The Birth of Marie Antoinette, Austrian Archduchess and Future Queen of France

On November 2, 1755, Marie Antoinette was born in Vienna to Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. A member of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, she would leave Austria as a teenager and become queen consort of France, spending much of her adult life at Versailles.

From Vienna to Versailles

Her marriage was arranged to strengthen ties between Austria and France. After a proxy ceremony in Vienna in April 1770, she travelled to France and married the future Louis XVI in the Royal Chapel at Versailles on May 16. She was fourteen years old.

As the wife of the heir to the throne, she held the title of Dauphine. On May 10, 1774, the death of Louis XV brought her husband to the throne. Marie Antoinette became queen at eighteen, entering a role governed by elaborate ceremonies and public expectations.

Music, Portraits and Private Life

Marie Antoinette played the harp and harpsichord, enjoyed singing and supported composers including Christoph Willibald Gluck. Her patronage also helped the career of Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, whose portraits became some of the best-known images of the queen.

Away from formal court occasions, she sought privacy in her personal apartments and at the Petit Trianon, which Louis XVI gave her after his accession. These spaces offered a different setting from the ceremonial rooms of the palace.

The couple’s first child, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, was born in December 1778. Three more children followed: Louis Joseph, Louis-Charles and Sophie-Béatrice.

The Final Years

The French Revolution transformed the royal family’s circumstances. They left Versailles for Paris in October 1789 and were imprisoned in 1792. Following proceedings before the Revolutionary Tribunal, Marie Antoinette was executed in Paris on October 16, 1793, shortly before her thirty-eighth birthday.

Her surviving portraits, furnishings and rooms at Versailles provide a record of her life, artistic interests and surroundings in eighteenth-century France.