This day in history. Marie Antoinette, wife of the king of France, ends her life on the scaffold / Article

Princess Maria Antonia of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine was born in Vienna, in the Hofburg Palace, in 1755 as the fifteenth child in the family of her parents – the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. Marie Antoinette was 15 years old when King Louis XV of France asked her to marry his grandson and heir to the throne of France, or Dauphin Louis Auguste. A few decades earlier, such a marriage would have been unthinkable, as France and the Habsburgs had been enemies for centuries, but at that time, in the middle of the 18th century, the balance of power in Europe was change quickly, and old enemies became enemies. friends

In May 1770, a wedding was celebrated in Versailles, the young French princess put her name forward, mistaken for Marie Antoinette, and when Louis XV ended his earthly career in 1774, she went up to the throne of France with her husband, King Louis XVI. At that time, of course, no one knew how difficult the management of this family would be.

France was always struggling with financial problems. The country was heavily in debt, from which there was no way out, and court spending, including the substantial spending of the Queen, did not improve this situation at all. Unfortunately, Louis XVI was not the most capable ruler either. Being depressed from time to time, he was happy to banish management concerns, including listening to his wife’s advice, which was not always the best.

At the initiative of Marie Antoinette, France entered the war against Great Britain, supporting the North American colonies in their struggle for independence. This largely determined the outcome of the American War of Independence, which led to the founding of the United States, but the benefits to France were relatively small and the costs were staggering. However, regardless of how unsuccessful the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette may have been, the French society’s disdain for the queen was far greater than her distress in the country’s woes. Rumors and printed pamphlets blamed Marie Antoinette not only for unhappiness, but also for sending French money to Austria. Fiction was also spread about the orgies the ruler had at court and about her love affairs with courtiers of both sexes.

In the minds of the French people, Marie Antoinette became the embodiment of all the defects of the so-called Old Regime: a savage, sad, worn-out and infantile foreigner whose sole responsibility was to serving Austria at the expense of France.

The path of the French royal family towards a tragic end began in 1789, when several years of bad harvests had caused a lack of grain in the country and lowered the economic situation.

The king’s decision to call parliament after a break of 175 years only exacerbated the situation. There was a revolutionary feeling among the deputies, the old assembly of representatives from the ranks turned to the National Assembly, which began to greatly limit the power of the king. For a time, it seemed that a constitutional monarchy on the British model would be established in France, but both the legislators and the society became more radical. The turning point was the royal family’s attempt to leave the country in 1791. They were found, arrested and brought back to Paris, where they were placed under house arrest.

In September 1792, the National Assembly declared France a republic. The citizen Louis Capé, as the deposed monarch is now called, was tried, found guilty of treason and executed in January 1793. It was thought that Kape’s widow, who many believed should as the real accused, to be tried is also actively distributed. On October 14, 1793, Marie Antoinette appeared before the Revolutionary Tribunal, which, after a two-day trial, found her guilty of sabotage, conspiracy against internal and external security out of the country, and treason, and sentenced her to death.

On 16 October 1793, the former queen Marie Antoinette climbed the scaffold. Her last words before being guillotined were:

“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean it!” – when she accidentally stepped on the executioner’s foot.

The material was first published on LSM.lv on October 16, 2023.

More

Report a bug