69 Fun Facts About Marie Antoinette

In which city was Marie Antoinette born?

Vienna was the capital of France's old enemy, so her marriage to the French heir was meant to seal the peace, and those who opposed the alliance never warmed to her.

Marie Antoinette was the youngest daughter of which formidable ruler?

Empress Maria Theresa reigned for 40 years and bore 16 children, and used her daughters' marriages to seal alliances, sending the youngest to France.

Which royal house was Marie Antoinette born into?

Habsburg-Lorraine was barely a generation old: her parents' marriage in 1736 had founded it, joining the last Habsburg heiress to the Duke of Lorraine.

Marie Antoinette was born the day after Lisbon's great earthquake, on which sombre Catholic feast?

All Souls' Day is when Catholics pray for the dead; the earthquake had struck on All Saints' Day, and some later read her birth in its shadow as a bad omen.

Which composer performed for the young Marie Antoinette at Schönbrunn Palace in 1762?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was six, as was she; the story goes that he slipped and fell, was helped up by the little archduchess and declared he would marry her one day.

Which composer taught the young Marie Antoinette music and later enjoyed her patronage in Paris?

Christoph Willibald Gluck had given her music lessons as a child; at the French court his former pupil's backing won him a contract with the Paris Opéra, where he worked on and off until 1779.

Marie Antoinette's closest sister, Maria Carolina, was married off to the king of which Italian realm?

Naples got her only because an older sister, first chosen for its king, died of smallpox; as queen she turned on her kingdom's reformers after Marie Antoinette's execution.

Before Marie Antoinette's wedding, what was a French dentist brought in to do to the future queen?

Straighten her teeth: the French court judged the bride's smile and hair not yet up to its standards, so specialists were sent to remodel both before the wedding.

What ritual marked Marie Antoinette's handover to France?

New clothes: on a Rhine island the 14-year-old changed into French ones, because etiquette held that a bride should 'retain nothing belonging to a foreign court'; she also had to leave behind the attendants who had travelled with her.

Why did Marie Antoinette go through a wedding with her own brother Ferdinand in 1770?

He stood proxy for the groom, as was customary: the dauphin stayed in France, and the bride did not meet her real husband until she arrived there weeks later.

Whose 1777 visit finally got Marie Antoinette's marriage consummated?

Joseph II, her eldest brother, travelled incognito and questioned the king man to man about his marriage bed; the advice worked, and the couple's first child was born the next year.

Marie Antoinette was guillotined in the Place de la Révolution, a Paris square known today by which name?

Place de la Concorde was laid out as Place Louis XV to honour her husband's predecessor; the Revolution renamed it and raised the guillotine that killed Louis XVI there, then her, nine months apart.

Whose death in 1774 made Louis XVI king and Marie Antoinette queen?

His grandfather, Louis XV: the old king had outlived his own heir, who died in 1765, so the crown skipped a generation to a nineteen-year-old and his eighteen-year-old queen.

Which hands-on hobby left Louis XVI's hands so blackened that Marie Antoinette scolded him for it?

Making locks: a Versailles locksmith named Gamain worked beside him for years, and in 1792 the same man gave away the hidden iron safe he had installed for the king, whose papers were used at the king's trial.

Which dressmaker, nicknamed the queen's 'Minister of Fashion', made her gowns and helped launch the towering pouf?

Rose Bertin, a commoner received in private against court etiquette, went on dressing the queen until the monarchy fell in 1792, while pamphlets damned her as a corrupting merchant of luxury.

The 1775 riots over grain and bread prices, weeks before Louis XVI's coronation, are known as what?

The Flour War: after the minister Turgot freed the grain trade, crowds seized flour and bread and paid only what they judged a just price, until troops restored order ahead of the young king's crowning.

Which close friend did Marie Antoinette appoint superintendent of her household soon after becoming queen?

The Princesse de Lamballe had got safely abroad in 1791 but made her will and returned to the queen's side; a Paris mob killed her in the September Massacres of 1792.

Which foreign regiment was cut down defending the royal family's Paris palace on 10 August 1792?

