Marie Antoinette 1755 – 1793

Biography

Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France — and history’s most misunderstood fashion plate. An Austrian archduchess married to Louis XVI, she became queen in 1774 and a symbol of royal excess as France slid toward revolution, blamed for luxuries she mostly never enjoyed; the famous “let them eat cake” line was never hers. When the monarchy fell, she was tried, condemned, and executed by guillotine in Paris on October 16, 1793, at 37. Her remains were later moved to the Basilica of Saint-Denis, resting place of French kings — the monarchy’s most famous victim, buried among the monarchs she outlived in legend. She arrived in France at fourteen, a political bride from Vienna, and never quite learned to read the mood of her adopted country. Her trial lasted barely two days before the sentence came down.