The death of the Dauphin on 4 June, which deeply affected his parents, was virtually ignored by the French people, [] who were instead preparing for the next meeting of the Estates General and hoping for a resolution to the bread crisis. As the Third Estate declared itself a National Assembly and took the Tennis Court Oath , and as people either spread or believed rumors that the queen wished to bathe in their blood, Marie Antoinette went into mourning for her eldest son.
In addition, she showed her determination to use force to crush the forthcoming revolution. The situation escalated on 20 June as the Third Estate, which had been joined by several members of the clergy and radical nobility, found the door to its appointed meeting place closed by order of the king. It thus met at the tennis court in Versailles and took the Tennis Court Oath not to separate before it had given a constitution to the nation. Marie Antoinette, whose life was as much in danger, remained with the king, whose power was gradually being taken away by the National Constituent Assembly.
Category:Louis, Dauphin of France (–) - Wikimedia Commons
On 5 October, a crowd from Paris descended upon Versailles and forced the royal family to move to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, where they lived under a form of house arrest under the watch of Lafayette's Garde nationale , while the comte de Provence and his wife were allowed to reside in the Petit Luxembourg , where they remained until they went into exile on 20 June Marie Antoinette continued to perform charitable functions and attend religious ceremonies, but dedicated most of her time to her children.
She blamed him for his support of the Revolution and did not regret his resignation in Lafayette, one of the former military leaders in the American War of Independence —83 , served as the warden of the royal family in his position as commander-in-chief of the Garde nationale. Despite his dislike of the queen—he detested her as much as she detested him and at one time had even threatened to send her to a convent—he was persuaded by the mayor of Paris, Jean Sylvain Bailly , to work and collaborate with her, and allowed her to see Fersen a number of times.
His relationship with the king was more cordial.
As a liberal aristocrat he did not want the fall of the monarchy but rather the establishment of a liberal one, similar to that of the United Kingdom , based on cooperation between the king and the people, as was to be defined in the Constitution of Publication of such calumnies continued to the end, climaxing at her trial with an accusation of incest with her son.
There is no evidence to support the accusations. Like Lafayette, Mirabeau was a liberal aristocrat. He had joined the Third Estate and was not against the monarchy, but wanted to reconcile it with the Revolution. He also wanted to be a minister and was not immune to corruption. Marie Antoinette promised to pay him livres per month and one million if he succeeded in his mission to restore the king's authority.
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At least , persons participated from all over France, including 18, national guards, with Talleyrand , bishop of Autun , celebrating a mass at the autel de la patrie "altar of the fatherland". The king was greeted at the event with loud cheers of "Long live the king! There were even cheers for the queen, particularly when she presented the Dauphin to the public. Mirabeau sincerely wanted to reconcile the queen with the people, and she was happy to see him restoring much of the king's powers, such as his authority over foreign policy, and the right to declare war.
Over the objections of Lafayette and his allies, the king was given a suspensive veto allowing him to veto any laws for a period of four years. In March Pope Pius VI had condemned the Civil Constitution of the Clergy , reluctantly signed by Louis XVI, which reduced the number of bishops from to 93, imposed the election of bishops and all members of the clergy by departmental or district assemblies of electors, and reduced the Pope's authority over the Church. The queen's political ideas and her belief in the absolute power of monarchs were based on France's long established tradition of the divine right of kings.
On 18 April, as the royal family prepared to leave for Saint-Cloud to attend Easter mass celebrated by a refractory priest, a crowd, soon joined by the Garde nationale disobeying Lafayette's orders , prevented their departure from Paris, prompting Marie Antoinette to declare to Lafayette that she and her family were no longer free. This incident fortified her in her determination to leave Paris for personal and political reasons, not alone, but with her family.
Even the king, who had been hesitant, accepted his wife's decision to flee with the help of foreign powers and counter-revolutionary forces. There had been several plots designed to help the royal family escape, which the queen had rejected because she would not leave without the king, or which had ceased to be viable because of the king's indecision.
Once Louis XVI finally did commit to a plan, its poor execution was the cause of its failure. After many delays, the escape was ultimately attempted on 21 June , but the entire family was arrested less than twenty-four hours later at Varennes and taken back to Paris within a week. The escape attempt destroyed much of the remaining support of the population for the king. On the way to the capital they were jeered and insulted by the people as never before. The prestige of the French monarchy had never been at such a low level.