The Swiss Guards, some 900 strong, fought on after the king had left for the Assembly; hundreds were killed, many after surrendering, and the Lion of Lucerne was later carved in their memory.

What was the name of Marie Antoinette's first child, born in December 1778?

Marie-Thérèse Charlotte was born before such a crush of onlookers that the queen fainted and the sealed windows had to be forced open; afterwards the custom of public royal births was dropped.

Which Swedish count was rumoured to be Marie Antoinette's lover?

Axel von Fersen fought beside the French at Yorktown, later planned the royal family's escape from Paris, and drove their carriage out of the city himself on the first night.

What did Richard Mique build beside a lake for Marie Antoinette at Trianon?

A working hamlet: its cottages looked humble outside and were richly furnished within, yet the farm was real, a going concern with a dairy, barn and livestock that the queen insisted on.

Which favourite did Marie Antoinette make governess of the royal children in 1782?

The Duchess of Polignac took the post when her predecessor's husband went bankrupt; her family collected pensions, offices and a dukedom, and they were among the first nobles to flee France in 1789.

What did the Montgolfier balloon carry when it rose over Versailles before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1783?

A sheep, a duck and a rooster flew for eight minutes and came down unhurt; the king had first proposed sending up condemned criminals, and two months later the first men flew instead.

Which Beaumarchais comedy did Louis XVI ban after a private reading, before it finally opened in 1784?

The Marriage of Figaro: hearing it read with the queen beside him, the king said the Bastille would have to be destroyed before it could be staged; the fortress fell five years after the premiere.

Which château near Paris did Louis XVI buy from the Duke of Orléans in Marie Antoinette's own name?

The Château de Saint-Cloud was meant as a home she could leave to her children, but a palace owned outright by a queen shocked Paris: one magistrate called it 'impolitic and immoral'.

Who played the queen in Sofia Coppola's 2006 film Marie Antoinette?

Kirsten Dunst starred; Coppola based the film on Antonia Fraser's sympathetic biography and set its pastel court to post-punk songs, while its gowns won the Oscar for costume design.

Which Italian occultist and self-styled count was jailed, then acquitted, in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace?

Alessandro Cagliostro had played no real part in the swindle and was acquitted after nine months in the Bastille, yet the king banished him from France all the same.

Which senior churchman was tricked into buying the diamond necklace, believing it would win Marie Antoinette's favour?

Cardinal de Rohan had offended the queen's mother while ambassador at her court in the 1770s and was frozen out at Versailles for years; desperate to regain favour, he believed letters forged in the queen's name.

Which self-styled countess masterminded the diamond necklace swindle?

Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, jailed for life in the Salpêtrière, escaped dressed as a boy and reached London, where she published her memoirs to a ready audience.

Which new nickname did Marie Antoinette's critics coin for her in 1787, two years before the Revolution?

Madame Déficit: with the treasury empty, Parisians blamed the queen's spending, and when the frame of her new family portrait reached the Salon ahead of the canvas, the jibe was 'That's how the money goes'.

Which painter's large Salon portrait showed Marie Antoinette surrounded by her children?

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun was too afraid of the public mood to watch the canvas go on show, and she left Paris by stagecoach on the very night in 1789 that a crowd marched the royal family from Versailles.

To whom did Marie Antoinette address her last letter, written hours before her execution?

Her sister-in-law, Madame Élisabeth, had shared her prison; the letter is full of love and worry for the children, and Élisabeth herself went to the guillotine the following May.

Which finance minister, recalled with Marie Antoinette's backing in 1788, was dismissed again on 11 July 1789?

Jacques Necker, a Geneva-born banker, was so popular that news of his dismissal set off the riots that stormed the Bastille three days later, and the king had to call him back.

From what illness did Marie Antoinette's eldest son, the Dauphin Louis Joseph, die in June 1789?

Tuberculosis, which had already bent his spine, killed the seven-year-old as the Estates General met; the country barely noticed, and his little brother became heir to the throne.

To which Paris palace did the October 1789 march on Versailles force the royal family to move?

The Tuileries had not housed a king for decades and nothing was ready: courtiers lodging there were turned out that day and furniture was carted from Versailles, while the National Guard stood sentry.

