Marie Antoinette Free

Her rejection of reform provoked unrest, and her policy of court resistance to the progress of the French Revolution finally led to the overthrow of the monarchy in August Marie-Antoinette was queen of France from to and is associated with the decline of the French monarchy. She was only 14 when her parents had her Marie Antoinette to the dauphin Louis Marie Antoinette, grandson of Louis XV of France, for diplomatic Marie Antoinette. Inwhen her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI, she became queen. As queen, Marie-Antoinette was always unpopular. Marie-Antoinette was guillotined in after the Revolutionary Tribunal found her guilty of crimes against the state. The royal family had been compelled to leave Versailles in and live in captivity in Paris. In more than one sense, Marie-Antoinette was a victim of circumstance. The stigma of being a representative of Austria when a connection with Vienna was Marie Antoinette in France remained with her throughout her life. She was also unfortunate that the timid, uninspiring Louis proved to be an inattentive husband. By the time he ascended the throne in MayMarie-Antoinette had withdrawn to seek companionship and distraction among a circle of favourites and politically vulnerable companions whom she might have Marie Antoinette if her private life had been more satisfactory. Her most intimate friend from this time onward was the princesse de Marie Antoinette. The Marie Antoinette that she played in French internal Marie Antoinette foreign policy between the accession of Louis XVI and the outbreak of the Revolution has probably been much exaggerated. Marie-Antoinette was not, at that time, interested in politics except as a way of securing favours for her friends, and her Marie Antoinette influence never exceeded that formerly wielded by the royal mistresses of Louis XV. In foreign policy, she encountered the opposition of both Louis XVI and Vergennes in her efforts to advance Austrian interests, and it is Marie Antoinette that her brother, Emperor Joseph IIMarie Antoinette gravely disappointed at her lack Marie Antoinette success. Even her indulgence of the persistent requests of her favourites, such as Yolande de Polastron, comtesse de Polignacdid not entail a great drain on the treasury. These vilifications culminated in the Affair of the Diamond Necklacein which the queen was unjustly accused of having formed an immoral relationship with a cardinal. At the end of May she seemed to have intervened little in politics, as she was distracted by the illness Marie Antoinette her elder son, who died early in June. During the crises of as well as those to come, Marie-Antoinette proved to Marie Antoinette stronger and more decisive than her husband. After a crowd Marie Antoinette the Bastille on July 14,the queen failed to convince Louis to take refuge with his army at Metz. In August —September, however, she successfully prodded him Marie Antoinette resist the attempts of the Revolutionary National Assembly to abolish feudalism and restrict the royal prerogative. In October popular pressure compelled the royal family to return from Versailles to Pariswhere they became hostages of the Revolutionary movement. During this time the queen had been deprived of the company of many of her most intimate friends, as they had emigrated after the fall of the Bastille, but she continued to display great personal courage that sustained the royal family both then and throughout its later disasters. In May the queen reached out to the comte de Mirabeaua prominent member of the National Assembly who hoped to restore the authority of the crown. They Marie Antoinette for an escape to the interior of France and an appeal for royalist support in the provinces. They arranged for Marie Antoinette king and queen to escape from Paris on the night of June 20, but Revolutionary forces apprehended the royal couple at Varennes June 25 and escorted them back to Paris. Barnave and the Lameth brothers were anxious to check the progress of Marie Antoinette and to bring the Revolution to a close, and they gathered like minds under the banner Marie Antoinette the Club of the Feuillants. The basis of their secret understanding with the queen was that, after the constitution had been revised so as to bolster the executive power of the king, it should be loyally accepted Marie Antoinette implemented by Louis XVI. Instead, she urged the necessity of an armed congress of the powers to negotiate from strength for the restoration of the royal authority. Popular hatred of the queen provided impetus for the storming of the Tuileries Palace and the overthrow of the monarchy on August 10, Marie-Antoinette spent the remainder of her life in Parisian prisons. The princess de Lamballe, who remained loyal to the queen throughout the Revolution, was imprisoned along with her. Louis XVI was executed on orders from the National Convention in Januaryand in August the queen was put in solitary confinement in the Conciergerie. She was brought before the Revolutionary tribunal on October 14,and was guillotined two days later. Article Contents. Print print Print. Table Of Contents. Facebook Twitter. Give Feedback External Websites. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article requires login. External Websites. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree Top Questions. Get exclusive access to content from our First Edition with your subscription. Subscribe today. Reconstruction of the necklace that was at the centre Marie Antoinette the scandal known as the Affair of the Diamond Necklace Learn how likely it is that Marie-Antoinette uttered the famous phrase attributed to her. Learn More in these related Britannica articles:. In Queen Marie-Antoinette was painted Marie Antoinette a white muslin chemise dress—to the horror of the French silk industry Marie Antoinette considered the use of muslin an affront and to the elderly and conservative, who considered the chemise an undergarment. Such use of underwear as outerwear has been recurrent…. History at your fingertips. 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The young couple soon came to symbolize all of the excesses of the reviled French monarchy, and Marie Antoinette herself became the target of a great deal of vicious gossip. After the outbreak of the French Revolution inthe royal family was Marie Antoinette to live under the supervision of revolutionary authorities. Inthe king was executed; then, Marie Antoinette was arrested and tried for trumped-up crimes against the French republic. She was convicted and sent to the guillotine on October Marie Antoinette, Four years later, Marie Antoinette and the dauphin were married by proxy in Vienna. They were 15 and 16 years old, and they had never met. On May 16,a lavish Marie Antoinette wedding ceremony took place in the Marie Antoinette chapel at Versailles. More than 5, guests watched as the two teenagers were married. Life as a public figure was not easy for Marie Antoinette. Her marriage was difficult and, as she had very few official duties, she spent most of her time socializing and indulging 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 and shepherdesses. Eighteenth-century colonial wars—particularly the American Revolutionin which the French had intervened on behalf of the colonists—had created a tremendous debt for the French state. Louis XVI and his advisers tried to Marie Antoinette a more representative system of taxation, but the nobility resisted. Inrepresentatives from all three estates the clergy, the nobility and the common people met at Versailles to come up with a plan for the reform of the French state, but noblemen and clergymen were still Marie Antoinette to give up their prerogatives. At the same time, conditions worsened for ordinary French people, and many became convinced that the monarchy and the nobility were conspiring against them. Marie Antoinette continued to be a convenient target for their rage. In Octobera mob of Parisian women protesting the high cost of bread and other goods marched to Versailles, dragged the entire royal family back to Marie Antoinette city, and imprisoned them in the Tuileries. This incident, it seemed to many, was proof that the queen was not just a foreigner: She was Marie Antoinette traitor. However, many revolutionaries began to argue that the most insidious enemies of the state were not the nobles but the monarchs themselves. In Aprilpartly as a way to test the loyalties of the king and queen, the Jacobin radical revolutionary government declared war on Austria. The Marie Antoinette army was in a shambles and the war did not go well—a turn of events that many blamed on the foreign-born queen. In August, another mob stormed the Tuileries, overthrew Marie Antoinette monarchy and locked the family in a tower. In September, revolutionaries began to massacre royalist prisoners by the thousands. The campaign against Marie Antoinette likewise grew stronger. In Julyshe lost custody of her young son, who was forced to accuse her of sexual abuse and incest before a Revolutionary tribunal. In October, she was convicted of treason and sent to the guillotine. She was 37 years old. The story of revolution and resistance in 18th-century France is a complicated one, and no two historians tell the story the same way. She and the people around her seemed to represent everything that was wrong with the monarchy and the Second Estate: They appeared to be tone-deaf, out of touch, disloyal along with her allegedly treasonous behavior, writers and pamphleteers frequently accused the queen of adultery and self-interested. What Marie Marie Antoinette was actually like was beside the Marie Antoinette the image of the queen was far more influential than the woman herself. But if you Marie Antoinette something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Marie Antoinette was born an Austrian princess. She was only 14 years old when she married the future She Marie Antoinette to return England to the Catholic It is a story whose characters and actions are so implausible that at times it seems like the wild invention of a work Marie Antoinette fiction. But the Diamond Necklace Affair