest around 350. Initially, the majority was with Barnave, but the Queen's policies led to the radicalization of the Assembly and the moderates lost control of the legislative process. The moderate government collapsed in April 1792 to be replaced by a radical majority headed by the Girondins. The Assembly then passed a series of laws concerning the Church, the aristocracy and the formation of new National Guard units; all were vetoed by Louis XVI. While Barnave's faction had dropped to 120 members, the new Girondin majority controlled the legislative assembly with 330 members. The two strongest members of that government were Jean Marie Roland, who was minister of interior, and General Charles François Dumouriez, the minister of foreign affairs. Dumouriez sympathized with the royal couple and wanted to save them but he was rebuffed by the Queen.

Marie Antoinette's actions in refusing to collaborate with the Girondins, in power between April and June 1792, led them to denounce the treason of the Austrian comity, a direct allusion to the Queen. After Madame Roland sent a letter to the King denouncing the Queen's role in these matters, urged by the Queen, Louis XVI disbanded the government, thus losing his majority in the Assembly. Dumouriez resigned and refused a post in any new government. At this point, the tide against royal authority intensified in the population and political parties, while Marie Antoinette encouraged the King to veto the new laws voted by the Legislative Assembly in 1792. In August 1791, the Declaration of Pillnitz threatened an invasion of France. This led in turn to a French declaration of war in April 1792, which led to the French Revolutionary Wars and to the events of August 1792, which ended the monarchy.

Marie Antoinette with her children and her sister-in-law Madame Élisabeth, facing the mob that had broken into the Tuileries Palace on 20 June 1792: Musée de la Révolution française

On 20 June 1792, "a mob of terrifying aspect" broke into the Tuileries, made the King wear the bonnet rouge (red Phrygian cap) to show his loyalty to the Revolution, insulted Marie Antoinette, accusing her of betraying France, and threatened her life. In consequence, the Queen asked Fersen to urge the foreign powers to carry out their plans to invade France and to issue a manifesto in which they threatened to destroy Paris if anything happened to the royal family. The Brunswick Manifesto, issued on 25 July 1792, triggered the Insurrection of 10 August when the approach of an armed mob on its way to the Tuileries Palace forced the royal family to seek refuge at the Legislative Assembly. Ninety minutes later, the palace was invaded by the mob, who massacred the Swiss Guards. On 13 August the royal family was imprisoned in the tower of the Temple in the Marais under conditions considerably harsher than those of their previous confinement in the Tuileries.

A week later, several of the royal family's attendants, among them the Princesse de Lamballe, were taken for interrogation by the Paris Commune. Transferred to the La Force Prison, after a rapid judgment, Marie Louise de Lamballe was savagely killed on 3 September. Her head was affixed on a pike and paraded through the city to the Temple for the Queen to see. Marie Antoinette was prevented from seeing it, but fainted upon learning of it.

On 21 September 1792, France was declared a republic, the monarchy was abolished and the National Convention became the governing body of the French First Republic. The royal family name was downgraded to the non-royal "Capets". Preparations began for the trial of the former king in a court of law.

Louis XVI's trial and execution

Main article: Execution of Louis XVI

Charged with treason against the French Republic, Louis XVI was separated from his family and tried in December. He was found guilty by the Convention, led by the Jacobins who rejected the idea of keeping him as a hostage. On 15 January 1793, by a majority of six votes, he was condemned to death by guillotine and executed on 21 January 1793.

Marie Antoinette in the Temple

The former queen, now called "Widow Capet", plunged into deep mourning. She still hoped her son Louis-Charles, whom the exiled Count of Provence, Louis XVI's brother, had recognized as Louis XVI's successor, would one day rule France. The royalists and the refractory clergy, including those preparing the insurrection in Vendée, supported Marie Antoinette and the return to the monarchy. Throughout her imprisonment and up to her execution, Marie Antoinette could count on the sympathy of conservative factions and social-religious groups which had turned against the Revolution, and also on wealthy individuals ready to bribe republican officials to facilitate her escape. These plots all failed. While imprisoned in the Tower of the Temple, Marie Antoinette, her children and Élisabeth were insulted, some of the guards going as far as blowing smoke in the former queen's face. Strict security measures were taken to assure that Marie Antoinette was not able to communicate with the outside world. Despite these measures, several of her guards were open to bribery and a line of communication was kept with the outside world.

