Plot
Fourteen-year-old Archduchess Marie Antoinette is the daughter and youngest child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. In 1770, she travels to France to marry Louis-Auguste, the Dauphin of France, sealing an alliance between Austria and France.
Upon arriving, she relinquishes her Austrian connections, meets King Louis XV and the Dauphin, and weds at the Palace of Versailles. The couple faces pressure to produce an heir as soon as possible, but the next day it is reported to the king that "nothing happened" on the wedding night.
As time passes, Marie Antoinette struggles with the strict protocol of the French court and the hostility of courtiers who view her as a foreigner and criticize the lack of an heir. Resisting court etiquette, she befriends the Princess de Lamballe and the Duchess of Polignac, and she refuses to interact with Louis XV's mistress, Madame du Barry. In correspondence, Maria Theresa regularly advises her daughter on how to consummate the marriage, but the couple remains childless as the Dauphin shows little interest in intimacy. In response to her isolation, Marie Antoinette occupies herself with gambling and purchasing lavish clothing.
After a masquerade ball, Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste return to find the king dying of smallpox; before his death, the king banishes Madame du Barry from Versailles. After the king's death, Louis-Auguste succeeds to the throne as Louis XVI at the age of 19, and Marie Antoinette becomes queen consort at age 18.
Marie Antoinette's brother, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, visits Versailles. While he unsuccessfully urges the Queen to curb her her extravagant socializing and constant parties, he speaks with Louis XVI at the Royal Menagerie, and explains to him the "mechanics" of sexual intercourse in terms of "key-making", as one of the king's favourite hobbies is locksmithing. Shortly thereafter, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette have sex for the first time, and in 1778, Marie Antoinette gives birth to a daughter, Marie Thérèse.
As the child grows, Marie Antoinette spends much of her time at the Petit Trianon retreat, and begins an affair with Swedish officer Count Axel von Fersen. Meanwhile, France's worsening financial crisis and widespread food shortages lead to growing unrest. The Queen's lavish reputation earns her the moniker "Madame Deficit," despite her later efforts to scale back her spending and focus on family life. Over the following years, she gives birth to three more children: Louis-Joseph, Louis-Charles, and Sophie, who dies a month before her first birthday.
When the French Revolution erupts with the storming of the Bastille, the royal family decides to stay at Versailles rather than flee abroad with the rest of the court. An armed mob eventually converges on the palace, forcing the royal family to relocate to the Tuileries Palace in Paris.
The last image is Marie Antoinette's bedroom at Versailles, destroyed by angry rioters.
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