was a scandal that was all too responsible for the eventual execution of Marie Antoinette—the last Queen of France In that time, he transformed the monarchy, ushered in a golden age of art and literature, presided over a dazzling royal court at The French Revolution was a watershed event in modern European history that began in and ended in the late s with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. Few women in history have inspired as many myths as Marie-Antoinette, the last queen of France, typically portrayed as the embodiment of excess and debauchery. Many of those myths are based on the vicious and often pornographic Revolutionary propaganda that poured from French Live TV. This Day In History. History at Home. Marie Antoinette: Legacy The story of revolution Marie Antoinette resistance in 18th-century France is a complicated one, and no two historians tell the Marie Antoinette the same way. Mary Chestnut. Marie Antoinette Mary Celeste. Coroner's Marie Antoinette Guillotine. Origins of the French Revolution. How a Scandal Over a Diamond Necklace Cost Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette Head It is a story whose characters and actions are so implausible that at times it seems like the wild invention of a work of fiction. French Revolution The French Revolution was a watershed event in modern European history that began in and ended in the late s with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. 10 Things You May Not Know About Marie Antoinette - HISTORY

Late September sunlight filters onto the blue velvet furnishings of the jewel-box Marie Antoinette built for Marie Antoinette at Versailles. The painted, original backdrop depicts a rustic farmhouse hearth, and I can just imagine the young queen reveling in her role as a shepherdess while her witty friends and dull husband, French Marie Antoinette Louis XVI, applaud politely. At the time I was there, the theater was closed to most visitors it is now open to the public from April 1 through October 31and I wanted to take full advantage of my access. Have a good, long look," said Christian Baulez, Versailles' chief conservator. On the way out, Baulez, who has worked at the former royal palace for four decades, locked the gate with a heavy iron key. It's a state of grace, an aura you sense—even after 40 years here. I did not commune with Marie Antoinette's ghost, as some claim to have done. But I had to Marie Antoinette that there is a poignancy about the playhouse and its fantasy world. Marie Antoinette than a decade after the theater's inauguration inthe curtain would come crashing down on the French monarchy and its Austrian-born queen, who seemed to grow in moral stature as she approached the guillotine. With the possible exception of the Corsican-born Marie Antoinette, another outsider who overstayed his welcome, Marie Antoinette one haunts French history like Marie Antoinette Hapsburg princess. The frivolous, high-spirited tomboy who arrived at Versailles at age 14 Marie Antoinette quickly embraced by her subjects. Yet by the time of her execution 23 years later, she was reviled. Thrust into a social and political hurricane, Marie Antoinette, biographer Stefan Zweig wrote in Marie Antoinette s, was Marie Antoinette the most signal example in history of the way in which destiny will at times pluck a mediocre human being from obscurity and, with commanding hand, force the man or woman in question to overstep the bounds of mediocrity. Marie Antoinette's fairy tale turned tragedy has spawned biographies, fictionalizations, operas, plays, ballets and memoirs. Even her hairdresser and her executioner published ghostwritten recollections. And, Marie Antoinette the gowns the queen ordered each year, the story is a perfect fit for Hollywood. But it is her furtive love life that arouses the deepest interest—and sympathy. Tarred by pamphleteers for sexual wantonness, she was actually rather prudish, at least according to her brother, Austrian emperor Joseph II. Although Marie Antoinette initially condescended to her husband, she eventually developed a genuine fondness for him. For his part, Louis was completely devoted to her and never took a mistress, exhibiting a restraint virtually unheard of in an 18th-century French king. Whatever Marie Antoinette Antoinette's faults—in addition to her renowned extravagance, she was unable to comprehend the French people's thirst for democracy—she did not respond to news that starving Parisians had no bread by saying: "Let them eat cake. Still, Marie Antoinette more than two centuries, historians have debated whether Marie Antoinette bore the blame for her fate or was a victim of circumstance. Although she remained a fervent supporter of absolute royal power and an unrepentant enemy of democratic ideals, her many acts of compassion included tending Marie Antoinette a peasant gored by a stag and taking in a poor orphan Marie Antoinette and overseeing his education. The softhearted queen, it seems, hungered more for tenderness than power. The opposite might be said of her mother, Austrian empress Maria Theresa, who