Marie Antoinette, Erzherzogin von Österreich

Porträts von Erzherzögen und Erzherzogin von Österreich aus der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek

Marie Antoinette Josephe Jeanne (1755–1793), austrian queen consort of King Louis XVI of France (1774–93). Her name is associated with the decline in the moral authority of the French monarchy in the closing years of the ancien régime, though her courtly extravagance was but a minor cause of the financial disorders of the French state in that period. Her rejection of reform provoked unrest, and her policy of court resistance to the progress of the French Revolution finally led to the overthrow of the monarchy in August 1792.