Since her execution at the
end of the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette has
become the personification of offensive royal extravagance
and righteous class conflict. Now, imagine if
that was your mom. Marie's children would
grow up under a microscope at the lavish palace
at Versailles, where, like their mother,
their lives were controlled by protocol and social duty. But when the French
Revolution came, everything was
turned upside down. Today, we're going
to take a look at what life was like for
Marie Antoinette's children. But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel and let us
know in the comments below what other French stories you
would like to hear about. OK, [SPEAKING FRENCH]
Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette was
born November 2, 1755 in Vienna, which was at the time
the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. She was the 11th daughter
of Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Teresa. And on May 16, 1770,
at the age of 14, she was married to King
Louis XVI of France. The very next morning,
rumors began to swirl that the royal couple had
not consummated the marriage. It must have been trending
on pre-revolutionary French Twitter. As it turned out,
the rumors were true. And in fact, Marie remained a
virgin for seven more years. It's unknown why the couple
waited so long to, you know, go Frenching, but
historians suspect a physical or psychological
issue with Louis. Alas, in 1778, Marie
gave birth to a daughter who was named Marie Therese. It is said that
during the birth, no less than 200 people
crowded into her bedchamber to watch the labor. However, the long wait between
the wedding and the birth of the royal
couple's first child didn't sit well with the public,
who in all fairness already hated Marie. They questioned if she
was really queen material. In 1781, Marie gave birth
to her second child. This time, it was a son
who she named Louis Joseph. As a male, Louis
Joseph became the heir to the throne, the Dauphin,
and Marie doted on him, as she did with her daughter. Royal protocol greatly
restricted Marie's ability to personally give her
children day to day care, so she got in the habit
of taking them away from the court to her
private retreat, which was known as Petit Trianon. The small palace,
which was situated on the grounds at Versailles,
was a present to Marie from her husband, and
it was the perfect place to escape the pressures
of royal life. As mentioned previously, the
foreign born Marie Antoinette was never cool with
the French people. Even before the revolution,
she had enemies. And when it suited
their purposes, they gleefully attacked her
relationship with her children. Marie was known as
a devoted mother. But when it came
to being a wife, she had a reputation
for her infidelities. In fact, in the
1780s, Marie did have an affair with a
Swedish diplomat named Axel von Fersen, who had fought
in the American Revolution. When her third child, Louis
Charles, was born in 1785, rumor had it that von Fersen,
rather than King Louis, was the child's father. The rumor and image of
their king as a cuckold didn't do much to
improve Marie's standing among the people. Barely a year after giving birth
the Louis Charles on July 9, 1786, Marie
Antoinette gave birth to her fourth and final child. It was a daughter, and they
named her Sophie Beatrix. Sadly, Sophie, who had
been born prematurely, would die before
her first birthday. The couple was devastated. It was the first time
they had lost a child, but it wouldn't be the last. Just two years later,
in the summer of 1789, 7-year-old Louis Joseph,
the Dauphin himself, died of an illness. Louis was heir to the
throne, but he had also been sickly his whole life. Historians believe
his cause of death may have been
tuberculosis of the spine. But whatever the case, Marie
wouldn't have much time to mourn her son. Only a few weeks after Louis'
passing, the French Revolution began. The royal family
remained in Paris for the early days
of the revolution, but things got
uncomfortable fast. The revolutionaries
were increasingly questioning the monarchy,
and it was pretty obvious which way the political
winds were blowing. The royal family very wisely
decided to flee the country. In June of 1791, Louis and
Marie disguise themselves and headed for Belgium,
which was controlled by Marie's Hapsburg family. They nearly made
it, but the king was recognized in Varennes,
and the family was captured and taken into custody. They would never
return to their palace. Instead, the
Revolutionary Assembly decided to send the entire
royal family, including the young children, to a
medieval fortress, where jailers could easily
watch over them. Louis Charles was born in 1785,
and he spent the early years of his life running and
playing in the Gilded halls of Versailles. He was 4 when the
revolution came, and it changed
everything for him. Upon the death of his
brother, Louis Joseph, Louis Charles had
become the new Dauphin. You would think becoming heir