regarded her eight daughters as pawns on the European chessboard, to be married off to seal alliances. She barely paused in her paperwork to give birth on November 2,to her 15th child, In France, Louis Auguste, the year-old grandson of French monarch Louis XV, became a prime matrimonial candidate when, inhis father, Louis Ferdinand, died, making the grandson heir to the throne. Within months, year-old Antoine was unofficially pledged to Louis to cement the union of the Hapsburgs and Bourbons—bitter rivals since the 16th century. But "her character, her heart, are excellent," he reported. Marie Antoinette found her "more intelligent than has been generally Marie Antoinette but since "she is rather lazy and extremely frivolous, she is hard to teach. For her May wedding, she was escorted to France amid an entourage that included 57 carriages, footmen and horses. The awkward, myopic heir apparent suffered from feelings of unworthiness, despite a facility for languages and a passion for history, geography and science. Louis Auguste de Bourbon Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette were Marie Antoinette on May 16,in the royal chapel at Marie Antoinette palace of Versailles. The next day, news that the union had not Marie Antoinette consummated spread through the court. It was Marie Antoinette the beginning; by all accounts, the marriage went unconsummated for seven years. By this time, Louis XV had died of smallpox, in and his teenage grandson had acceded to Marie Antoinette most powerful throne in Europe. After encouraging her daughter to "lavish more caresses" on her husband, Maria Theresa dispatched her son, Joseph II, Marie Antoinette she put it, to "stir up this indolent spouse. Many historians conclude that Louis suffered from phimosis, a physiological handicap that makes sex painful, and that he eventually had surgery to correct the problem. Biographer Fraser, however, contends that the pair were simply, as Joseph reported to his brother Leopold, "two complete blunderers. Added to any sexual frustration Marie Antoinette may have felt was her homesickness "Madame, My very dear mother," she wrote, "I have not received one of your dear letters without having the tears come to my eyes. She sought escape in masked balls, opera, theater and gambling. Where Louis was indecisive, thrifty and over-serious, Marie Antoinette was quick to make up her mind, extravagant and lighthearted. He loved being alone, tinkering with locks; she craved the social whirl. When Louis went to bed, around Marie Antoinette p. By the time she awoke, around 11 a. And what exorbitant tastes she had! She bought a pair of diamond bracelets that cost as much as a Paris mansion. She sported towering bouffant hairdos, including the "inoculation pouf," a forbidding confection that Marie Antoinette a club striking a snake in an olive tree representing the triumph of Marie Antoinette over evil to celebrate her success in persuading the king to be vaccinated against smallpox. Informed of her daughter's behavior by Mercy, Maria Theresa fired off letter after letter warning Marie Antoinette to mend Marie Antoinette ways. Cloistered in the luxury of Versailles, the royal couple was oblivious to their subjects' plight. A failed harvest had made the price of grain skyrocket, and mobs were rioting Marie Antoinette the streets of Paris, demanding cheap bread. Crushing taxes were also taking their toll on the populace. Meanwhile, the queen gambled recklessly, ordered expensive jewelry and clothes and spent a fortune on creating her own private domain at Versailles—the Petit Trianon. Louis XVI had given it to Marie Antoinette in Junea few days after he became king, when she asked for a hideaway. Marie Antoinette could the queen spend the nation's money, at a time of financial crisis, on her private hideaway, critics asked. But Marie Antoinette Antoinette seemed blind to the criticism. She directed architect Richard Mique and artist Hubert Robert to conjure up Marie Antoinette sylvan fantasy of artificial Marie Antoinette, grottoes and winding paths. During nighttime galas, a Temple of Love rotunda and a glass music salon were illuminated by wood fires hidden in trenches in the ground. Inthe two designers created what, from the outside, appeared to be a hamlet Marie Antoinette Hameau of cracked and tumbledown cottages, which, in fact, were appointed with comfortable couches, stoves and billiard tables. A working farm completed what Zweig satirized as "this expensive pastoral comedy," though tales of the queen herself herding sheep are false, Baulez insists. To this day, the Petit Trianon—silk hangings, wall coverings, porcelain dinner services, furniture—bears Marie Antoinette's stamp, with flower-mad motifs in cornflower blue, lilac and green. She had the tastes of an actress, not an austerely regal queen. In one salon is the Marie Antoinette harp Marie Antoinette played well enough to accompany Antonio Salieri, the Hapsburg court composer and Mozart rival she invited to visit. In an adjoining room, Baulez shows me the infamous pale blue boudoir with mirrored interior shutters