Marie Antoinette

About Marie Antoinette

Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen (November 2, 1755 – October 16, 1793), known to history as Marie Antoinette (pronounced /maʀi ɑ̃twanɛt/), was born an Archduchess of Austria and later became Queen of France and Navarre. At fourteen, she was married to Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France, the future Louis XVI. She was the mother of Louis XVII, who died in the Temple Tower at the age of ten during the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette is perhaps best remembered for her legendary (and, some modern historians say,[specify] exaggerated) excesses and for her death: she was executed by guillotine at the height of the French Revolution in 1793 for the crime of treason.

Born at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, the Archduchess Maria Antonia was the youngest daughter of the head of the House of Habsburg Maria Theresa of Austria, and her husband the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. Maria Antonia was described as "a small, but completely healthy Archduchess." Known at court as Madame Antoine, a French variation of her name, she was the fifteenth child born into the imperial family.

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 more 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 who could come to court (a change which allowed people of merit as well as birth to rise rapidly in the imperial favour), relatively lax dress etiquette, and the abolition of certain court protocols, for example the ritual where dozens of courtiers could be in the Empress' bedchamber, watching when she gave birth; the Empress disliked the ritual and would eject courtiers from her rooms whenever she went into labour.