Which leading revolutionary orator became Marie Antoinette's secret adviser in 1790 for 6,000 livres a month?

Mirabeau called the queen the only man the king had about him; his death in 1791 cost the court its best ally, and once the payments came to light his remains were thrown out of the Panthéon.

How was Marie Antoinette's six-year-old son disguised for the flight to Varennes?

As a little girl: he travelled as a daughter of a Russian baroness, a part played by the children's governess, while the queen posed as the governess and the king as a plain household servant.

Why was Montmédy the royal family's goal on the flight to Varennes?

Loyal troops nearby: General Bouillé, who had crushed an army mutiny at Nancy the year before, had massed regiments at the border fortress to protect the king.

According to Madame Campan, what happened to Marie Antoinette's hair in a single night after the arrest at Varennes?

It turned white 'as that of a woman of seventy', Campan wrote, and sudden whitening is still nicknamed Marie Antoinette syndrome.

The 1792 revolutionary song La Carmagnole mocks Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette under which nicknames?

Monsieur and Madame Veto: in June 1792 the king used his constitutional veto to block decrees against refractory priests and for an armed camp near Paris, and the song, first sung that August, crows over the couple's fall.

On 20 June 1792, a mob that broke into the royal family's Paris palace forced the king to wear what?

A red Phrygian cap, the liberty cap of the sans-culottes: Louis put it on and drank a toast to the nation, yet stood his ground and gave the crowd none of what it had come to demand.

Which foreign proclamation of 25 July 1792, threatening Paris over the royal family, sparked the 10 August insurrection?

The Brunswick Manifesto, drafted by French émigrés, threatened to destroy Paris if the royal family were harmed; meant to protect them, it persuaded Parisians that the king was in league with the invaders.

After the monarchy fell, the royal family was imprisoned in the tower of which Marais fortress?

The Temple was the medieval Paris stronghold of the Knights Templar; the king went from its tower to the guillotine, the queen to another prison, and their son died there in 1795, aged ten.

What surname did the French Republic give Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette once their titles were abolished?

Capet came from Hugh Capet, the medieval founder of the royal line: once the monarchy was abolished the king was plain Citizen Louis Capet, and his wife went to trial as the Widow Capet.

Which American revolutionary urged France's Convention to exile Louis XVI to the United States rather than execute him?

Thomas Paine, elected a deputy though he spoke little French, had his plea read out in translation; the king was guillotined anyway, and before the year was out Paine was in a Paris prison himself.

What was the trade of Antoine Simon, the man put in charge of Marie Antoinette's eight-year-old son in 1793?

Cobbler: Simon was told to make a plain citizen of the prince, and he went to the guillotine on the same day as Robespierre.

In August 1793 Marie Antoinette became 'Prisoner 280' in which Paris prison beside the Seine?

The Conciergerie was the usual last stop before the Revolutionary Tribunal and the guillotine; moved there at night, she was watched around the clock, with only a low screen to dress behind.

The failed 1793 attempt to free Marie Antoinette from prison is known by the name of which flower?

The Carnation Plot: a royalist named Rougeville dropped the flower at her feet with a note hidden in its petals; a gendarme gave the scheme away, and the queen was moved to a more secure cell.

How did Robespierre reportedly react on hearing that Hébert had raised the incest charge at Marie Antoinette's trial?

He cursed Hébert's stupidity, a juror recalled, calling him an imbecile for handing the queen a triumph: her appeal to every mother in the room had stirred even a hostile courtroom.

What colour was the plain dress Marie Antoinette wore to the guillotine?

White: she had worn mourning black since her husband's death, but went to the scaffold in a plain white dress, hands bound, in an open cart where he had been granted a closed carriage.

What did Marie Antoinette apologise to her executioner for as she climbed the scaffold?

Stepping on his foot: 'Pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose' are often given as her last words, though another account has her bid her children farewell before the blade fell.

Which artist later claimed to have been made to cast Marie Antoinette's death mask straight from the guillotine?

Marie Tussaud said she was forced to model the severed heads of people she had known at court; she took her waxworks to Britain and toured them for decades before settling in London's Baker Street.