After Louis's execution, Marie Antoinette's fate became a central question of the National Convention. While some advocated her death, others proposed exchanging her for French prisoners of war or for a ransom from the Holy Roman Emperor. Thomas Paine advocated exile to America. In April 1793, during the Reign of Terror, a Committee of Public Safety, dominated by Maximilien Robespierre, was formed, and men such as Jacques Hébert began to call for Marie Antoinette's trial. By the end of May, the Girondins had been chased from power. Calls were also made to "retrain" the eight-year-old Louis XVII, to make him pliant to revolutionary ideas. To carry this out, Louis Charles was separated from his mother on 3 July after a struggle during which his mother fought in vain to retain her son, who was handed over to Antoine Simon, a cobbler and representative of the Paris Commune. Until her removal from the Temple, Marie Antoinette spent hours trying to catch a glimpse of her son, who, within weeks, had been made to turn against her, accusing his mother of wrongdoing.

Conciergerie

On the night of 1 August, at 1:00 in the morning, Marie Antoinette was transferred from the Temple to an isolated cell in the Conciergerie as 'Prisoner nº 280'. Leaving the Tower she bumped her head against the lintel of a door, which prompted one of her guards to ask her if she was hurt, to which she answered, "No! Nothing now can hurt me." This was the most difficult period of her captivity. She was under constant surveillance with no privacy. The "Carnation Plot" (Le complot de l'œillet), an attempt to help her escape at the end of August, was foiled due to the inability to corrupt all the guards. She was attended by Rosalie Lamorlière, who took care of her as much as she could. At least once she received a visit by a Catholic priest.

Trial and execution (14–16 October 1793)

Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine. Pen and ink by Jacques-Louis David, 16 October 1793
Marie Antoinette's execution by guillotine on 16 October 1793: at left, Sanson, the executioner, showing Marie Antoinette's head to the people. Anonymous, 1793

Marie Antoinette was tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 14 October 1793. Some historians believe the outcome of the trial had been decided in advance by the Committee of Public Safety around the time the Carnation Plot was uncovered. She and her lawyers were given less than one day to prepare her defense. Among the accusations, many previously published in the libelles, were: orchestrating orgies in Versailles, sending millions of livres of treasury money to Austria, planning the massacre of the National Guards in 1792, declaring her son to be the new king of France, and incest, a charge made by her son Louis-Charles, pressured into doing so by the radical Jacques Hébert who controlled him.

This last accusation drew an emotional response from Marie Antoinette, who refused to respond to this charge, instead appealing to all mothers present in the room. Their reaction comforted her since these women were not otherwise sympathetic to her. Upon being pressed further by a juror to address the accusations of incest, the queen replied, "If I did not respond, it was because it would be against nature for a mother to reply to such an accusation. On this I appeal to all mothers who may be here." When a juror, Joachim Vilate, told Robespierre of this over dinner, Robespierre broke his plate in anger, declaring "That imbecile Hébert!"

Early on 16 October, Marie Antoinette 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. At worst, she and her lawyers had expected life imprisonment. In the hours left to her, she composed a letter to her sister-in-law Madame Élisabeth, affirming her clear conscience, her Catholic faith, and her love and concern for her children. The letter did not reach Élisabeth. Her will was part of the collection of papers of Robespierre found under his bed and was published by Edme-Bonaventure Courtois.

Preparing for her execution, she had to change clothes in front of her guards. She wanted to wear a black dress but was forced to wear a plain white dress, white being the colour worn by widowed queens of France. Her hair was shorn, her hands bound painfully behind her back and she was put on a rope leash. Unlike her husband, who had been taken to his execution in a carriage (carrosse), she had to sit in an open cart (charrette) for the hour it took to convey her from the Conciergerie via the rue Saint-Honoré thoroughfare to reach the guillotine erected in the Place de la Révolution, the present-day Place de la Concorde. She maintained her composure, despite the insults of the jeering crowd. A constitutional priest was assigned to hear her final confession. He sat by her in the cart, but she ignored him all the way to the scaffold as he had pledged his allegiance to the republic.

Marie Antoinette was executed by beheading by guillotine at 12:15pm on 16 October 1793 during the French Revolution. Her last words are recorded as, "Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Je ne l'ai pas fait exprès" or "Pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose", after accidentally stepping on her executioner's shoe. Marie Tussaud was employed to make a death mask of her head. Her body was thrown into an unmarked grave in the Madeleine cemetery, located close by in rue d'Anjou. Because its capacity was exhausted the cemetery was closed the following year, on 25 March 1794.

