Marie Antoinette: Makers of History (Timeless Classic Books)

Marie Antoinette ; Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and Emperor Francis I. At the age of fourteen, on the day of her marriage to Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France, she became Dauphine de France. At the death of King Louis XV, in May 1774, her husband ascended the throne of France as King Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette assumed the title of Queen of France and of Navarre. After seven years of marriage she gave birth to a daughter, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, the first of their four children. Initially charmed by her personality and beauty, the French people generally came to dislike her, accusing "the Austrian" of being profligate and promiscuous, and of harboring sympathies for France's enemies. At the height of the French Revolution, Louis XVI was deposed and the royal family was imprisoned. Nine months after her husband's execution, she was tried, convicted of treason, and executed by guillotine on 16 October 1793.