Where were Marie Antoinette's remains reburied in January 1815?

The Basilica of Saint-Denis is the burial church of France's kings, whose tombs the Revolution had emptied into common pits; Louis XVIII had the couple dug up in Paris and laid in its crypt in January 1815.

Which writer put 'let them eat cake' in the mouth of 'a great princess' before Marie Antoinette ever reached France?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau gave the line, 'let them eat brioche', to an unnamed great princess in memoirs written in the 1760s, when the future queen was a child who had never seen France.

Which Ohio city was named in 1788 as a gesture of gratitude to France and its queen?

Marietta was founded by officers of the Revolutionary War, who named it for the queen of the ally that had helped them win.

What nearly killed the village boy Marie Antoinette adopted?

A carriage, her own, nearly ran him over: the queen stood up, declared the child hers and took him home, Campan recalled; she paid for his brothers and sisters too, yet he grew up to side with the Revolution.

Which 1979 anime features Marie Antoinette as one of its main characters?

The Rose of Versailles pairs the queen with Oscar, a woman who commands the Royal Guard; its creator, Riyoko Ikeda, vowed as a schoolgirl to retell the queen's life after reading Stefan Zweig's biography.

For whom, before Marie Antoinette was ever offered it, did Paris jewellers intend the famous diamond necklace in 1772?

Madame du Barry never received it: Louis XV died before the jewellers could sell it, leaving them with 647 diamonds and a ruinous debt, and Marie Antoinette twice refused to take it off their hands.

In which room at Versailles was the cardinal in the diamond necklace affair arrested, in full robes, in 1785?

The Hall of Mirrors was lined with courtiers waiting for the Assumption Day mass he was robed to celebrate; marched out through them, he scribbled a note telling his household to burn his papers.

How did postmaster Drouet say he recognised the fleeing Louis XVI?

His face on money: Drouet said he matched the traveller to the king's head on an assignat, then rode hard for Varennes and raised the alarm that got the coach stopped.

What did Louis XVI leave in Paris on the flight to Varennes?

A defiant manifesto: it justified his flight and listed his grievances against the Revolution, even as the Assembly put out the story that the king had been kidnapped.

How did the Paris crowd greet the royal carriage when it returned under guard from Varennes?

With total silence: placards had warned of punishment for anyone who either cheered or insulted the king, so a vast crowd simply watched the coach roll past.

The Petit Trianon, later Marie Antoinette's retreat, was first built for which royal mistress?

Madame de Pompadour persuaded Louis XV to build it but died in 1764, four years before it was finished, so she never lived in the little palace that the next reign made famous.

What can the mirrored panels in Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon boudoir do?

Rise to cover the windows: a mechanism on the floor below cranks the mirrors up in place of shutters, shutting the room off from the gardens and doubling the candlelight inside.

What finally freed Marie Antoinette's daughter from captivity in Paris in December 1795?

A prisoner exchange with Austria: as she turned seventeen she was traded for captured French deputies, among them Drouet, the postmaster who had stopped her parents' flight at Varennes.

Which royal prince fled Paris by another road on the night of the flight to Varennes and got safely abroad?

The Count of Provence, the king's brother, left the same night by a different route and reached safety abroad, while the royal coach was caught; he came back in 1814 as King Louis XVIII.

Which empress, a devoted admirer of Marie Antoinette, turned the Petit Trianon into a museum to her memory in 1867?

Eugénie de Montijo collected the queen's portraits and keepsakes and staged the first exhibition devoted to her; three years later a revolution cost Eugénie her own throne, and she fled to England.

Which general calmed the crowd at Versailles in October 1789 by kneeling to kiss Marie Antoinette's hand on the balcony?

Lafayette, commander of the National Guard, led her out to face levelled muskets, then knelt and kissed her hand; the crowd cheered 'Long live the queen', yet still took the family off to Paris.

What letter was the countess behind the diamond necklace swindle branded with before being jailed for life?

V, for voleuse (thief): she was whipped and branded in public and shut in the Salpêtrière, while the cardinal she had duped walked out of the Bastille to cheering crowds.