Archduchess Antonia grew up in the highly moral environment of her mother's court. Maria Theresa was a strong leader, beloved by her people. The busy empress supervised her children's upbringing as closely as she could, but Antonia's education was left largely in the hands of a governess who was happy to spoil the pretty, high-spirited little girl. Antonia spent more time playing than studying, although she enjoyed her music lessons and became an excellent harpist and dancer.

Unlike so many royal couples, her parents had married for love and truly enjoyed family life. Although the court was a place of great formality on important occasions, in private the royal family was rather casual. Antonia regarded her mother with awe but was close to her good-natured father. A shadow fell over Antonia's sunny life in 1765, when her father died of a stroke at the age of 56.

A few years later, Antonia's childhood came to an end. Her mother had arranged Antonia's marriage to the dauphin (crown prince) of France to cement an alliance between Austria and France. In 1770, at age 14, Marie Antoinette left her homeland and travelled to the French palace of Versailles to be married.

Her 15-year-old groom, Louis, was fat, awkward, and shy. He neglected his royal duties in favor of hunting and working in his locksmith shop. He also suffered from a medical condition known as phimosis which prevented him from fathering children for the first seven years of his marriage. The public, knowing nothing of this, blamed Marie Antoinette for her failure to bear heirs to the throne -- as she would so often be blamed for things beyond her control.

The court of Versailles was more rigid than Maria Theresa's court, and Marie Antoinette yawned and giggled openly during royal ceremonies. As time went on she became increasingly rebellious. She insisted on going out alone or with a few companions, instead of surrounded by attendants. She picked her own friends and even her own clothes, refusing to wear corsets and stays. When her brother visited the court he commented disapprovingly that she had bad manners and was not doing her job.

In 1774 the old king died and Marie Antoinette's husband became King Louis XVI. Three years later he had minor surgery that enabled him to father children. Marie Antoinette's first child, Marie Therese Charlotte (called Madame Royale) was born the following year. By most accounts, Marie Antoinette then settled down to married life and became a devoted wife and mother.

An Unpopular Queen

Many French people hated the queen for her Austrian blood and her formerly frivolous ways. She was rumored to have had numerous affairs. The most persistent rumor centered on Count Hans Axel Fersen, a Swedish diplomat. He was definitely one of the queen's favorites, but it is doubtful that they were lovers. Yet Marie Antoinette was reviled in pornographic songs, pictures and pamphlets. Someone even published a fake autobiography in which the queen supposedly confessed her sins, calling herself a prostitute.

Marie Antoinette was also called Madame Deficit and blamed for the country's financial problems. It is true that she enjoyed a lavish lifestyle; her mother wrote to warn her against such extravagance. But Marie Antoinette was not quite as foolish and spoiled as the public believed. It certainly is not true that she said "Let them eat cake" when told that people were starving. As a woman and a foreigner she made a convenient scapegoat for the nation's problems, and it seemed that no slander against her was too wild to be widely believed.

As she matured Marie Antoinette became less extravagant. She tried to change her image by wearing simple gowns and posing for portraits with her children, but her efforts had little effect on the unforgiving public. The greatest damage to her reputation was created by a scandal in which she played no part at all: the Diamond Necklace Affair.

The Cardinal de Rohan wished to improve his social status at Versailles, and a woman calling herself the Comtesse de La Motte offered to help him. Unfortunately for the cardinal, Jeanne de La Motte was not really a comtesse. She was a con artist. She hired a woman to dress like Marie Antoinette and meet the cardinal in the gardens of Versailles at night. The false queen gave the cardinal a rose and hurried away, leaving the cardinal under the illusion that he had met Marie Antoinette.

Next Mme La Motte told the cardinal that the queen wanted him to purchase a very expensive diamond necklace on her behalf. Obediently the cardinal obtained the necklace and gave it to Mme La Motte, expecting the queen to pay for it. Of course, Marie Antoinette never saw the necklace; Mme La Motte gave the diamonds to her husband, who took them to London and sold them. When the jewelers demanded payment, the Diamond Necklace Affair became public. The cardinal and Mme La Motte were arrested. The cardinal was tried and acquitted. Mme La Motte was imprisoned, publicly flogged, and branded. Eventually she escaped to London, where she spread malicious rumors about Marie Antoinette.

Although Marie Antoinette was innocent in the whole affair, it was widely believed that she had accepted the necklace and refused to pay for it. There were even rumors that she had had an affair with Mme La Motte! The Diamond Necklace Affair contributed greatly to Marie Antoinette's downfall.

Revolution

Many French aristocrats enthusiastically supported the American Revolution. Louis XVI was in the first year of his reign in 1775, the year the American Revolution began. He secretly aided the colonies for the war's first three years, then supported them openly. It is possible that the colonies would have lost the war without French aid.