to the throne of a major world power would be a good thing. But with the advent of the
revolution, not so much. Louis Charles was branded
the son of a tyrant and locked away in a tower. He spent four years living
in solitary confinement. Separated from his family,
Louis Charles' jailers were able to mistreat
him, and they even forced him to testify
against his own mother. It was at Marie's
trial where the state had Louis say that his
mother had molested him. Marie vehemently denied the
charge, but it didn't matter. The deck was
stacked against her. Marie was convicted
and then executed by guillotine on
October 16, 1793. Louis was not informed
of his mother's death. Instead, he was
beaten and thrown in a cell infested with fleas
and filled with human waste. Left to rot, Louis Charles
slowly lost his mind. The revolutionaries locked
Marie Therese, the eldest royal child, in a tower
from 1792 to 1795. The teenager was
allowed two books, which he read over and over again. Her cell was very close to her
brother Louis Charles was held. The siblings were
allowed no contact during the course of
their imprisonment, but Marie Therese was able to
hear her brother crying when his jailers would beat him. Way to keep it classy, France. Over the course of
her imprisonment, Marie Therese's relatives
were executed one by one, first her mother, then
her aunt, and then her brother. But Marie herself
knew nothing about it, as her jailers carefully
hid the news from her. Finally, in December of 1795,
the Reign of Terror ended. Marie Terese, now the only
surviving member of her family, was released and allowed
to go to Austria, where she would live
with her mother's family. Marie Antoinette's
trial commenced in 1793. Perhaps sensing that the outcome
was a foregone conclusion, she responded to the indictment
against her by saying, I was a Queen, and you
took away my crown, a wife, and you killed my
husband, a mother, and you deprived
me of my children. My blood alone remains. Take it, but do not
make me suffer long. In her last days, Marie
thought constantly about her son, Louis Charles. Just knowing that he was
in prison distressed her, and making the
situation more painful was the fact that she was
allowed no contact with him. Louis, for his part, didn't even
know his mother was on trial. Shortly before she
met her fate, Marie wrote to her sister-in-law and
expressed grief and bitterness at being forced to leave
her children behind. The doomed queen told
her beloved relative, you know that I existed
but for them and you. Louis Charles died in June
of 1795 at the age of 10. His cause of death is suspected
to be tuberculosis brought on by his imprisonment. A doctor who examined
the boy's body was able to smuggle
out his heart. Eventually, it
would be buried next to the graves of his parents. Louis Charles was only 8
when he became an orphan, and had the monarchy
survived, he would have become
King Louis XVII. From the public's
perspective, though, the boy just vanished behind
bars during the revolution and was never seen again. Even his burial was
conducted in secret. These circumstances
unfortunately created the perfect
opportunity for con men looking to impersonate the
king, and plenty tried. Over 100 different impostors
claimed to be Louis Charles the true heir of the
throne of France. Charles-Guillaume
Naundorff was one of them. Charles spent time
in a German prison for counterfeiting
before revealing that he was the Dauphin. He even wrote to
poor Marie Therese, asking her to meet
with him to help prove he was really her brother. Even Baron von Thugut, a
respected Austrian diplomat of the era, argued that there
is no real and legal certainty that the son of
Louis XVI is dead. He pointed out that there was
no real proof of the death, only an announcement
in the newspaper and a report drawn
up by revolutionaries who were presented with a body
of a dead child they were told was Louis. He wasn't wrong. The proof of Louis' death
was less than compelling. Sadly, that uncertainty
would torment Marie Therese for the rest of her life. Marie Therese was the only
one of Marie Antoinette's four children to survive
the French Revolution. In 1799, she would marry
her cousin, Louis Antoine, who claimed to be the next
in line for the throne. In 1830, she would
finally follow in her mother's footsteps
and become Queen of France. Her reign, however,
lasted about 20 minutes. After less than half
an hour, her husband abdicated in favor
of his nephew. Not surprisingly, spending
years behind bars, hearing jailers wallop her kid
brother, only to be released and learn that her entire
family had been killed, had taken its toll on Marie. She never recovered. Though she did return
to live in France, she was forced to flee the
country several more times, and she was tormented by
impostors claiming to be Louis for the rest of her life. Marie Therese finally passed
away in 1851, at the age of 72. So what do you think? What would it be like to be one
of Marie Antoinette's children? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