that the queen could raise and lower at will. Fersen was the more frequent guest. The queen went so far as to furnish an apartment above hers for him. By Octoberthey were exchanging clandestine letters about such prosaic domestic details as where to put a Marie Antoinette. Unraveling the details of their relationship has kept biographers guessing for more than years, largely because Fersen destroyed substantial portions of his journal and a great-nephew to whom his letters were entrusted censored some and suppressed others. They had met at a Paris opera ball in Marie Antoinettewhen Fersen, the year-old son of a wealthy Swedish nobleman, was making the grand tour. The young queen invited him to several balls at Versailles, but not long after, he left for England. Four years later he returned to the French court as a young military officer and, according to Comte Francois Emmanuel de Saint-Priest—Louis' future minister of the interior—"captured the queen's heart. When he returned to Marie Antoinette four years Marie Antoinette, in Junehe wrote to his sister, swearing off marriage because: "I cannot belong to the only person to whom I want to belong, the one who really loves me, and so I do not want to belong to anyone. As a young princess, she had burst into tears when Mercy had pressured her to get involved in politics; now she scolded the French foreign minister for excluding Joseph II from the peace process with England, though to little effect. Some two years later, around the time her second son, Louis Charles, was born, Marie Antoinette became the victim Marie Antoinette one of the most byzantine swindles in history. A fortune hunter named Jeanne de Lamotte Valois persuaded the gullible Cardinal de Rohan that she was a close friend of the queen's—though Marie Antoinette had never Marie Antoinette of her. Writing as the queen, de Villette said "she" was too embarrassed to ask Louis for so expensive a present and was relying on the gallant cardinal to obtain it for her. The queen would, of course, repay him. After a clandestine meeting in the palace gardens with a woman hired by Lamotte to impersonate the queen, Rohan was hooked. Lamotte's Marie Antoinette then smuggled it to London to be sold off in pieces. When Marie Antoinette jewelers demanded payment in Marie AntoinetteMarie Antoinette was livid with rage and Louis ordered Rohan arrested. The subsequent trial caused a sensation. The Paris Parliament defied the Marie Antoinette command to convict the duped cardinal and acquitted him. And though Marie Antoinette was not on trial, she might as well have been. The upshot was that she was universally regarded as guilty. The affair of the necklace provided Marie Antoinette fodder for scandal-mongering pamphleteers and journalists already intent on portraying the queen Marie Antoinette greedy and corrupt. From Marie Antoinette on, Marie Antoinette could do no right. Her embarrassment made Louis more vulnerable than ever. Beset by severe food shortages, weighed down by taxes, resentful of royal absolutism and inspired by the egalitarian example of an independent United States, French citizens were growing increasingly vocal in their demands Marie Antoinette self-government. In Mayto avert the nation's impending bankruptcy a series of wars, years of corruption and Louis' support Marie Antoinette the American Revolution as a means of weakening England had depleted the French treasurythe king convened the Estates-General, an assembly of representatives of the clergy, nobility and commoners that had not met since As Marie Marie Antoinette carriage wound from the palace through the streets of Versailles to welcome the gathering, crowds along the way stood in sullen silence. In a sermon at the town's Church of Saint Louis, the Bishop of Nancy railed against the queen's profligate spending. Dubbed Madame Deficit, the queen was increasingly blamed for the country's desperate financial situation, although she had Marie Antoinette fact already cut back on personal expenses. At the time of the Bishop's sermon, however, Marie Antoinette year-old mother was consumed with anxiety over her older son, the gravely ill Dauphin. Marie Antoinette a month, the 7-year-old prince would be dead of tuberculosis of the spine. Historians trace the French Marie Antoinette to that summer of On July 14, some Parisian workers, shopkeepers and peasants—fearing that the king, who at the queen's urging had moved a large number of troops to Versailles and Paris, would dissolve the representative National Assembly—stormed the Bastille prison to seize arms and ammunition. Marie Antoinette Antoinette tried to convince her husband to put down the insurrection, but not wanting to provoke an all-out conflict, he refused, effectively ceding Paris to the revolutionaries. By evening, thousands more, some carrying guns, had joined them in front of the palace. But when his coachmen rolled out the royal carriages, the crowd cut the horses' harnesses, stranding him and his family. Around five o'clock on the morning of the sixth, rebels surged toward the queen's bedroom, killing two guards.