Foreign response

After her execution, Marie Antoinette became a symbol abroad, and a controversial figure of the French Revolution. Some used her as a scapegoat to blame for the events of the Revolution. Thomas Jefferson, writing in 1821, claimed that "Her inordinate gambling and dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois, and others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and her opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led herself to the Guillotine," adding that "I have ever believed that, had there been no Queen, there would have been no revolution."

Marie Antoinette supported by Religion at the Chapelle expiatoire, the chapel constructed on the grounds where she was initially buried

In his 1790 treatise, Reflections on the Revolution in France, which was written during Marie Antoinette's imprisonment in Paris, but prior to her execution, Edmund Burke lamented that "the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever" and now "Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex." After receiving the news, Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples and close sister to Marie Antoinette, spiraled into a state of mourning and an anger against the revolutionaries. She quickly suspended protections of reformers and intellectuals in Naples, allowed Neapolitan bishops wide latitude to halt the secularization of the country, and offered succor to the overflowing number of émigrés fleeing from revolutionary France, many of whom were granted pensions.

Bourbon Restoration

Both Marie Antoinette's and Louis XVI's bodies were exhumed on 18 January 1815, during the Bourbon Restoration, when the Count of Provence ascended the newly reestablished throne as Louis XVIII, King of France and of Navarre. Christian burial of the royal remains took place three days later, on 21 January, in the necropolis of French kings at the Basilica of Saint-Denis.

Legacy

For many revolutionary figures, Marie Antoinette was the symbol of what was wrong with the old regime in France. The onus of having caused the financial difficulties of the nation was placed on her shoulders by the revolutionary tribunal, and under the new republican ideas of what it meant to be a member of a nation, her Austrian descent and continued correspondence with the competing nation made her a traitor. The people of France saw her death as a necessary step toward completing the revolution. Furthermore, her execution was seen as a sign that the revolution had done its work.

Marie Antoinette is also known for her taste for fine things, and her commissions from famous craftsmen, such as Jean Henri Riesener, suggest more about her enduring legacy as a woman of taste and patronage. For instance, a writing table attributed to Riesener, now located at Waddesdon Manor, bears witness to Marie Antoinette's desire to escape the oppressive formality of court life, when she decided to move the table from the queen's boudoir, de la Meridienne, at Versailles to her humble interior, the Petit Trianon. Her favourite objects filled her small, private chateau and reveal aspects of Marie Antoinette's character that have been obscured by satirical political prints, such as those in Les Tableaux de la Révolution. She owned several instruments. In 1788 she bought a piano made by Sébastien Érard.

A catalog of Marie Antoinette's personal library of 736 volumes was published by Paul Lacroix in 1863, using his pseudonym P. L. Jacob. The listed books were from her library at the Petit Trianon, including many found in her boudoir, and mostly consist of novels and plays. A random selection of her books includes Histoire de Mademoiselle de Terville by Madeleine d'Arsant de Puisieux, Le Philosophe parvenu ou Lettres et pièces originales contenant les aventures d'Eugène Sans-Pair by Robert-Martin Lesuire, and Oeuvres mêlées... contenant des tragédies et différents ouvrages en vers et en prose by Madeleine-Angélique de Gomez. A larger and more official library belonging to Marie Antoinette was kept at the Tuileries Palace in Paris.

Long after her death, Marie Antoinette remains a major historical figure linked with conservatism, the Catholic Church, wealth and fashion. She has been the subject of a number of books, films, and other media. Politically engaged authors have deemed her the quintessential representative of class conflict, western aristocracy and absolutism. Some of her contemporaries, such as Thomas Jefferson, attributed to her the start of the French Revolution.

In popular culture

Main article: Cultural depictions of Marie Antoinette

The phrase "let them eat cake" is often conventionally attributed to Marie Antoinette, but there is no evidence that she ever uttered it, and it is now generally regarded as a journalistic cliché. This phrase originally appeared in Book VI of the first part of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's autobiographical work Les Confessions, finished in 1767 and published in 1782: "Enfin Je me rappelai le pis-aller d'une grande Princesse à qui l'on disait que les paysans n'avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit: Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" ("Finally I recalled the stopgap solution of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: 'Let them eat brioche'"). Rousseau ascribes these words to a "great princess", but the purported writing date precedes Marie Antoinette's arrival in France. Some think that he invented it altogether.

In the United States, expressions of gratitude to France for its help in the American Revolution included naming a city Marietta, Ohio, in 1788. Her life has been the subject of many films, such as Marie Antoinette (1938) and Marie Antoinette (2006). There is a book about Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser called Marie Antoinette: The Journey.

