Marie Antoinette’s Children: The Fate of Tragedy in the French Revolution

Before the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette was known not for her lavish lifestyle but her dedication as a mother: Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, Louis-Joseph, Louis-Charles, and Sophie. Instead, the turmoil of the French Revolution and personal tragedy meant that this Queen was parted forever from her family. Her sole surviving daughter bore the weight of their legacy than which there is no heavier.

Marie Antoinette’s Family Strife and Tragic End

Marie Antoinette, often portrayed as a frivolous spender, was also a loving mother. She married the heir to the French Throne in 1770, at the age of 14, in order to improve relations between Austria and France. She wished desperately for a child, but with their marriage came under intense pressure from the royal family and soil gossip across France.

It wasn’t until 1778, four years after assuming the French throne, that they had their first child Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte. The couple had hoped for a boy but their daughter became an emotional support for those tough in-transit times of liquor, “she was called “the grape.” In 1781, Marie gave birth to Louis-Joseph, the long-awaited heir to the throne, known as a dauphin. Though royal protocol kept her from caring for her children’s routine, Marie Antoinette’s involvement was deep in their lives and she sought escape from court life back at her children’s home: Petite Trianon.

Heartbreak for Marie Antoinette as Her Own Children Tragedy

Louis-Charles was the third child of Marie and Louis, born in 1785. Rumors were rife, however, that he might have been sired by the queen’s rumored lover from Sweden, diplomat Axel von Fersen. Following the birth of a fourth child, Sophie, the next year, tragedy struck: she died as an infant in 1787. And then came further sorrow when their eldest son, Louis-Joseph, succumbed to illness in 1789 at the tender age of seven, just weeks before the French Revolution broke out.

With the revolutionaries storming their cells and the Bastille falling to their assault, the royal family was forced back across Paris to arrange Versailles’ abandonment. In 1792 the Monarchy disappeared entirely from view and Louis XVI was executed early 1793. Marie Antoinette, cut off from her surviving children, planned escape attempts but remained closely watched. Louis-Charles while a mere eight years old died in captivity after his harsh treatment, eliminating Marie-Thérèse from any inheritance due to the horrors of revolution.

Marie-Thérèse: The Last Survivor of Marie Antoinette’s Family

Marie-Thérèse, the eldest of the four children, experienced unbearable grief. Following the execution of her parents and the deaths of her brothers and sister, she was released from prison in 1795. Today her accursed life continues in exile – but for those few minutes during the Revolution of 1830 when Louis-Antoine became King of France and then she his Queen. They live out their existences abroad, apart from their countrymen. Marie-Thérèse died in 1851; with her death disappeared the last vestiges of Marie Antoinette’s tragic, unlucky family line.