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 and remarked in a letter to Auguste Marie Raymond d'Arenberg, comte de La Marck, that she was the only person the king had by him: "La reine est le seul homme que le roi ait auprès de lui." An agreement was reached turning Mirabeau into one of her political allies: Marie Antoinette promised to pay him 6000 livres per month and one million if he succeeded in his mission to restore the king's authority. The only time the royal couple returned to Paris in that period was on 14 July to attend the "Fête de la Fédération", an official ceremony