The Marie Antoinette family tree, from Vienna to Versailles

Maria Theresa was born in Vienna in 1717 and married Francis Stephen of Lorraine in the Augustinian Church in Vienna on 12 February 1736.⁵ habsburger.net calls it a love match, which was rare at court.² Their marriage founded the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, and Francis was emperor from 1745 until his death at Innsbruck in 1765.^2,7

Maria Theresa bore sixteen children in nineteen years, all single births, from the age of twenty to the age of thirty-nine. Ten lived into adulthood, and all sixteen stand in the second row of the Marie Antoinette family tree.²

Three of the children died in early childhood. Maria Elisabeth, the first child, died at three, the first Maria Carolina died soon after her first birthday, and the second Maria Carolina was born and died on the same day in 1748.⁵

Smallpox killed three more. Charles Joseph died in January 1761 at fifteen, Johanna died in December 1762 at twelve, and Maria Josepha died in October 1767, shortly before she was due to marry the king of Naples.^1,5 Smallpox also scarred the second Maria Elisabeth, who never married.¹

Two sons became Holy Roman Emperor. Joseph II succeeded his father in 1765 and ruled with his mother until 1780. Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, followed him in 1790.^5,1 Maximilian Francis, the youngest, became Elector of Cologne.¹

Maria Christina was the only child allowed to marry for love.¹ Maria Amalia married Ferdinand, Duke of Parma, against her will, and Maria Carolina took the place of her dead sister Josepha as queen of Naples.¹ Ferdinand Karl married the heiress of Modena and founded the line of Austria-Este.¹ Maria Anna never married and became an abbess.¹

Marie Antoinette was born Maria Antonia in Vienna on 2 November 1755.³ In April 1770 she was married by proxy in Vienna to the Dauphin of France, and the wedding was celebrated in the Royal Chapel at Versailles on 16 May 1770.^5,3

Her husband, Louis XVI, was born at Versailles in 1754, the son of Louis, Dauphin of France, and grandson of Louis XV.^10,4 His father died in December 1765, so the boy became Dauphin that year.^8,4 His mother, Maria Josepha of Saxony, bore three kings of France.⁹

Louis XV died on 10 May 1774, and Marie Antoinette became queen of France before she was twenty.³ The right side of the Marie Antoinette family tree shows only his parents.

The king and queen had four children, who fill the bottom row of the Marie Antoinette family tree. Only two were still alive when the Revolution began.⁴ Marie-Thérèse, called Madame Royale, was born at Versailles on 19 December 1778.¹¹ The first Dauphin, Louis Joseph, was born in October 1781 and died of tuberculosis at Meudon on 4 June 1789, at the age of seven.¹²

His younger brother Louis Charles, born in 1785, became Dauphin on his death.^3,12 The last child, Sophie, was born on 9 July 1786 and died on 19 June 1787.⁶ The painting below was made in the year of her death, and in it her brother Louis Joseph lifts the cover of an empty cradle.⁶

Louis XVI died at the guillotine in Paris on 21 January 1793.⁴ Marie Antoinette was executed on 16 October 1793 on the square now called the Place de la Concorde.³

Louis Charles, called Louis XVII by royalists, died a prisoner in the Temple in Paris on 8 June 1795, aged ten. DNA tests on his preserved heart, arranged in 2000, matched the maternal line of Marie Antoinette, and the heart was buried at Saint-Denis in 2004.¹³

Marie-Thérèse was exchanged for French prisoners and reached Vienna on 9 January 1796. In 1799 she married her cousin Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, and she died at Frohsdorf near Vienna in 1851.¹¹ She left no living children, so the Marie Antoinette family tree has no descendants below its bottom row. The descendants of Maria Theresa continue through her other children, and Maria Carolina alone had eighteen.¹