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Life of the Beheaded Queen Marie of France

Marie Antoinette (November 2, 1755 – October 16, 1793), wife of King Louis XVI of France, died in the French Revolution, the former Austrian Grand Duchess, born in Vienna, is the Holy Roman Emperor Fifteenth child of Franz I and Empress and Archduke of Austria, Queen Maria Theresa of Bohemia and Hungary (the youngest daughter, she also has a younger brother).

Born on November 2, 1755 at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. She was named Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna. Maria is in memory of the Virgin Mary, Antonia is in memory of St. Anthony of Padua, Josepha is in memory of her brother Joseph, and Johanna is in memory of the missionary St. John. One minister described the newborn: “A petite but perfectly healthy Grand Duchess.”

Biography

In 1766, for political needs, the French royal family formally proposed to the 11-year-old Princess Marie Antoinette. The Austrian court readily complied. But for various reasons, the wedding was dragged on for years. It was not until 1770, when Marie Antoinette was 14 years old, that she finally set foot on French soil and became the crown princess of France, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon (later Louis XVI).

In 1774, Louis XV died and Louis XVI came to the throne. Marie Antoinette became Queen of France, mother of France. But unfortunately, she herself does not have the sense of responsibility and mission that a queen should have. After entering the French court, Marie Antoinette had no political achievements. Every day, she is only interested in dances, fashion, fun and feasts, decorating the garden, and extravagantly, so she is known as the “deficit lady”. After the start of the French Revolution, she unexpectedly showed the pride and dignity of a queen, and she was more assertive and stubborn than Louis XVI.

On July 14, 1789, when the crowd attacked the Bastille, Marie Antoinette persuaded Louis XVI to take his troops to Metz for refuge. She supported the king’s rejection of the National Assembly’s demands to abolish the feudal system and limit the king’s power, and became the target of public criticism. However, no matter at that time or later, there are still many people on the side of the queen, such as Hugo of France, Stephen Zweig of Austria, all have sympathy for the queen.

Of course there are many other lesser-known royalist figures. It is worth mentioning that, in addition to Stephen Zweig’s biography of the queen, Alexandre Dumas also wrote the “French Revolution Trilogy” about the queen, which are “The Baron of Balsamo”, “The Queen’s Necklace” and “Red”. The Knights of the House”, the three stages of the queen’s life are described in detail in the novel.

In October 1789, he moved back to Paris with Louis XVI from the Palace of Versailles and was under the surveillance of the revolutionary masses. She worked in secret and asked a group of exiled nobles for help, but they not only failed to help, but also fell into trouble, and everyone wanted to exchange the king’s head for a ransom. This group of nobles included the king’s younger brother, the Count of Provence (later Louis XVIII), and his younger brother, the Count of Artois (later Charles X). The king and his wife suffered from being left and right without help, and due to the situation, they had to plan their own escapes again and again.

In June 1791, he escaped secretly with the king, and was discovered when he arrived at the border city of Waren, but he failed to escape.

In 1792, France declared war on Austria, she continued to collude with Austria, and provided the war plan to foreign intervention forces in an attempt to suppress the revolution by external forces. At this time, because the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa (the mother of Marie Antoinette) and Emperor Joseph II (the brother of Marie Antoinette) had already died, the Austrian monarchy was in the hands of Marie Antoinette. Another brother of Toinette, in the hands of Leopold II.

The revelation of treason angered the French people, leading to the uprising of the Paris people on August 10, 1792, which completely overthrew the monarchy. She was subsequently imprisoned with the king at Dumpur Castle. In October of the following year, he was handed over to the revolutionary court for trial, sentenced to death, and sent to the guillotine. Died at the age of 38. After her death, her body was once thrown into a mass grave for burial. It was not until 22 years later, when the Count of Provence was restored as Louis XVIII, that her bones were re-excavated and properly buried.

According to rumors, Mary left two famous words in her short life:

When the minister told Marie that the French people didn’t even have bread, Marie smiled innocently and sweetly: “Then why don’t they eat cake?” Marie never said this in history, and it was later generations who would vent their indignation. On the queen who loves to dress up. The original sentence is recorded in Rousseau’s “Confessions”,

“Finally I remembered the last resort of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who replied: Let them eat brioche.”

Although Rousseau only said that he was a “sublime princess”, some people think that he was pointing directly at Mary, but the Confessions themselves are not rigorous in terms of historical material.

When Mary was pushed to the guillotine, she stepped on the executioner’s foot, at which point Mary said, “I’m sorry, you know, I didn’t mean to.” Those who beheaded were tied up and gagged. But a pencil sketch of the painter David proved this wrong, and the queen was only bound by her hands.

What’s more, one of the tasks of the executioner Sang Song at that time was to collect the dying lines of those big men. This sentence, together with Mrs. Roland’s sentence “Freedom, and countless evils in your name”, were well-known dying words at that time. That’s not to mention Louis XVI’s well-known deathbed speech.