Marie Antoinette



Marie Antoinette (1755-1793) was the Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France. Married to Louis XVI, Antoinette was tried and convicted of treason and executed by guillotine during the French Revolution in 1793.

Over two hundred years after her death, Antoinette is still remembered for her extravagance and her death. References to her have continued to appear over the decades, from a portrait of the Queen hanging above Scarlett O'Hara's bed in Gone with the Wind, Wednesday Addams dressing her baby brother Pubert as Antoinette before carrying him to a guillotine in Addams Family Values, and verbal barbs regarding the Queen in television shows such as Desperate Housewives and Sex and the City.

The most famous reference in popular culture, the phrase "Let them eat cake", is actually incorrectly attributed to Antoinette. There is no evidence to support that she ever uttered this phrase, and it is now generally regarded as a "journalistic cliché."