A handsome biography of Marie Antoinette, France's last queen, with excerpts from her letters and letters from her mother; and insights from historians Evelyne Lever, Antoine de Baecque and Fanny Cosandey, as well as the New Yorker's Simon Schama. Her story begins in Austria, where she was born to Austria's empress, Maria Theresa. At 14, to forge an alliance with France, she was wed to Louis XVI, 15, its future king. At 38, she was executed during the French Revolution.