Brought safely back to Paris, they were met with total silence by the crowd. Thanks to Barnave, the royal couple was not brought to trial and was publicly exonerated of any crime in relation with the attempted escape. Marie Antoinette's first Lady of the Bedchamber, Mme Campan , wrote about what happened to the queen's hair on the night of 21—22 June, " After their return from Varennes and until the storming of the Tuileries on 10 August , the queen, her family and entourage were held under tight surveillance by the Garde nationale in the Tuileries, where the royal couple was guarded night and day.
Four guards accompanied the queen wherever she went, and her bedroom door had to be left open at night. Her health also began to deteriorate, thus further reducing her physical activities. On 17 July , with the support of Barnave and his friends, Lafayette's Garde nationale opened fire on the crowd that had assembled on the Champ de Mars to sign a petition demanding the deposition of the king. The estimated number of those killed varies between 12 and Lafayette's reputation never recovered from the event and, on 8 October, he resigned as commander of the Garde nationale. Their enmity continuing, Marie Antoinette played a decisive role in defeating him in his aims to become the mayor of Paris in November As her correspondence shows, while Barnave was taking great political risks in the belief that the queen was his political ally and had managed, despite her unpopularity, to secure a moderate majority ready to work with her, Marie Antoinette was not considered sincere in her cooperation with the moderate leaders of the French Revolution, which ultimately ended any chance to establish a moderate government.
Marie Antoinette continued to hope that the military coalition of European kingdoms would succeed in crushing the Revolution. She counted most on the support of her Austrian family. After the death of her brother Joseph in , his successor, Leopold , was willing to support her to a limited degree. Barnave had advised the queen to call back Mercy, who had played such an important role in her life before the Revolution, but Mercy had been appointed to another foreign diplomatic position [ where?
At the end of , ignoring the danger she faced, the princesse de Lamballe , who was in London, returned to the Tuileries. As to Fersen, despite the strong restriction imposed on the queen, he was able to see her a final time in February This resulted in the queen being viewed as an enemy, although she was personally against Austrian claims to French territories on European soil.
That summer, the situation was compounded by multiple defeats of the French armies by the Austrians, in part because Marie Antoinette passed on military secrets to them. Barnave remained the most important advisor and supporter of the queen, who was willing to work with him as long as he met her demands, which he did to a large extent. Barnave and the moderates comprised about lawmakers in the new Legislative Assembly ; the radicals numbered around , and the rest around Initially, the majority was with Barnave, but the queen's policies led to the radicalization of the Assembly and the moderates lost control of the legislative process.
The moderate government collapsed in April to be replaced by a radical majority headed by the Girondins. The Assembly then passed a series of laws concerning the Church, the aristocracy and the formation of new national guard units; all were vetoed by Louis XVI. While Barnave's faction had dropped to members, the new Girondin majority controlled the legislative assembly with members.
The two strongest members of that government were Jean Marie Roland , who was minister of interior, and General Dumouriez , the minister of foreign affairs. Dumouriez sympathised with the royal couple and wanted to save them but he was rebuffed by the queen. Marie Antoinette's actions in refusing to collaborate with the Girondins , in power between April and June , led them to denounce the treason of the Austrian comity, a direct allusion to the queen.
After Madame Roland sent a letter to the king denouncing the queen's role in these matters, urged by the queen, Louis XVI disbanded [ citation needed ] the government, thus losing his majority in the Assembly. Dumouriez resigned and refused a post in any new government. At this point, the tide against royal authority intensified in the population and political parties, while Marie Antoinette encouraged the king to veto the new laws voted by the Legislative Assembly in This led in turn to a French declaration of war in April , which led to the French Revolutionary Wars and to the events of August , which ended the monarchy.
On 20 June , "a mob of terrifying aspect" broke into the Tuileries, made the king wear the bonnet rouge red Phrygian cap to show his loyalty to the Republic, insulted Marie Antoinette, accusing her of betraying France, and threatened her life. In consequence, the queen asked Fersen to urge the foreign powers to carry out their plans to invade France and to issue a manifesto in which they threatened to destroy Paris if anything happened to the royal family. The Brunswick Manifesto , issued on 25 July , triggered the events of 10 August [] when the approach of an armed mob on its way to the Tuileries Palace forced the royal family to seek refuge at the Legislative Assembly.
