Marie Antoinette was born in Vienna, Austria in 1755 and married Louis XVI when she was 15 to seal an alliance between Austria and France. As queen, she enjoyed extravagant parties and fashion but was criticized for her lavish spending, especially during a financial crisis. In 1793, after Louis XVI was executed for treason during the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette was also put on trial, found guilty of treason, and became the last queen of France when she was guillotined at age 37.

1. Marie Antoinette
Presented by: Kaitlyn Dailey

2. Early Life
• Full name: Maria Antonia Josepha Joanna
• Date of birth: November 2nd, 1755
• Place of birth: Vienna, Austria.
• She lived a fairly carefree childhood. She received an education typical of an 18th century
aristocratic girl, focusing primarily on religious and moral principles, while her brothers
studied more academic subjects.

3. Marriage to Louis XVI (16th)
• In 1768, a tutor was sent to Austria to instruct Marie. The tutor found Marie Antoinette "more
intelligent than has been generally supposed," but added that since "she is rather lazy and
extremely frivolous, she is hard to teach."
• In May 1770, Marie Antoinette set out for France to be married, escorted by 57 carriages, 117 footmen
and 376 horses. Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI (16th) were married on May 16, 1770.
• She was obviously not ready, and her frequent letters home revealed intense homesickness. "Madame,
my very dear mother," she wrote in one letter, "I have not received one of your dear letters
without having the tears come to my eyes."
• She also bristled at some of the rituals she was expected to perform as a lady of the French royal
family. "I put on my rouge and wash my hands in front of the whole world," she complained,
referring to a ritual in which she was required to put on her makeup in front of dozens of courtiers.

4. Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, Louis XVII (17th), Princess
Sophie Hélène Béatrice, Louis Joseph, Dauphin

5. Continued…

6. Queen of France
• Became queen: 19 years old
• As personalities went Louis XVI (16th) and Marie
Antoinette could not have been more different. He was
introverted, shy and indecisive, a lover of solitary
pleasures such as reading and metalwork; she was
vivacious, outgoing and bold, a social butterfly who loved
gambling, partying and extravagant fashions.

7. Life at Versailles
• In 1785, an infamous diamond necklace scandal permanently tarnished the queen's
reputation. A thief posing as Marie Antoinette had obtained a 647-diamond necklace and
smuggled it to London to be sold off in pieces. Though Marie Antoinette was innocent of
any involvement, she was nevertheless guilty in the eyes of the people.
• That did not stop her from doing what she loved. Since she had very few duties, she spent
most of her time socializing and indulging in her extravagant tastes.
• For example, she had a model farm built on the palace grounds so that she and her
ladies-in-waiting could dress in elaborate costumes and pretend to be milkmaids.

8. Hameau de la Reine – The Queen’s Hamlet
(French pronunciation: amo də la ʁɛn)

9. Death and Legacy
• In January 1793, the radical new republic placed King Louis XVI on trial, convicted him of
treason and condemned him to death.
• On January 21, 1793, he was dragged to the guillotine and executed.
• In October of that year, a month into the infamous and bloody Reign of Terror that
claimed tens of thousands of French lives, Marie Antoinette was put on trial for treason and
theft, as well as a false and disturbing charge of sexual abuse against her own son.

10. Continued…
• After the two-day trial, an all-male jury found Marie Antoinette guilty on all charges.
• Like her husband had been several months before, Marie Antoinette was sent to the
guillotine on October 16th, 1793.
• On the night before her execution, she had written her last letter to her sister-in-law,
Elisabeth. "I am calm," the queen wrote, "as people are whose conscience is clear."
Then, in the moments before her execution, when the priest who was present told her to
have courage, Marie Antoinette responded, "Courage? The moment when my ills are
going to end is not the moment when courage is going to fail me."

11. Continued…
• Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France, has been both criticized as the personification
of evils of monarchy and exalted as a pinnacle of fashion and beauty.
• Marie Antoinette the heroine is reflected in the obsessive scholarship on her choices in
wardrobe and jewelry, and the endless speculation about her extramarital love life. Both of
these takes on Marie Antoinette's character demonstrate the tendency, as prevalent today as
it was in her own time, to depict her life and death as symbolic of the downfall of European
monarchies in the face of global revolution.
• As Thomas Jefferson once said, predicting the way Marie Antoinette would be viewed by
posterity, "I have ever believed that if there had been no queen, there would have
been no Revolution."

12. “
”
Let them eat cake!
There is no evidence that Marie Antoinette ever said that starving peasants should “eat
cake” if they had no bread. In fact, the story of a noblewoman who said these famous
words appear in a philosophers confessions, which was written around 1766 (when
Marie Antoinette was just 11 years old).
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