Marie Antoinette (Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 175516 October 1793) was Queen of France as the wife of Louis XVI from 10 May 1774 until the abolition of the French monarchy in 1792 during the French Revolution.
Born in November 1755 at the Hofburg in Vienna, Marie Antoinette was the fifteenth child and youngest daughter of Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa. By right of her birth, she was an Austrian archduchess of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. In 1769, Marie Antoinette was betrothed to Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France, in order to strengthen the Franco–Austrian alliance. The two were married in 1770, thus making Marie Antoinette dauphine of France at the age of fourteen. In 1774, Louis-Auguste inherited the French throne as Louis XVI, becoming king of France, and Marie Antoinette queen consort.
As queen, Marie Antoinette became increasingly a target of criticism by opponents of the domestic and foreign policies of Louis XVI and those opposed to the monarchy in general. The French accused her of being profligate,Royal household spending in 1788 was 13% of total state expenses (excluding interest on debts). Finances of Louis XVI (1788) | Nicholas E. Bomba https://blogs.nvcc.edu › nbomba › files › 2016 https://books.google.com/books?id=ixJWG9q0Eo4C promiscuous, having illegitimate children, and harboring sympathies for France's perceived enemies, including her native Austria. She was falsely accused of defrauding the Crown's jewelers in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, but the accusations still damaged her reputation. During the French Revolution, she became known as because the country's financial crisis was blamed on her lavish spending and her opposition to social and financial reforms proposed by and Jacques Necker.
Several events were linked to Marie Antoinette during the Revolution after the government placed the royal family under house arrest in the Tuileries Palace in October 1789. The June 1791 attempted flight to Varennes and her role in the War of the First Coalition were immensely damaging to her image among French citizens. On 10 August 1792, the attack on the Tuileries forced the royal family to take refuge at the Legislative Assembly, and they were imprisoned in the Temple Prison on 13 August 1792. On 21 September 1792, France was declared a republic and the monarchy was abolished. Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793 and Marie Antoinette moved to the Conciergerie. Her trial began on 14 October 1793; two days later, she was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason and executed by guillotine on 16 October 1793 at the .
Early life (1755–1770)
Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna was born on 2 November 1755 at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Archduchy of Austria. She was the youngest daughter and 15th child of Empress Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg monarchy, and her husband Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. Maria Theresa gave birth to all of her previous children without any problems. During the birth of her last daughter serious complications arose, and doctors feared for the life of the mother. Her godparents were Joseph I and Mariana Victoria, king and queen of Portugal; Archduke Joseph and Archduchess Maria Anna acted as proxies for their newborn sister.
Maria Antonia was born on All Souls' Day, a Catholic day of mourning, and during her childhood her birthday was instead celebrated the day before, on All Saints' Day, due to the connotations of the date. Shortly after her birth she was placed under the care of the governess of the imperial children, Countess von Brandeis. Maria Antonia was raised together with her sister, Maria Carolina, who was three years older and with whom she had a lifelong close relationship. Maria Antonia had a difficult but ultimately loving relationship with her mother, who referred to her as "the little Madame Antoine".
Maria Antonia spent her formative years between the Hofburg Palace and Schönbrunn, the imperial summer residence in Vienna, where on 13 October 1762, when she was seven, she met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, two months her junior and a child prodigy. Despite the private tutoring she received, the results of her schooling were less than satisfactory. At age 10 she could not write correctly in German or in any language commonly used at court, such as French or Italian, and conversations with her were stilted. Under the teaching of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Maria Antonia developed into a good musician. She learned to play the harp, the harpsichord and the flute. She sang during the family's evening gatherings, as she was known to have had a beautiful voice. She also excelled at dancing, had "exquisite" poise, and loved dolls.
The death of her older sister Maria Josepha from smallpox during the epidemic in Vienna in October 1767 made an everlasting impression on the young Maria Antonia. In her later life she recalled the ailing Maria Josepha taking her in her arms. She told her that she would not be traveling to Naples to marry King Ferdinand IV of Naples, to whom she was betrothed, but for the family vault.
In 1768, Mathieu-Jacques de Vermond was dispatched by Louis XV to tutor Maria Antonia. De Vermond found her to be unsatisfactorily educated and lacking in important writing skills. Nonetheless, he also complimented her, stating "her character, her heart, are excellent". He found her "more intelligent than has been generally supposed," but since "she is rather lazy and extremely frivolous, she is hard to teach".
Under the recommendation of Étienne François de Choiseul, Duke of Choiseul, a strong supporter of her prospective marriage, she received a makeover to bring her more in line with the fashion of French royalty. This included the straightening of her teeth by a French dentist, the diversification of her wardrobe, and hairstyles reminiscent of Madame de Pompadour. She was also instructed by Jean-Georges Noverre who taught her to walk in the gliding fashion characteristic of the court of Versailles.