Ninety minutes later, the palace was invaded by the mob, who massacred the Swiss Guards. A week later, several of the royal family's attendants, among them the princesse de Lamballe , were taken for interrogation by the Paris Commune.
Transferred to the La Force prison , after a rapid judgment, Marie Louise de Lamballe was savagely killed on 3 September. Her head was affixed on a pike and paraded through the city to the Temple for the queen to see. Marie Antoinette was prevented from seeing it, but fainted upon learning of it. On 21 September , the fall of the monarchy was officially declared and the National Convention became the governing body of the French Republic.
The royal family name was downgraded to the non-royal " Capets ". Preparations began for the trial of the king in a court of law. He was found guilty by the Convention, led by the Jacobins who rejected the idea of keeping him as a hostage. The queen, now called "Widow Capet", plunged into deep mourning.
Marie-Anne de Bourbon (1666-1739)
Throughout her imprisonment and up to her execution, Marie Antoinette could count on the sympathy of conservative factions and social-religious groups which had turned against the Revolution, and also on wealthy individuals ready to bribe republican officials in order to facilitate her escape; [] These plots all failed. Strict security measures were taken to assure that Marie Antoinette was not able to communicate with the outside world. Despite these measures, several of her guards were open to bribery and a line of communication was kept with the outside world.
After Louis' execution, Marie Antoinette's fate became a central question of the National Convention. While some advocated her death, others proposed exchanging her for French prisoners of war or for a ransom from the Holy Roman Emperor. Thomas Paine advocated exile to America. By the end of May, the Girondins had been chased from power. To carry this out, Louis Charles was separated from his mother on 3 July after a struggle during which his mother fought in vain to retain her son, who was handed over to Antoine Simon , a cobbler and representative of the Paris Commune.
Until her removal from the Temple, Marie Antoinette spent hours trying to catch a glimpse of her son, who, within weeks, had been made to turn against her, accusing his mother of wrongdoing. On the night of 1 August, at 1: Leaving the tower she bumped her head against the lintel of a door, which prompted one of her guards to ask her if she was hurt, to which she answered, "No!
Nothing now can hurt me. She was under constant surveillance, with no privacy. At least once she received a visit by a Catholic priest. Marie Antoinette was tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 14 October Some historians believe the outcome of the trial had been decided in advance by the Committee of Public Safety around the time the Carnation Plot was uncovered. Among the accusations, many previously published in the libelles , were: 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 room; their reaction comforted her, since these women were not otherwise sympathetic to her.
Early on 16 October, Marie Antoinette was declared guilty of the three main charges against her: She put on a plain white dress, white being the color worn by widowed queens of France. Her hair was shorn, her hands bound painfully behind her back and she was put on a rope leash. A constitutional priest was assigned to her to hear her final confession. He sat by her in the cart, but she ignored him all the way to the scaffold. Marie Antoinette was guillotined at Because its capacity was exhausted the cemetery was closed the following year, on 25 March Christian burial of the royal remains took place three days later, on 21 January, in the necropolis of French kings at the Basilica of St Denis.
For many revolutionary figures, Marie Antoinette was the symbol of what was wrong with the old regime in France. The onus of having caused the financial difficulties of the nation were placed on her shoulders by the revolutionary tribunal, [] and under the new republican ideas of what it meant to be a member of a nation, her Austrian descent and continued correspondence with the competing nation made her a traitor.
Furthermore, her execution was seen as a sign that the revolution had done its work. Long after her death, Marie Antoinette remains a major historical figure linked with conservatism , the Catholic Church , wealth , and fashion. She has been the subject of a number of books, films and other media. Politically engaged authors have deemed her the quintessential representative of class conflict , western aristocracy and absolutism.
Some of her contemporaries, such as Jefferson, attributed to her the start of the French Revolution. Even her critics have recognized her qualities as a mother and her courage in dying. Qu'ils mangent de la brioche " "Finally I recalled the stop-gap solution of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: Rousseau ascribes these words to a "great princess", but the purported writing date precedes Marie Antoinette's arrival in France.
