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Maria Antonia Josepha Joanna of Habsburg-Lorraine, daughter of the Austrian Empress Marie Therese of Hapsburg and her husband Francis I of Lorraine, was born on 2nd November 1755 in Vienna. She spent her childhood in Schonbrunn and in 1770 she married the Dauphin and future King of France Louis XVI. On her arrival to Versailles, she was welcomed by Louis XV and his court. However the King's favourite, Madame du Barry, who Marie Antoinette later nicknamed "the creature", would never get on well with the Dauphine because of the Countess' controversial past. When Louis XV died and Marie Antoinette became the new Queen of France, she had to fight the envy of some privileged courtiers who held high positions and influence under the former King. This envy extended to the favors 20-year old queen bestowed upon her few chosen young friends, such as the Countess Yolande Gabrielle de Polignac, Princess Marie Therese de Lamballe and Princess de Guéménée. These and other of the Queen’s greedy friends enjoyed every sort of privilege taking advantage of the Queen's generosity and the King's weakness. However the Queen's popularity had been fading away since her official entrance in Paris on 8th June 1773. Under the pressure of her disloyal friends, she created innumerable useless offices such as that of Superintendent of the Queen's House for the Princess de Lamballe. Furthermore, she used to buy a great deal of dresses and jewelry making her milliner Madame Bertin famous all over France. Finally, the Queen spent enormous amounts for her personal buildings. Marie-Antoinette had the Petit Trianon readapted to her taste as well as her exclusive theatre and the Hameau, a miniaturized hamlet built in the park of Versailles, where she and her friends loved to dress and act the role of peasants. No matter that the Queen's heart was generous and her donation to the poor was considerable, the rumors about her oddity increased her people's open criticism - if not hatred. This contributed much to cause the French Revolution. The French had been waiting for long years for a royal heir and at last the Queen gave birth to a daughter, Marie Therese Charlotte duchess of Angouleme - Madame Royale - on 19th December 1778 after a very difficult delivery that nearly caused the mother's death. Then, Marie-Antoinette had three more children. They were Louis Joseph, who died at a very early age due to a respiratory failure, Louis Charles - the Duke of Normandy and future Louis XVII - who died in 1795 at the age of ten, and Marie Sophie Elene Beatrix, who died in just her first year of life of tuberculosis.