Dauphine of France (1770–1774)
Following the Seven Years' War and the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, Maria Theresa decided to end hostilities with her longtime enemy, King Louis XV of France. Their common desire to destroy the ambitions of Prussia and Great Britain, and to secure a definitive peace between their respective countries led them to seal their alliance with a marriage: on 7 February 1770, Louis XV formally requested the hand of Maria Antonia for his eldest surviving grandson and heir, Louis Auguste, Duke of Berry and Dauphin of France.
Maria Antonia formally renounced her rights to Habsburg domains, and on 19 April 1770 she was married by proxy with Louis Auguste at the Augustinian Church, Vienna, with her brother Archduke Ferdinand standing in for the dauphin. On 14 May 1770 she met her husband at the edge of the forest of Compiègne. Upon her arrival in France, she adopted the French version of her name: Marie Antoinette. A ceremonial wedding took place on 16 May 1770 in the Palace of Versailles, and after the festivities the day ended with the ritual bedding. The couple's longtime failure to consummate the marriage plagued the reputations of the royal couple for the next seven years.
The initial reaction to the marriage was mixed. On the one hand, the dauphine was beautiful, personable and well-liked by the common people. Her first official appearance in Paris on 8 June 1773 was a resounding success. On the other hand, those opposed to the alliance with Austria had a difficult relationship with Marie Antoinette, as did others who disliked her for more personal or petty reasons. Madame du Barry proved a troublesome foe to the new dauphine. She was Louis XV's mistress and had considerable political influence over him. In 1770 she was instrumental in ousting Choiseul, who had helped orchestrate the Franco-Austrian Alliance and Marie Antoinette's marriage, and in exiling his sister, the Duchess of Gramont, one of Marie Antoinette's ladies-in-waiting. Marie Antoinette was persuaded by her husband's aunts to refuse to acknowledge du Barry, which some saw as a political blunder that jeopardized Austria's interests at the French court. Maria Theresa and the Austrian ambassador to France, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau (who sent the empress secret reports on Marie Antoinette's behaviour) pressured Marie Antoinette to speak to du Barry, which she grudgingly agreed to do on New Year's Day 1772. She merely commented to her, "There are a lot of people at Versailles today", but it was enough for du Barry, who was satisfied with this recognition, and the crisis passed.
Two days after the death of Louis XV in 1774, Louis XVI exiled du Barry to the Abbaye du Pont-aux-Dames in Meaux, pleasing both Marie Antoinette and his aunts.Fraser, Marie Antoinette, 2001, p. 124.Lever, Evelyne, Louis XV, Fayard, Paris, 1985, p. 96 Two and a half years later, at the end of October 1776, du Barry's exile ended and she was allowed to return to her beloved château at Louveciennes, but she was never permitted to return to Versailles.
Queen of France and Navarre (1774–1792)
Early years (1774–1778) On 10 May 1774, upon the death of Louis XV, the dauphin ascended the throne as King Louis XVI of France and Navarre with Marie Antoinette as his queen consort. At the outset, the new queen had limited political influence with her husband, who, with the support of his two most important ministers, Chief Minister Maurepas and Foreign Minister Vergennes, blocked several of her candidates from assuming important positions, including Choiseul. The queen did play a decisive role in the disgrace and exile of the most powerful of Louis XV's ministers, the Duc d'Aiguillon.
On 24 May 1774, two weeks after the death of Louis XV, the king gave his wife the Petit Trianon, a small château on the grounds of Versailles that Louis XV had built for Madame de Pompadour. Louis XVI allowed Marie Antoinette to renovate it to suit her own tastes; soon rumours circulated that she had plastered the walls with gold and diamonds.
The queen was depicted as spending heavily on fashion, luxuries and gambling even as the country faced a grave financial crisis and the population suffered, but she seems to have been exceptionally frugal, when need be, and once refrained from buying expensive presents for her children on New Years because of the plight of the less fortunate poor. Rose Bertin created dresses for her, hairstyles such as poufs, up to three feet (90 cm) high, and the panache—a spray of feather plumes. She and her court also adopted the English fashion of dresses made of indienne (a material banned in France from 1686 until 1759 to protect local French woolen and silk cloth industries), percale, and muslin.
The Flour War of 1775—a series of riots caused by the high prices of flour and bread—damaged her reputation among the general public. Eventually, Marie Antoinette's reputation was no better than that of previous kings. Many French people were beginning to blame her for the degrading economic situation, suggesting the country's inability to pay off its debt was the result of her wasting the crown's money. In her correspondence, Maria Theresa expressed concern over her daughter's spending habits, citing the civil unrest it was beginning to cause.Thomas, Chantal. The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie Antoinette. Translated by Julie Rose. New York: Zone Books, 2001, p. 51.