Explore the rise and fall of Marie Antoinette, consort to France's King Louis XVI and victim of the French Revolution's guillotine, at Biography.com. ... Then, in the moments before her execution, when the priest who was present told her to have courage, Marie Antoinette responded, "Courage? read more
Marie Antoinette, the 15th child of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and the powerful Habsburg empress Maria Theresa, was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1755–an age of great instability for European monarchies. read more