Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette (; ; born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last Queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an Archduchess of Austria and was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. She became Dauphine of France in May 1770 at age 14 upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne. On 10 May 1774, her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI and she assumed the title Queen of France and Navarre, which she held
Marie Antoinette were given less than one day to prepare her defense. Among the accusations, many previously published in the "libelles", were: orchestrating orgies in Versailles, sending millions of livres of treasury money to Austria, planning the massacre of the "gardes françaises" (National Guards) in 1792, declaring her son to be the new king of France, and incest, a charge made by her son Louis Charles, pressured into doing so by the radical elements who controlled him. This last accusation drew an emotional response from Marie Antoinette, who refused to respond to this charge, instead appealing to all mothers present in the