Lafayette, the French marquis who became an American general, was at Versailles during the reign of Louis XV but was never comfortable there. He was a poor dancer and felt he was too provincial for court life. At age 19 he joined the American Continental Army. It was considered patriotic for a French man to fight against England, France's traditional enemy. However, Lafayette had gone to America without royal approval, and when he returned to France after the war Louis XVI had him placed under house arrest. But this was a mere formality. After a week the king released Lafayette and invited him to a royal hunt to show there were no hard feelings.

At first Marie Antoinette had viewed Lafayette as a country bumpkin, but when he returned from the American Revolution her attitude changed, and she had him appointed commander-in-chief of the King's Dragoons. Still, unlike many of her contemporaries she felt ambivalent about the American Revolution. Perhaps she sensed the danger that loomed in France.

In 1789 the French Revolution erupted. Its causes were many, but much of the revolutionaries' fury focused on Marie Antoinette. On October 5 a mob of Parisian women marched on Versailles, shouting for the queen's blood. Some members of the mob were actually men in dresses, under the theory that royal troops were less likely to fire upon women.

When Marie Antoinette heard about the approaching mob she remained calm. "I know they have come from Paris to demand my head, but I learned from my mother not to fear death and I shall await it with firmness," she said. When the mob appeared outside the palace, Lafayette advised her to show herself on the balcony. Bravely she stepped out and faced them alone. As voices shouted, "Shoot! Shoot!" the queen bowed her head and curtsied. Then Lafayette joined her, bowed to her, and kissed her hand. He was considered a great hero, and his action impressed the crowd. "Vive la reine," they shouted ("Long live the queen!")

Their lives temporarily spared, the king and queen and their children were taken to Paris and imprisoned in the Tuileries palace.

The Journey to the Scaffold

The royal family remained imprisoned for years. In 1791 Axel Fersen, Marie Antoinette's rumored lover, arranged their escape. His initial plan called for Louis and Marie Antoinette to leave Paris in a small, fast coach; their children would travel separately to avoid suspicion. But Marie Antoinette refused to leave her children, insisting that the entire family travel together in a large, slow coach. It was a decision that sealed their fate, for the royal family was recognized in the village of Varennes and arrested. (Fersen, who had driven the escape coach, survived the French Revolution only to be murdered in 1809 by a revolutionary mob in Sweden.)

Lafayette was still trying to moderate between the royals and the revolutionaries, which won him few friends on either side. Marie Antoinette said sarcastically, "I can see that M. de Lafayette wishes to save us, but who will save us from M. de Lafayette?" Lafayette lost public support when he ordered soldiers to fire on a crowd that had gathered to petition for the dethronement of the king. Eventually he fled France and was imprisoned for five years in Austria for leading French troops into battle against the Austrians. He was liberated by Napoleon and lived to see Louis XVI's brother brought to the throne as Louis XVIII. He participated in the July Revolution (1830) against a third brother, Charles X. Lafayette died in 1834.

Because the king was apathetic, it fell to Marie Antoinette to negotiate with revolutionaries on the royal family's behalf. She also secretly urged Austria to intercede in France. When France went to war with Austria, Louis and Marie Antoinette were charged with treason. In 1792, the year the institution of royalty was officially abolished in France, the royal family was moved to the Temple Prison. They were treated fairly well and were permitted to live together. In December of that year Louis's trial began. He was found guilty and sentenced to death, and on January 21, 1793 he went bravely to the guillotine.

After Louis's death his brother (the future Louis XVIII), who had escaped from France years earlier, proclaimed Marie Antoinette's son Louis Charles to be the new king of France. For several months after their father's death Louis Charles and his sister, Marie Therese Charlotte, remained in prison with Marie Antoinette. The children were often sick, and the queen cared for them as best she could. Spitefully their jailors decided to separate young Charles Louis from his mother. He was placed in the cell beneath hers, where she could hear him crying. A few weeks later Marie Antoinette was separated from her daughter, as well. The former queen was awakened in the middle of the night and taken to the squalid Conciergerie prison. Louis Charles and Marie Therese Charlotte remained in the Temple. They never saw their mother again.

In October Marie Antoinette, now called "the Widow Capet," was tried and, like her husband, convicted of treason and sentenced to be guillotined. On October 16, 1793 she was taken through the streets of Paris in an open cart. She maintained her dignity to the end. On the scaffold she accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot, and her last words were, "Monsieur, I ask your pardon. I did not do it on purpose."

Her son Louis Charles (now King Louis XVII) was kept in a dark, filthy cell until he died of tuberculosis in 1795. In future years many men came forward claiming to be the long-lost prince. The most believable was Karl Wilhelm Naundorff, who died in Holland in 1845, but DNA tests later established that Naundorff was not related to Marie Antoinette. Moreover, DNA experts announced in April 2000 that tests conducted on the heart of the boy who died in prison proved once and for all that he was, in fact, Marie Antoinette's son.