1755–1793

Queen of France

Destined for Greatness.

The woman destined to become the queen of France was born the eleventh child of the Holy Roman Emperor and Maria Theresa of Austria. Indulged as a child, she had few of the skills necessary to serve as a queen when she wed the future Louis XVI in 1770. Poorly educated and brought up in the royal palaces of Austria where court etiquette was generally relaxed and informal, she was unprepared for the severe and unbending world of Versailles. When she arrived at the royal palace in 1770, she was initially admired for her great beauty, but in the months and years that followed she was drawn into court intrigues and became the subject of gossip. Her marriage, too, was initially unsuccessful since a physical infirmity prevented her husband Louis from consummating the match for several years before he submitted to surgery to correct...