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Marie Antoinette (Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna), born 2 November 1755 at the Hofburg, Vienna, died 16 October 1793 in Paris, was the 15th child and youngest daughter of Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Franz Stephan Duke of Lothringen (which was annexed by France), Holy Roman Emperor. She was the last queen of France prior to the revolution. Shortly after her birth, she was placed under the care of the Governess of the Imperial children, Countess von Brandeis. Maria Antonia was raised with her three-year older sister Maria Carolina, with whom she had a lifelong close relationship. Her relationship with her mother was difficult, but they loved each other. Maria Antonia spent her formative years at the Hofburg and Schönbrunn palace, the imperial summer residence in Vienna, where on 13 October 1762, when she was seven, she met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, two months her junior and who was, at that time, a child prodigy. Despite the private tutoring she received, results of her schooling were less than satisfactory. At the age of ten she could not write correctly in German or in any language commonly used at court, such as French and Italian. Conversations with her were stilted. Under the tutelage of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Maria Antonia developed into a good musician. She learned to play the harp, the harpsichord and the flute. During the family's gatherings in the evenings, she would sing, as she had a beautiful voice. She also excelled at dancing, had an "exquisite" poise and loved dolls. Despite having married for love herself, Maria Theresia had no qualms marrying the surviving of her 16 children off to royal houses all over the continent to form alliances. Her desire to end hostilities with her long-time enemy, Louis XV of France, and their joint interest in countering the ambitions of Great Britain and Prussia (another arch-enemy of hers), Maria Theresia and Louis decided to marry Maria Antonia to his eldest surviving grandson and heir, Louis-Auguste, Duke of Berry and Dauphin of France. Maria Antonia formally renounced all her rights over the Habsburg domains, and on 19 April she was married by proxy to the Dauphin of France at the Augustinian Church in Vienna. On 14 May she met her husband at the edge of the forest of Compièngne. She was stripped of her Austrian clothes, and her attendants turned back in with the carriage that had brought her, and Maria Antonia (now called Marie Antoinette) continued on in French clothes and with French attendants. A ceremonial wedding took place on 16 May 1770 in the palace of Versailles and, after the festivities, the day ended with the ritual bedding. The lack of consummation of the marriage plagued the reputation of both Louis-Auguste and Marie Antoinette for the next seven years. The initial reaction to the marriage between Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste was mixed. On the one hand, the Dauphine was beautiful, personable and well-liked by the common people. Her first official appearance in Paris on 8 June 1773 was a resounding success. On the other hand, those opposed to the alliance with Austria, and others, for personal reasons, had a difficult relationship with Marie Antoinette. Upon the death of Louis XV on 10 May 1774, the Dauphin ascended the throne as King Louis XVI of France and Navarre, and Marie Antoinette became Queen of France and Navarre. At the outset, the new queen had limited political influence with her husband, who with the support of his two most important ministers, Chief Minister Maurepas and Foreign Minister Vergennes blocked several of her candidates from taking important positions. However, the queen did play a decisive role in the disgrace and exile of the most powerful of Louis XV's ministers, the Duke of Aiguillon. On 24 May 1774, two weeks after the death of Louis XV, her husband gave her an estate, the Petit Trianon, and free rein to renovate it; soon rumours circulated that she plastered the walls with gold and diamonds. The queen spent heavily on fashion, luxuries and gambling, though the country was facing a grave financial crisis and the population suffering. The Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II came to France incognito as the Count of Falkenstein, and toured the country extensively. He met his sister and her husband on 18 April 1777 at the Château de la Muette, and spoke frankly to his brother-in-law, curious as to why the royal marriage had not been consummated, arriving at the conclusion that no obstacle to the couple's conjugal relations existed, save the queen's lack of interest and the king's unwillingness to exert himself in that arena. In a letter to his brother Leopold, Joseph graphically described them as "a couple of complete blunderers." Due to Joseph's intervention, the marriage was finally consummated in August 1777. Eight months later, in April 1778, it was suspected that the queen was pregnant, which was officially announced on May 16. Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, Madame Royale, was born at Versailles on 19 December 1778. The child's paternity was contested. When Joseph II laid claim to the throne of Bavaria, Marie Antoinette begged her husband to intercede on behalf of Austria. The Peace of Teschen, signed on 13 May 1779, ended the brief conflict, with the queen imposing French mediation on the demand of her mother, and Austria's gaining a territory of at least 100,000 inhabitants - a strong retreat from the early French position which was hostile towards Austria with the impression, partially justified, that the queen sided with Austria against France. Marie Antoinette's second pregnancy ended in a miscarriage in July 1779, as confirmed by letters between the queen and her mother, although some historians believed that she may have experienced bleeding related to an irregular menstrual cycle, which she mistook for a lost pregnancy. Her third pregnancy was affirmed in March 1781, and on 22 October she gave birth to Louis Joseph Xavier François. Maria Theresa died on 29 November 1780. Marie Antoinette feared that the death of her mother would jeopardise the Franco-Austrian alliance (as well as, ultimately, herself). A second visit from Joseph II, which had taken place in July 1781, to reaffirm the Franco-Austrian alliance and also to see his sister again, was tainted with rumours that Marie Antoinette was sending money from the French treasury to him. Despite the general celebration over the birth of the Dauphin, Marie Antoinette's political influence, such as it was, did greatly benefit Austria. During the Kettle War, in which Joseph II attempted to open the Scheldt River for naval passage, Marie Antoinette succeeded in obliging Vergennes to pay a huge financial compensation to Austria. Finally, the queen was able to obtain her brother's support against GB in the American Revolution and neutralized French hostility to his alliance with Russia. In June 1783, Marie Antoinette's new pregnancy was announced; however, on the night of 1–2 November, her 28th birthday, she suffered a miscarriage. In 1783, the queen was busy with the creation of her "hamlet", a rustic retreat. Its creation, however, caused another uproar when its cost became widely known. Around this time, she accumulated a library of 5000 books. Those on music, often dedicated to her, were the most read, though she also liked to read history. She sponsored the arts, in particular music, and also supported some scientific endeavours, encouraging and witnessing the first launch of a hot air balloon. On 27 April 1784, Beaumarchai's play The Marriage of Figaro premiered in Paris. After initially having been banned by the king due to its negative portrayal of the nobility, the play was finally allowed to be publicly performed because of the queen's support and its overwhelming popularity at court, where secret readings of it had been given by Marie Antoinette. The play was a disaster for the image of the monarchy and aristocracy. It inspired Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, which premiered in Vienna on 1 May 1786. When Louis XVI bought a castle for his wife, it further damaged her reputation because a lot of people believed she shouldn't have a residence independently of the king. Also, the country was still in debt. On 27 March 1785, Marie Antoinette gave birth to Luis Charles, Duke of Normandy. The fact that the birth occurred exactly nine months after the return of Axel von Fersen, who was believed to be her lover, did not escape the attention of many, leading to doubt as to the parentage of the child, and to a noticeable decline of the queen's reputation in public opinion. Courtiers at Versailles noted in their diaries that the date of the child's conception in fact corresponded perfectly with a period when the king and the queen had spent a lot of time together, but these details were ignored amid attacks on the queen's character. The image of a licentious, spendthrift, empty-headed foreign queen was quickly taking root in the French psyche. A second daughter, and her last child, Marie Sophie Hélène Béatrix, was born on 9 July 1786, and lived only eleven months. The financial crisis, the bread crisis, rumours and the failure of the crown to implement reforms finally turned the people against them. The death of Marie Antoinette's eldest son was virtually ignored by the people, who were instead preparing for the next meeting of the Estates General and hoping for a resolution to the bread crisis. The situation escalated on 20 June as the democratic 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. When the queen's plans to have Swiss mercenary troops crush the rebellion became known, the people rioted and stormed the Bastille. In the days following the storming of the Bastille, for fear of assassination, and ordered by the king, the emigration of members of the high aristocracy began. Marie Antoinette, whose life was as much in danger, remained by the king whose power was gradually being taken away by the National Constituent Assembly. On 4 September 1791, France became a constitutional monarchy, but despite that, life at court continued as usual. The situation in Paris was becoming critical because of bread shortages in September. On 5 October, a crowd from Paris stormed Versailles and forced the royal family to move to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, where they were placed under house arrest. Marie Antoinette continued performing charitable functions, attending religious ceremonies, but mostly dedicated her time to her children. She also played an important political, albeit not public, role between 1789 and 1791, in which time she had a complex set of relationships with several key actors of the early period of the French Revolution. More rumours surfaced of the queen having sexual affairs with an English baroness, who was openly lesbian, and even her own son. When a mob prevented the royal family from attending the Easter mass on 18 April 1791, Marie Antoinette declared that they were no longer free, and persuaded her husband to flee the country to counter the rebellion with the help of foreign forces. Fersen and Breteuil (who represented her in the