Marie Antoinette
The fifteenth of Maria Theresa’s sixteen children, married at fourteen to the French dauphin for the sake of an alliance between two powers. She became queen at eighteen and the court disliked her at once: a foreigner, an Austrian, spending on dresses and on the Trianon where she played at village life. Rumour did the rest — from the affair of the necklace, in which she had no part, to the words about cake that she never said. The revolution made her the face of hatred for the monarchy: the attempted flight of 1791, arrest, her husband’s execution, and nine months later a trial that charged her with treason and with invented crimes besides. She was guillotined on 16 October 1793, aged thirty-seven.
She was born in Vienna on 2 November 1755 at 19:30 local mean time — the day before, the earthquake had struck Lisbon, news of which reached Vienna later. The hour was recorded at court: the birth of an archduchess was attested by witnesses.