Marie Antoinette (1755–1793)

Queen of France. Name variations: Marie-Antoinette; Madame Veto. Born in Vienna, Austria, Nov 2, 1755; died by the guillotine in Paris, France, Oct 16, 1793; dau. of Francis Stephen of Lorraine, grand duke of Tuscany, also known as Francis I, Holy Roman emperor (r. 1745–1765), and Maria Theresa of Austria (1717–1780), empress of the Habsburg domains; sister of Maria Carolina (1752–1814), Joseph II, emperor of Austria and Holy Roman emperor (r. 1765–1790), Maria Christina (1742–1798), Elizabeth of Austria (1743–1808), Leopold II, Holy Roman emperor (r. 1790–1792), and Maria Amalia (1746–1804); m. Louis XVI, king of France (r. 1774–1792), in 1770; children: 1st daughter, Princess Marie Thérèse Charlotte (1778–1851), was exchanged by the Revolutionary government to the Court of Vienna and grew up to be the duchess of Angoulême; the 1st dauphin, Louis Joseph (1781–1789); the 2nd dauphin, Louis Charles (b. 1785), imprisoned during the Revolution, was proclaimed "Louis XVII" by royalists, and apparently died in prison in 1795; Princess Sophie Beatrix (1786–1787).

Austrian-born queen of France whose misfortune was to be the wife of Louis XVI when that monarch was overthrown in the French Revolution of 1789, and whose poor judgment and provocative behavior led to her execution in the name of the Revolution; was raised at the Schonbrunn palace and indifferently educated; betrothed to the dauphin of France, the future Louis XVI (1769) to reinforce the alliance between the House of Habsburg and the House of Bourbon; married the dauphin (1770); engaged in court intrigues and flirtations until outbreak of French Revolution (1789); failed in attempted flight from France with the king (June 1791); arrested by revolutionaries (1792) and tried before Revolutionary Tribunal (Oct 14, 1793).

See also Stefan Zweig, Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman (Viking, 1933); Carolly Erickson, To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie-Antoinette (Morrow, 1991); Joan Haslip, Marie Antoinette (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987); and Women in World History.