The 18th century queen never said let them eat cake ... And so in 1770 Austria married France for the peace of Europe. The bride, Maria Antonia Josefa Joanna, was fourteen and a half.

It was Marie Antoinette (Maria Antonia), Queen of France, who has gone down in history as having said, “Let them eat cake!†— allegedly after being told the people had no bread.

Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France, still manages to mesmerize the masses. Some 230 years after her grisly demise, her most powerful legacy, in many senses, is her image, with its complex ...

To ‘locate’ her historically, it is normally easier to refer to her simply as the elder sister of Maria Antonia – the Austrian-born Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. But Maria Amalia, born in Vienna, ...

Show more In a programme first broadcast in November 2018, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Austrian princess Maria Antonia, child bride of the future French King Louis XVI. Their marriage was ...