courts of Europe) were put in charge of the escape plan, while Marie Antoinette continued her negotiations with some moderate leaders of the French Revolution. When the royal family finally agreed on an escape plan, it was a collossal failure - they were recognised and returned to Paris, which greatly damaged the king's reputation. The royal family was then kept under close watch, and the constant surveillance worsened Marie Antoinette's health. She kept hoping that the military coalition of the European kingdoms would succeed in crushing the Revolution. She counted mostly on the support of her Austrian family. After the death of her brother Joseph in 1790, his successor, Leopold II, was willing to support her, but only to a limited degree. Upon Leopold's death in 1792, his son Francis, a conservative ruler, was ready to support the cause of the French royal couple because he feared the consequences of the French Revolution and its ideas on the monarchies of Europe and, more particularly, on Austria's influence on the continent. Leopold's and Francis II's aggressive actions on Marie Antoinette's behalf led to France's declaration of war on Austria on 20 April 1792. This resulted in the queen being viewed as an enemy, even though she was 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 of Marie Antoinette passed military secrets to Austria. In addition, at the insistence of his wife, Louis XVI vetoed several measures that would have further restricted his power, earning the royal couple the nicknames "Monsieur Veto" and "Madame Veto". On 20 June 1792, a mob broke into the Tuilleries, made the king wear the bonnet rouge, insulted and threatened Marie Antoinette, and accused her of betraying France. In retaliation, she asked Fersen to push the foreign powers to activate their invasion of France, and to issue a manifesto in which the foreign powers threatened to destroy Paris if anything happened to the royal family. This 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. On 13 August, the royal family was imprisoned in the tower of the Temple. On 21 September 1792, the fall of the monarchy was officially declared. The royal family was re-styled as the non-royal "Capets". Preparations began for the trial of the king in a court of law. Charged with undermining the 1st French Republic, Louis XVI was separated from his family and tried in December. He was found guilty by the Convention led by the Jacobins who rejected the idea of keeping him as a hostage. On 15 January 1793, by vote with a majority of one voice, he was condemned to death by guillotine and was executed on 21 January 1793. The queen, now called "Widow Capet", plunged into deep mourning. She still hoped her son, Louis XVII, would rule France one day. After Louis' execution, Marie Antoinette's fate became a central question of the National Convention. While some advocated for her death, others proposed exchanging her for French prisoners of war or for a ransom from the Holy Roman Emperor. Calls were also made to "retrain" the eight-year old Louis XVII, to make him pliant to revolutionary ideas. To carry this out, Louis was separated from his mother on 3 July after a heartwrenching struggle during which his mother fought in vain to retain her son, who was handed to a cobbler representing 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 wrongdoings. On the night of 1 August, at 1:00 in the morning, Marie Antoinette was transferred from the Temple to an isolated cell in the Conciergerie as 'Prisoner n° 280'. Leaving the tower without bending, she banged her head against the lintel of the door, which prompted one of her guards to ask her if she was hurt, to which she answered: "No! Nothing now can hurt me." Marie Antoinette was tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 14 October 1793. 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 (a failed escape attempt) was uncovered. She and her lawyers were given less than one day to prepare her defense. Early on 16 October, Marie Antoinette was declared guilty of the three main charges against her: depletion of the national treasury, conspiracy against the internal and external security of the State, intelligence with the enemy, this one alone being enough to condemn her to death. At worst, she and her lawyers had expected life imprisonment. Preparing for her execution, she had to change clothes in front of her guards. 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 leashed with a rope. Unlike her husband, who had been taken to his execution in a carriage, she had to sit in an open cart for the one hour-trip through the city. She maintained her composure, despite the insults of the jeering crowd. For her final confession, a constitutional priest was assigned to her. He sat by her in the cart, and she ignored him all the way to the scaffold. Marie Antoinette was guillotined at 12:15 p.m. on 16 October 1793. Her last words were "Pardon me, sir, I meant not to do it", to the executioner, on whose foot she had stepped. Her body was thrown into an unmarked grave. Both Marie Antoinette's and Louis XVI's bodies were exhumed on 18 January 1815, during the Bourbon Restoration. 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. The phrase "let them eat cake instead" is often attributed to Marie Antoinette, though it is more than doubtful that she ever uttered them. It is now generally regarded as a "journalistic cliché". In the United States, expressions of gratitude to France for its help in the American Revolution included the naming of the city Marietta, Ohio, founded in 1788. On the left, you see Marie Antoinette in her youth, on the right is her mother wearing mourning garb.

