On October 16, 1793, on what is now the Place de la Concorde in Paris, the life of Marie Antoinette - Queen of France and Navarre, Austrian princess and one of the most controversial figures of the French Revolution - ended. She was guillotined at the age of 37, nine months after the execution of her husband Louis XVI.
Marie Antoinette was born in Vienna on November 2, 1755, the eleventh child of Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa. In 1770, at the age of 14, she was married to the French Crown Prince Louis. She arrived in France as a 15-year-old princess, charged with the political meaning of the alliance between the Habsburgs and the Bourbons.
When Louis succeeded to the throne in 1774, Marie Antoinette became queen. At first she was received favorably, but over time her behavior, the expenses of the court and her close circle began to cause discontent. She was interested in music, theater, fashion and architecture, played the harp and harpsichord and patronized artists, including the portraitist Elisabeth Viger le Brenne.
From Versailles to prison
The queen gave birth to four children. The first - Maria Theresa, appeared in 1778, eight years after the wedding. Next came the heir to the throne, Louis Joseph, Louis Charles, and Sophie Béatrice, who died as a young child. However, family life failed to change the attitude towards her.
A particularly heavy blow to her reputation was the diamond necklace affair in 1785-1786. Marie Antoinette did not participate in the fraud, but the scandal reinforced the image of a wasteful and insensitive queen. Pamphlets, caricatures, and malicious songs were circulated against her.
After the outbreak of the revolution, the royal family left Versailles on October 5, 1789, and was forced to live in Paris. An attempt to escape to Varennes in June 1791 finally undermined confidence in the monarchy. After the uprising of August 10, 1792, Marie Antoinette was imprisoned in the Temple fortress, and later moved to the Conciergerie.
The last myth of a queen
Her trial began on October 14, 1793. Two days later, she was convicted and taken to the guillotine. The Palace of Versailles records her last words to the executioner:
„I didn't do it on purpose.“This refers to the moment when she steps on his foot as she climbs the scaffold.
The most famous line associated with Marie Antoinette – – – Let them eat pasta“ – it probably never was hers. The story of a queen offering brioche to breadless people appears in earlier stories. Jean-Jacques Rousseau recorded it as the words of “a great princess“, and at a time when the future queen was still a child.
In 1815, the remains of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were transferred to the Basilica of Saint-Denis. But the body was laid there much later than the myth. The story preserves the queen as both a symbol of palace splendor, a victim of revolutionary propaganda, and a woman whose image continues to change with the time that tells her.
Sources: britannica.com, history.com