- Marie Antoinette was just 14 years old when she was married to King Louis XVI, and he was only 15 himself. The two were still teenagers when Louis was crowned – he 19 and she 18.
- Although she grew to be hated by the French population, this was not true for her early years. When the young Marie Antoinette made her first appearance in Paris a crowd of 50,000 turned up to see her and 30 people were trampled to death in the excitement.
- While she was in captivity many of her captors grew to like and respect Marie Antoinette, this led the more vehement revolutionaries to accuse her of the most terrible of crimes to seal her fate. One of these was incest with her 10-year-old son, Louis.
- There is no evidence of her saying ‘Let them eat cake!’ The phrase was already used years before Marie Antoinette entered France and was attributed to three other women before her.
- When her first child was born a female she reportedly uttered, “Poor little girl, you are not what was desired, but you are no less dear to me on that account. A son would have been property of the state. You shall be mine.”
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