Marie
Antoinette
Marie Antoinette was born in 1755. She was
one of the sixteen children of Maria Theresa, the queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and
Francis I, the emperor of Austria. Her original name was Antonia; Marie Antoinette was the
name she took when she married.Marie Antoinette was not quite as foolish and spoiled as the public believed. It certainly is not true that she said "Let them eat cake" when told that people were starving.
As a woman and a foreigner she made a convenient scapegoat for the nation's problems, and it seemed that no slander against her was too wild to be widely believed.
In October Marie Antoinette, now called "the Widow Capet," was tried and, like her husband, convicted of treason and sentenced to be guillotined. On October 16, 1793 she was taken through the streets of Paris in an open cart. She maintained her dignity to the end. On the scaffold she accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot, and her last words were, "Monsieur, I ask your pardon. I did not do it on purpose." Click here for more info: Marie Antoinette
Songs referenced:
Talula