Some think that he invented it altogether. In the United States, expressions of gratitude to France for its help in the American Revolution included naming a city Marietta, Ohio in In addition to her biological children, Marie Antoinette adopted four children: Jean Amilcar, along with the elder siblings of Zoe and Armand who were also formally foster children of the royal couple, simply lived on the queen's expense until her imprisonment, which proved fatal for at least Amilcar, as he was evicted from the boarding school when the fee was no longer paid, and reportedly starved to death on the street.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Last Queen of France prior to the French Revolution. For other uses, see Marie Antoinette disambiguation. Basilica of St Denis. Louis XVI of France m. Affair of the Diamond Necklace. Cultural depictions of Marie Antoinette. Ancestors of Marie Antoinette [] Nicholas II, Duke of Lorraine 8. Charles V, Duke of Lorraine Leopold, Duke of Lorraine Eleanor of Austria Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor Anne of Austria 5. Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate Charlotte of Hesse-Kassel 1.
Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor Maria Anna of Austria 6. Philip William, Elector Palatine Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg Elisabeth Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt 3. Maria Theresa of Austria Elisabeth Juliana of Schleswig-Holstein 7. Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen Children of Marie Antoinette.
He was never officially king, nor did he rule. Kingdom of France portal Biography portal. Marie-Antoinette, les dangereuses liaisons de la reine , France Loisirs, , p. Charpentier, Paris, , pp. The Life of Marie Antoinette. William and Morrow and Company, New York, pp. The Origins of the Myth of Marie Antoinette.
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Translated by Julie Rose. Zone Books, , pp. Retrieved 16 December Providence College Art Journal, The Definitive History of Costume and Style.
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The Comte de Vergennes, — , pp. The Ohio State University. Recent Debates and New Controversies 2nd edition, ed. New York and London: Routledge, , pp The portrait of an average woman , New York, , pp. The Last Days of Marie Antoinette , Marie-Antoinette, Austrophobia, and the Terror. The king, queen, queen dowager , enfants de France children of France and petits-enfants de France grandchildren of France constituted the famille du roi royal family. The dauphin, the heir to the French throne, was the most senior of the fils de France and was usually addressed as Monsieur le dauphin.
Daughters were referred to by their given name prefaced with the honorific Madame , while sons were referred to by their main peerage title usually ducal , with the exception of the dauphin. The king's eldest daughter was known as Madame Royale until she married, whereupon the next eldest fille de France succeeded to that style.
Although the children of monarchs are often referred to in English as prince or princess , those terms were used as general descriptions for royalty in France but not as titular prefixes or direct forms of address for individuals with the exception of Monsieur le Prince for the senior prince du sang prior to the July Monarchy — Under the Valois monarchs, the titles borne by the sons of kings became regularized. Anjou and Burgundy established long-lived dynasties, while the Duke of Berry lived for a long time.
By the accession of Francis I , all of the cadet branches descended from Valois kings had either succeeded to the throne or become extinct. Thus the king had a wide selection of traditional titles to choose from. The Bourbon kings followed the traditional titling, with Berry used for the third son. As lifespans extended, Burgundy was used for the eldest son of the Dauphin, and Brittany for the eldest son of the eldest son of the Dauphin.
This was a form of address for the dauphin. The dauphin de France strictly-speaking the dauphin de Viennois , was the title used for the heir apparent to the throne of France from to and then from to Louis de France , called le Grand Dauphin , officially known at court as Monseigneur.
After the death of le Grand Dauphin , the heir apparent to the throne of France for half a century, the style of Monseigneur was not used again to describe the dauphin himself. Rather, it became the style used by his sons as prefix to their peerages. During the lifetime of the Grand Dauphin , his three sons were addressed as:. This was the style of the dynastic wife of the dauphin. Some holders of the honorific were:. Madame la Dauphine , wife of le Petit Dauphin. Duchess Maria Josepha of Saxony. This was the style of the eldest surviving daughter of the king.
Those who held this honorific were:. Because of this, the style was occasionally used by the most senior unmarried princess at the French Court during that period. Madame Royal after her sister's marriage. This honorific belonged to the oldest living brother of the King. Among those who held this style were:. Louis Stanislas Xavier, Count of Provence.
Marie Antoinette
Charles Philippe, Count of Artois. Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. This style was not a traditional right and was merely a way the court used to distinguish between the many daughters of Louis XV. Petit-fils de France "Grandson of France". This was the style and rank accorded to the sons of the fils de France , who were themselves the sons of the kings and dauphins of France. However, as surnames, they used the paternal main peerage title. Females had the style petite-fille de France "Granddaughter of France".