Description
Marie Antoinette (Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna), born 2 November 1755 at the Hofburg, Vienna, died 16 October 1793 in Paris, was the 15th child and youngest daughter of Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Franz Stephan Duke of Lothringen (which was annexed by France), Holy Roman Emperor. She was the last queen of France prior to the revolution. Shortly after her birth, she was placed under the care of the Governess of the Imperial children, Countess von Brandeis. Maria Antonia was raised with her three-year older sister Maria Carolina, with whom she had a lifelong close relationship. Her relationship with her mother was difficult, but they loved each other. Maria Antonia spent her formative years at the Hofburg and Schönbrunn palace, the imperial summer residence in Vienna, where on 13 October 1762, when she was seven, she met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, two months her junior and who was, at that time, a child prodigy. Despite the private tutoring she received, results of her schooling were less than satisfactory. At the age of ten she could not write correctly in German or in any language commonly used at court, such as French and Italian. Conversations with her were stilted. Under the tutelage of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Maria Antonia developed into a good musician. She learned to play the harp, the harpsichord and the flute. During the family's gatherings in the evenings, she would sing, as she had a beautiful voice. She also excelled at dancing, had an "exquisite" poise and loved dolls. Despite having married for love herself, Maria Theresia had no qualms marrying the surviving of her 16 children off to royal houses all over the continent to form alliances. Her desire to end hostilities with her long-time enemy, Louis XV of France, and their joint interest in countering the ambitions of Great Britain and Prussia (another arch-enemy of hers), Maria Theresia and Louis decided to marry Maria Antonia to his eldest surviving grandson and heir, Louis-Auguste, Duke of Berry and Dauphin of France. Maria Antonia formally renounced all her rights over the Habsburg domains, and on 19 April she was married by proxy to the Dauphin of France at the Augustinian Church in Vienna. On 14 May she met her husband at the edge of the forest of Compièngne. She was stripped of her Austrian clothes, and her attendants turned back in with the carriage that had brought her, and Maria Antonia (now called Marie Antoinette) continued on in French clothes and with French attendants. A ceremonial wedding took place on 16 May 1770 in the palace of Versailles and, after the festivities, the day ended with the ritual bedding. The lack of consummation of the marriage plagued the reputation of both Louis-Auguste and Marie Antoinette for the next seven years. The initial reaction to the marriage between Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste was mixed. On the one hand, the Dauphine was beautiful, personable and well-liked by the common people. Her first official appearance in Paris on 8 June 1773 was a resounding success. On the other hand, those opposed to the alliance with Austria, and others, for personal reasons, had a difficult relationship with Marie Antoinette. Upon the death of Louis XV on 10 May 1774, the Dauphin ascended the throne as King Louis XVI of France and Navarre, and Marie Antoinette became Queen of France and Navarre. At the outset, the new queen had limited political influence with her husband, who with the support of his two most important ministers, Chief Minister Maurepas and Foreign Minister Vergennes blocked several of her candidates from taking important positions. However, the queen did play a decisive role in the disgrace and exile of the most powerful of Louis XV's ministers, the Duke of Aiguillon. On 24 May 1774, two weeks after the death of Louis XV, her husband gave her an estate, the Petit Trianon, and free rein to renovate it; soon rumours circulated that she plastered the walls with gold and diamonds. The queen spent heavily on fashion, luxuries and gambling, though the country was facing a grave financial crisis and the population suffering. The Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II came to France incognito as the Count of Falkenstein, and toured the country extensively. He met his sister and her husband on 18 April 1777 at the Château de la Muette, and spoke frankly to his brother-in-law, curious as to why the royal marriage had not been consummated, arriving at the conclusion that no obstacle to the couple's conjugal relations existed, save the queen's lack of interest and the king's unwillingness to exert himself in that arena. In a letter to his brother Leopold, Joseph graphically described them as "a couple of complete blunderers." Due to Joseph's intervention, the marriage was finally consummated in August 1777. Eight months later, in April 1778, it was suspected that the queen was pregnant, which was officially announced on May 16. Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, Madame Royale, was born at Versailles on 19 December 1778. The child's paternity was contested. When Joseph II laid claim to the throne of Bavaria, Marie Antoinette begged her husband to intercede on behalf of Austria. The Peace of Teschen, signed on 13 May 1779, ended the brief conflict, with the queen imposing French mediation on the demand of her mother, and Austria's gaining a territory of at least 100,000 inhabitants - a strong retreat from the early French position which was hostile towards Austria with the impression, partially justified, that the queen sided with Austria against France. Marie Antoinette's second pregnancy ended in a miscarriage in July 1779, as confirmed by letters between the queen and her mother, although some historians believed that she may have experienced bleeding related to an irregular menstrual cycle, which she mistook for a lost pregnancy. Her third pregnancy was affirmed in March 1781, and on 22 October she gave birth to Louis Joseph Xavier François. Maria Theresa died on 29 November 1780. Marie Antoinette feared that the death of her mother would jeopardise the Franco-Austrian alliance (as well as, ultimately, herself). A second visit from Joseph II, which had taken place in July 1781, to reaffirm the Franco-Austrian alliance and also to see his sister again, was tainted with rumours that Marie Antoinette was sending money from the French treasury to him. Despite the general celebration over the birth of the Dauphin, Marie Antoinette's political influence, such as it was, did greatly benefit Austria. During the Kettle War, in which Joseph II attempted to open the Scheldt River for naval passage, Marie Antoinette succeeded in obliging Vergennes to pay a huge financial compensation to Austria. Finally, the queen was able to obtain her brother's support against GB in the American Revolution and neutralized French hostility to his alliance with Russia. In June 1783, Marie Antoinette's new pregnancy was announced; however, on the night of 1–2 November, her 28th birthday, she suffered a miscarriage. In 1783, the queen was busy with the creation of her "hamlet", a rustic retreat. Its creation, however, caused another uproar when its cost became widely known. Around this time, she accumulated a library of 5000 books. Those on music, often dedicated to her, were the most read, though she also liked to read history. She sponsored the arts, in particular music, and also supported some scientific endeavours, encouraging and witnessing the first launch of a hot air balloon. On 27 April 1784, Beaumarchai's play The Marriage of Figaro premiered in Paris. After initially having been banned by the king due to its negative portrayal of the nobility, the play was finally allowed to be publicly performed because of the queen's support and its overwhelming popularity at court, where secret readings of it had been given by Marie Antoinette. The play was a disaster for the image of the monarchy and aristocracy. It inspired Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, which premiered in Vienna on 1 May 1786. When Louis XVI bought a castle for his wife, it further damaged her reputation because a lot of people believed she shouldn't have a residence independently of the king. Also, the country was still in debt. On 27 March 1785, Marie Antoinette gave birth to Luis Charles, Duke of Normandy. The fact that the birth occurred exactly nine months after the return of Axel von Fersen, who was believed to be her lover, did not escape the attention of many, leading to doubt as to the parentage of the child, and to a noticeable decline of the queen's reputation in public opinion. Courtiers at Versailles noted in their diaries that the date of the child's conception in fact corresponded perfectly with a period when the king and the queen had spent a lot of time together, but these details were ignored amid attacks on the queen's character. The image of a licentious, spendthrift, empty-headed foreign queen was quickly taking root in the French psyche. A second daughter, and her last child, Marie Sophie Hélène Béatrix, was born on 9 July 1786, and lived only eleven months. The financial crisis, the bread crisis, rumours and the failure of the crown to implement reforms finally turned the people against them. The death of Marie Antoinette's eldest son was virtually ignored by the people, who were instead preparing for the next meeting of the Estates General and hoping for a resolution to the bread crisis. The situation escalated on 20 June as the democratic 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. When the queen's plans to have Swiss mercenary troops crush the rebellion became known, the people rioted and stormed the Bastille. In the days following the storming of the Bastille, for fear of assassination, and ordered by the king, the emigration of members of the high aristocracy began. Marie Antoinette, whose life was as much in danger, remained by the king whose power was gradually being taken away by the National Constituent Assembly. On 4 September 1791, France became a constitutional monarchy, but despite that, life at court continued as usual. The situation in Paris was becoming critical because of bread shortages in September. On 5 October, a crowd from Paris stormed Versailles and forced the royal family to move to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, where they were placed under house arrest. Marie Antoinette continued performing charitable functions, attending religious ceremonies, but mostly dedicated her time to her children. She also played an important political, albeit not public, role between 1789 and 1791, in which time she had a complex set of relationships with several key actors of the early period of the French Revolution. More rumours surfaced of the queen having sexual affairs with an English baroness, who was openly lesbian, and even her own son. When a mob prevented the royal family from attending the Easter mass on 18 April 1791, Marie Antoinette declared that they were no longer free, and persuaded her husband to flee the country to counter the rebellion with the help of foreign forces. Fersen and Breteuil (who represented her in the courts of Europe) were