Maria Antonia of Austria, commonly known as Marie Antoinette, was born on November 2, 1755, in Vienna, Austria. She was the fifteenth child of Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. In 1770, she married Louis XVI, the future king of France, as part of a political alliance between Austria and France. As queen, Marie Antoinette became a symbol of the excesses of the French monarchy, often criticized for her lavish lifestyle during a time of economic hardship. Her reign ended with the French Revolution, leading to her arrest and execution by guillotine on October 16, 1793.