Marie Antoinette in the context of "Place de la Révolution"

A cenotaph is an empty grave, tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere or have been lost. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the majority of cenotaphs honor individuals, many noted cenotaphs are also dedicated to the memories of groups of individuals, such as the lost soldiers of a country or of an empire.

The Place de la Concorde (French: [plas də la kɔ̃kɔʁd] ; lit. 'Harmony Square'), originally Place Louis XV ('Louis XV Square'), and later Place Louis XVI ('Louis XVI Square'), is a public square in Paris, France. Measuring 7.6 ha (19 acres) in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.

It was the site of many notable public executions, including Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and Maximilien Robespierre in the course of the French Revolution, during which the square was temporarily renamed the Place de la Révolution ('Revolution Square'). It received its current name in 1795 as a gesture of reconciliation in the later years of the revolution, although later the original name was reverted for a period. A metro station is located at the northeastern corner of Place de la Concorde on Lines 1, 8, and 12 of the Paris Métro.

Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; French: [lwi sɛːz]; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir-apparent of King Louis XV), and Maria Josepha of Saxony, Louis became the new Dauphin when his father died in 1765. In 1770, he married Marie Antoinette. He became King of France and Navarre on his grandfather's death on 10 May 1774, and reigned until the abolition of the monarchy on 21 September 1792. From 1791 onwards, he used the style of king of the French.

The first part of Louis XVI's reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolishing the death penalty for deserters. The French nobility reacted to the proposed reforms with hostility, and successfully opposed their implementation. Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market, advocated by his economic liberal minister Turgot, but it resulted in an increase in bread prices. In periods of bad harvests, it led to food scarcity which, during a particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted the masses to revolt. From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realised in the Treaty of Paris (1783). The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the ancien régime.

Stefan Zweig (/zwaɪɡ, swaɪɡ/ ZWYGHE, SWYGHE; German: [ˈʃtɛfan t͡svaɪ̯k] or Austrian German: [t͡svaɪ̯g]; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian writer. At the height of his literary career in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular writers in the world.

Born into a Jewish family, Zweig was raised in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. He wrote historical studies of famous literary figures, such as Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky in Drei Meister (1920; Three Masters), and decisive historical events in Decisive Moments in History (1927). He wrote biographies of Joseph Fouché (1929), Mary Stuart (1935) and Marie Antoinette (Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman, 1932), among others. Zweig's best-known fiction includes Letter from an Unknown Woman (1922), Amok (1922), Fear (1925), Confusion of Feelings (1927), Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman (1927), the psychological novel Ungeduld des Herzens (Beware of Pity, 1939), and The Royal Game (1941).

This is a list of the women who were queens or empresses as wives of French monarchs from the 843 Treaty of Verdun, which gave rise to West Francia, until 1870, when the French Third Republic was declared.

Living wives of reigning monarchs technically became queen consorts, including Margaret of Burgundy and Blanche of Burgundy who were kept in prison during their whole queenships.

Marie-Thérèse Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballe (Italian: Maria Teresa Luisa; 8 September 1749 – 3 September 1792) was an Italian noblewoman and member of the Savoy-Carignano cadet branch of the House of Savoy. She was married at the age of 17 to Louis Alexandre de Bourbon-Penthièvre, Prince de Lamballe, the heir to the greatest fortune in France. After her marriage, which lasted a year, she went to the French royal court and became the confidante of Queen Marie Antoinette. She was killed in the massacres of September 1792 during the French Revolution.

The Declaration of Pillnitz was a statement of five sentences issued on 27 August 1791 at Pillnitz Castle near Dresden (Saxony) by Frederick William II of Prussia and the Habsburg Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor who was Marie Antoinette's brother. It declared the joint support of the Holy Roman Empire and of Prussia for King Louis XVI of France against the French Revolution.