Fourteen-year-old Maria Antonia is the beautiful, charming, and naïve Archduchess of Austria, youngest of Empress Maria-Theresa's daughters. In 1770, the only one left unmarried among her sisters, she is sent by her mother to marry the Dauphin of France, the future Louis XVI, to seal an alliance between the two rival countries. Marie-Antoinette travels to France, relinquishing all connections with her home country, including her pet pug "Mops", and meets King Louis XV of France and her future husband, Louis-Auguste. The betrothed young couple arrive at the Palace of Versailles, which was built by the Sun King, Louis XIV. They are married at once and are encouraged to produce an heir to the throne 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 finds life at the court of Versailles stifling. Her husband's courtiers disdain her as a foreigner and blame her for not producing an heir, although the fault really lies with her husband, for the marriage remains unconsummated for an inordinate amount of time. The French court is rife with gossip, and Marie-Antoinette consistently ruffles feathers by defying its ritualistic formality. Marie-Antoinette also refuses to meet or speak with Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse du Barry, the mistress of Louis XV. Over the years, Maria-Theresa continues to write to her daughter, giving advice on how to impress and seduce the Dauphin. Marie's attempts to consummate with her husband fail and the marriage remains childless. Marie spends most of her time buying extravagant clothes and gambling. After a masquerade ball, Marie and Louis return to find that the King was dying of smallpox; he orders du Barry to leave Versailles. After his death on May 10, 1774, Louis XVI is crowned King of France at the age of 19, with Marie-Antoinette as Queen at the age of 18.
Marie-Antoinette's brother, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, comes to visit, counseling her against her constant parties; advice that she finds easy to ignore. Joseph meets Louis XVI at the Royal Zoo and explains to him the "mechanics" of sexual intercourse in terms of "key-making", as one of the King's favorite hobbies is locksmithing. Thereafter, the King and Marie Antoinette have sex for the first time, and on December 19, 1778, Marie Antoinette gives birth to a daughter, Princess Marie Thérèse Charlotte of France. As the child matures, Marie-Antoinette spends much of her time at the Petit Trianon, a small chateau in the park of Versailles. It is also at this time that she begins an affair with Axel Fersen. As France's financial crisis worsens, food shortages and riots increase, her public image has completely deteriorated by this point: her luxurious lifestyle and seeming indifference to the struggles of the French people earned her the title "Madame Deficit".
As the queen matures, she focuses less on her social life and more on her family and makes what she considers to be significant financial adjustments. A year after her mother's death on November 29, 1780, Marie Antoinette gives birth to a son, Louis-Joseph, Dauphin of France, on October 22, 1781. She also gives birth to another son, Louis-Charles on March 27, 1785, and another daughter, Princess Sophie on July 9, 1786, who dies on June 19, 1787, a month before her first birthday. As the French Revolution erupts with the storming of the Bastille, the royal family resolves to stay in France, unlike most of the court. Rioting Parisians force the family to leave Versailles for Paris. The film ends with the royal family's transfer to the Tuileries. The last image is a shot of Marie-Antoinette's bedroom at Versailles, destroyed by angry rioters.
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