This day in 1793 was the last for Marie Antoinette, queen of France. Nine months after the guillotine took her husband, the former King Louis XVI of France, it was Marie Antoinette’s turn to follow him.
The daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, Marie Antoinette was born on November 2, 1755, in Vienna.
In 1770, Marie Antoinette married Louis XVI at the time when Austria was one of Europe’s great powers and historically an enemy of France, in an effort to strengthen the French-Austrian relationship.
The young Antoinette didn’t adjust well to married life, and that was noted in her letters home; in one letter, she wrote,“Madame, my very dear mother, I have not received one of your dear letters without having the tears come to my eyes.”
Marie-Antoinette was extremely hated and widely criticized for her love of extravagant living. Scandals followed her everywhere, and her actions only made everyone dislike her more. As the government slid into financial hardship, poor harvests drove up grain prices across the country, and Marie Antoinette’s lifestyle made people angry.
At that time, around the start of the French Revolution in 1789, came the quote that Marie Antoinette is perhaps best known for: as people couldn’t find bread and everything was getting more expensive, she said, “Let them eat cake,” but most historians agree that she never said it.
France went bankrupt after Louis provided economic and military assistance to the American colonies, and the corruption of wealthy, untaxed nobles made things even worse.
Louis couldn’t address the country’s economic problems, and the French people were fed up, which led to the French Revolution on July 14, 1789.
Louis and Marie-Antoinette tried to flee to Austria, but they were seized before they could escape. In 1792, the newly established French republic charged Louis with treason, and he was executed on January 21, 1793. Marie-Antoinette was also charged with treason. The 37-year-old had also written a letter the night prior to her sister-in-law, Madame Élisabeth.
“I feel profound sorrow in leaving my poor children; you know that I only lived for them and for you, my good and tender sister,” she wrote.
“Think always of me, I embrace you with all my heart, as I do my poor dear children. My God, how heart-rending it is to leave them forever! Farewell! Farewell!”
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