In 2020, a silk shoe that belonged to her was sold in an auction in the Palace of Versailles for 43,750 euros ($51,780).

In 2022, her story was dramatised by a Canal+ and BBC English-language television series.

In the 2024 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Paris, heavy metal band Gojira's performance showed a depiction of the freshly severed head of Marie Antoinette singing, in reference to the French Revolution.

Family tree

Simplified family tree illustrating the Bourbon-Habsburg-Lorraine connections
Louis XIII of France
Emperor Leopold ILouis XIVHenrietta of EnglandPhilip I of OrléansElizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate
Emperor Joseph IEmperor Charles VIElizabeth CharlotteLeopold of Lorraine
Marie LeszczyńskaLouis XV
Maria AmaliaCharles Albert of BavariaMaria JosephaFrederick August II of Saxony
mesdames tantesLouise ElisabethMaria TheresaEmperor Francis I
Maria Josepha
m. Joseph II
Maximilian III JosephClemens WenceslausAlbert Casimir
m. Maria Christina
Maria JosephaLouis
Isabella
m. Joseph II
Ferdinand
m. Maria Amalia
Maria LuisaPhilippe Égalité
Louis XVIIICharles XClotildeElisabethLouis XVIMarie AntoinetteEmperor Joseph IIMaria ChristinaEmperor Leopold IIMaria AmaliaMaria CarolineFerdinand CharlesMaximilian Francis
Emperor Francis II

Notes: Solid vertical lines indicate parent-child relationship, while dashed lines represent more distant ancestor-descendant connections.

Children

Children of Marie Antoinette
Name Portrait Lifespan Age Notes
Marie-Thérèse Charlotte
Madame Royale
19 December 1778 –
19 October 1851
72 years and 10 months Married her cousin, Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, the eldest son of the future Charles X of France.
Louis Joseph Xavier François
Dauphin de France
22 October 1781 –
4 June 1789
7 years, 7 months and 13 days Contracted tuberculosis and died in childhood on the very day the Estates General convened.
Louis XVII of France
(nominally) King of France and Navarre
27 March 1785 –
8 June 1795
10 years, 2 months and 12 days Died in childhood; no issue. He was never officially king, nor did he rule. His title was bestowed by his royalist supporters and acknowledged implicitly by his uncle's later adoption of the regnal name Louis XVIII rather than Louis XVII, upon the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814.
Marie Sophie Hélène Béatrix 9 July 1786 –
19 June 1787
11 months and 10 days Died in the Palace of Versailles at the age of 11 months after suffering several days of convulsions, possibly related to tuberculosis.

In addition to her biological children, Marie Antoinette adopted four children: "Armand" Francois-Michel Gagné, a poor orphan adopted in 1776; Jean Amilcar, a Senegalese slave boy given to the queen as a present by Chevalier de Boufflers in 1787, but whom she instead freed, baptized, adopted and placed in a pension; Ernestine Lambriquet, daughter of two servants at the palace, who was raised as the playmate of her daughter Marie-Thérèse and whom she adopted after the death of her mother in 1788; and "Zoe" Jeanne Louise Victoire, 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.

Of these, only Armand, Ernestine, and Zoe actually lived with the royal family: Jean Amilcar, along with the elder siblings of Zoe and Armand who were also formally foster children of the royal couple, simply lived at the queen's expense until her imprisonment, which proved fatal for at least Amilcar, as he was evicted from the boarding school when the fee was no longer paid, and reportedly starved to death on the street.

Armand and Zoe had a position which was more similar to that of Ernestine; Armand lived at court with the king and queen until he left them at the outbreak of the Revolution because of his republican sympathies, and Zoe was chosen to be the playmate of the dauphin, just as Ernestine had once been selected as the playmate of Marie-Thérèse, and later sent away to her sisters in a convent boarding school before the Flight to Varennes in 1791.

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Marie Antoinette House of Habsburg-LorraineCadet branch of the House of Habsburg and House of LorraineBorn: 2 November 1755 Died: 16 October 1793
French royalty
VacantTitle last held byMarie Leszczyńska Queen consort of France
1774–1792
from 1791 Queen of the French
VacantMonarchy abolishedTitle next held byJoséphine de Beauharnais
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Republic declared
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Queen consort of France
4 September 1791 – 21 January 1793
VacantTitle next held byMarie Joséphine of Savoy
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