MaryAntoinette was an Austrian who was queen of France in the period of revolutionto French. She married Louis XVI and maintained an extremely luxurious lifestyle. She was an unpopular queen, and was eventually imprisoned by the revolutionaries, brought to trial and sentenced to death for high treason, being guillotined in 1793.
Accessalso: Maria Leopoldina — the Austrian monarch who came to Brazil
Summary about Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette was born in Vienna, the daughter of Maria Theresa and Francis I, emperors of the Holy Roman Empire.
She married Louis Augustus, heir to the French throne, in 1770.
She became Queen of France in 1774 and maintained an exceedingly luxurious lifestyle.
She had four children with Louis XVI.
It was guillotined in 1793, during the French Revolution.
Video lesson on Marie Antoinette
Birth of Marie Antoinette
Maria Antônia Josefa Joan of Habsburg-Lorraine (Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen, in German), better known as Marie Antoinette, was born in Vienna on November 2, 1755. She was the 15th daughter of the Emperor
FernandoI and the empress MaryTeresagivesAustria.At the time, her parents ruled the Holy Roman Empire, which had dominated a number of European nations since the 10th century. In that context, the Holy Empire was already decaying and was in fact ruled by Maria Teresa, whose obligations made her stay away from raising her children.
Historians comment that the Marie Antoinette's education during her childhood was sloppy, and this made it difficult for her to be literate and, later, to speak and write correctly in German, French and Italian. However, she had good skills in music and dance. When the arrangements for her marriage began to be sewn, it was necessary for her to go through a kind of intensive tutoring in order to improve her knowledge.
Accessalso: Joan of Arc — one of the great characters in French history
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Marie Antoinette's wedding
In the late 1760s, Marie Antoinette's mother decided to use her daughter for a strategy politics, and thus Austrian diplomats engaged in negotiations with France to marry the young with Luísaugust, dauphin of France and son of Luís Fernando, heir to the French throne, who died in 1765.
The marriage was part of Maria Teresa's strategy to bring the Austrians and the French closer together. This approach was important because France and the Holy Empire were historical enemies, but they saw that moment the rise of a potential common threat: Prussia (which was still part of the Sacrum's territory Empire).
The marriage of Marie Antoinette and Louis Augustus took place on April 19, 1770, in a church in Vienna. The ceremony was by proxy, and Luis Augusto's representative in it was one of the bride's brothers. With the marriage, she was forced to renounce her rights in the Habsburg dynasty.
Marie Antoinette was then sent to France, and met her husband on May 14, 1770, when she was just 14 years old. Despite having renounced her rights in the Austrian crown, Marie Antoinette was instructed by her mother to keep frequent accounts of what happened at the French court. A feast was held at Versailles on the occasion of the wedding.
The adaptation of the Austrian princess to the reality of the French court at the Palace of Versailles was complicated. At first, many members of the French nobility were against the dauphin's marriage to the Austrian one, and this caused them to harbor a strong dislike for her. In addition, Marie Antoinette also found a series of customs of French etiquette strange.
In 1774, King Louis XV of France died, and with that, Louis Augustus was crowned Louis XVI. Thus, Marie Antoinette became Queen Consort of France and used all her influence to see her wishes fulfilled. Is it over there spent large sums of money in diversions of the most varied types.
![Marie Antoinette's bedroom in the Palace of Versailles.[1]](/f/646067b678a4e6d6e5ad08fdf19416e5.jpg)
Marie Antoinette performed horse races, participated in masked balls, played cards and bought expensive clothes and jewelry. Her expenses bothered many, including the people of the nobility who already disliked her for being Austrian. Some historians understand that the queen's expenses were a way she found to reinforce her authority over the nobility.
The excesses committed by the queen weighed on the French budget, and she came to be called the madameDeficit. Other critics called it the l-autrichienne, a play on words in French that mixes the terms “Austrian” and “bitch”. The Third Estate and defenders of the republic were also deep critics of the Queen.
Criticism of the monarch was even more scathing for having taken her time to become pregnant with an heir to the French throne. The couple's first daughter was born only in 1778 and was named MaryTeresa as a tribute to the maternal grandmother. The delay was due to the fact that King Louis XVI took years to consummate his marriage to his wife.
After that, Marie Antoinette got pregnant other times and gave birth to three more children: LuísJoseph, LuísCarlos and MarySofia.
Accessalso: Maria Stuart — 16th century Scottish monarch
French Revolution
The lives of Marie Antoinette and the entire French nobility were radically transformed by the outbreak of the French Revolution in July 1789. This revolution was influenced by the ideals illuminists, which propagated ideas of equality between men, and was motivated by the dissatisfaction of bourgeoisie with the privileges of the nobility and the people's dissatisfaction with the poverty in which they lived.
France lived a seriouscrisiseconomical motivated by the court's high spending on parties and luxury, but also by the country's involvement in a series of unnecessary conflicts. In addition, the situation in France was aggravated by poor harvests in the 1780s, which caused food prices to soar and increased the population's problems with food shortages.
Louis XVI refused to take measures against the nobility and clergy to relieve the French coffers, and the situation led to the convening of the Assembly of the States General, so that a decision could be made. The States General, however, contributed to inflaming the Parisian population, dissatisfied with the country's crisis.
The riots in Paris resulted in the Fall of the Bastille by the Parisian population, in July 14, 1789. This event is considered to have started the French Revolution by spreading revolutionary fervor throughout the country. With the beginning of the revolution, Marie Antoinette was confined in the Palace of Versailles.
Video lesson on French Revolution (part 1)
Marie Antoinette's last years
Also in 1789, the Palace of Versailles was invaded, and Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were forced by the Parisian population to move to the PalaceinTuileries, in Paris. The worsening situation made both try to run away to Belgium in 1791. They were eventually recognized when they were near the border and were returned to Paris.
The escape attempt destroyed the rest of the monarchs' reputation with the French population, and the The population's hatred caused the Tuileries Palace to be attacked by people in different occasions. The risk to the integrity of the members of the monarchy caused them to be placed in the Temple Tower, a fortress.
In this place, Marie Antoinette lived in prison, and there she learned that her husband, Louis XVI, had been guillotined in early 1793. She was later transferred to the City Palace prison and there she faced a felony process. The trial was seen as a front and sentenced Marie Antoinette to death in the guillotine for high treason to France, being guillotined on October 16, 1793, more precisely at 12:15 pm. She was 37 years old.
Image credits
[1] walter_g and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves Silva
History teacher