General Notes

Marie Antoinette (1755-93), queen consort (1774-92) of Louis XVI of France;
her unpopularity helped discredit the monarchy in the period before the French
Revolution.
Born in Vienna on November 2, 1755, Marie Antoinette was one of the daughters
of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa. Her marriage (1770)
to Louis, the heir to the French throne, was intended to cement an alliance
between France and her parents' dynasty, the Habsburgs of Austria. She and her
husband had a daughter and two sons after he succeeded to the throne in 1774.
Disliked by the French as a foreigner, she made herself more unpopular by her
devotion to the interests of Austria, the bad reputations of some of her
friends, and her extravagance, which was mistakenly blamed for the financial
problems of the French government. Especially damaging was her supposed
connection with the so-called Diamond Necklace affair (see Diamond Necklace,
Affair of the), a scandal involving the fraudulent purchase of some jewels
(1785).
After the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, Marie Antoinette sided with the
intransigents at court who opposed compromise with the moderate
revolutionaries, and began appealing for help to her brother, Holy Roman
Emperor Leopold II. Marie and Louis tried to escape from Paris with their
surviving son in 1791, but they were captured and brought back prisoners. In
1792 the monarchy was overthrown, and after the execution of the king and
separation from her son, she was sent before the revolutionary tribunal the
following year. Sentenced to death for treason, she was guillotined in Paris
on October 16, 1793.