put in charge of the escape plan, while Marie Antoinette continued her negotiations with some moderate leaders of the French Revolution. When the royal family finally agreed on an escape plan, it was a collossal failure - they were recognised and returned to Paris, which greatly damaged the king's reputation. The royal family was then kept under close watch, and the constant surveillance worsened Marie Antoinette's health. She kept hoping that the military coalition of the European kingdoms would succeed in crushing the Revolution. She counted mostly on the support of her Austrian family. After the death of her brother Joseph in 1790, his successor, Leopold II, was willing to support her, but only to a limited degree. Upon Leopold's death in 1792, his son Francis, a conservative ruler, was ready to support the cause of the French royal couple because he feared the consequences of the French Revolution and its ideas on the monarchies of Europe and, more particularly, on Austria's influence on the continent. Leopold's and Francis II's aggressive actions on Marie Antoinette's behalf led to France's declaration of war on Austria on 20 April 1792. This resulted in the queen being viewed as an enemy, even though she was 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 of Marie Antoinette passed military secrets to Austria. In addition, at the insistence of his wife, Louis XVI vetoed several measures that would have further restricted his power, earning the royal couple the nicknames "Monsieur Veto" and "Madame Veto". On 20 June 1792, a mob broke into the Tuilleries, made the king wear the bonnet rouge, insulted and threatened Marie Antoinette, and accused her of betraying France. In retaliation, she asked Fersen to push the foreign powers to activate their invasion of France, and to issue a manifesto in which the foreign powers threatened to destroy Paris if anything happened to the royal family. This 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. On 13 August, the royal family was imprisoned in the tower of the Temple. On 21 September 1792, the fall of the monarchy was officially declared. The royal family was re-styled as the non-royal "Capets". Preparations began for the trial of the king in a court of law. Charged with undermining the 1st French Republic, Louis XVI was separated from his family and tried in December. He was found guilty by the Convention led by the Jacobins who rejected the idea of keeping him as a hostage. On 15 January 1793, by vote with a majority of one voice, he was condemned to death by guillotine and was executed on 21 January 1793. The queen, now called "Widow Capet", plunged into deep mourning. She still hoped her son, Louis XVII, would rule France one day. After Louis' execution, Marie Antoinette's fate became a central question of the National Convention. While some advocated for her death, others proposed exchanging her for French prisoners of war or for a ransom from the Holy Roman Emperor. Calls were also made to "retrain" the eight-year old Louis XVII, to make him pliant to revolutionary ideas. To carry this out, Louis was separated from his mother on 3 July after a heartwrenching struggle during which his mother fought in vain to retain her son, who was handed to a cobbler representing 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 wrongdoings. On the night of 1 August, at 1:00 in the morning, Marie Antoinette was transferred from the Temple to an isolated cell in the Conciergerie as 'Prisoner n° 280'. Leaving the tower without bending, she banged her head against the lintel of the door, which prompted one of her guards to ask her if she was hurt, to which she answered: "No! Nothing now can hurt me." Marie Antoinette was tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 14 October 1793. 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 (a failed escape attempt) was uncovered. She and her lawyers were given less than one day to prepare her defense. Early on 16 October, Marie Antoinette was declared guilty of the three main charges against her: depletion of the national treasury, conspiracy against the internal and external security of the State, intelligence with the enemy, this one alone being enough to condemn her to death. At worst, she and her lawyers had expected life imprisonment. Preparing for her execution, she had to change clothes in front of her guards. 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 leashed with a rope. Unlike her husband, who had been taken to his execution in a carriage, she had to sit in an open cart for the one hour-trip through the city. She maintained her composure, despite the insults of the jeering crowd. For her final confession, a constitutional priest was assigned to her. He sat by her in the cart, and she ignored him all the way to the scaffold. Marie Antoinette was guillotined at 12:15 p.m. on 16 October 1793. Her last words were "Pardon me, sir, I meant not to do it", to the executioner, on whose foot she had stepped. Her body was thrown into an unmarked grave. Both Marie Antoinette's and Louis XVI's bodies were exhumed on 18 January 1815, during the Bourbon Restoration. 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. The phrase "let them eat cake instead" is often attributed to Marie Antoinette, though it is more than doubtful that she ever uttered them. It is now generally regarded as a "journalistic cliché". In the United States, expressions of gratitude to France for its help in the American Revolution included the naming of the city Marietta, Ohio, founded in 1788. On the left, you see Marie Antoinette in her youth, on the right is her mother wearing mourning garb.