How did Marie Antoinette die? Heavy metal band Gojira sings with headless figure of former French queen at Olympics Opening ceremony

French heavy metal band Gojira's performance at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony featured a call to French Queen Marie Antoinette on July 26 at the Conciergerie on the banks of the Seine.

Gojira's set began with a performance of Ah! Ca Ira, a song that was popularized during the French Revolution in the 1700s. Viewers were left stunned when one of the performers on stage turned up dressed as a decapitated Queen Marie Antoinette, who was famously beheaded by guillotine during the French Revolution.

The performance featured a member dressed in a red gown representing the French Queen, holding her head and peeping out of a huge French building as the Seine river was seemingly on fire, supposedly representing the chaos during the bloody revolution.

Gojira's stunning performance was a tribute to the bloody history of the French Revolution that was started by working and lower classes of French during the reign of France's last king, Louis XVI.

Queen Marie Antoinette was executed at the Place de la Concorde by the common people in 1793 after being found guilty of treason. Her husband, Louis XVI had already been executed by beheading by guillotine by that time.

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Who was Marie Antoinette and how did she die?

The story of Marie Antoinette (1755–1793) is a horrific and tragic tale on one side, while a cautionary one for people holding power across the world. Antoinette was an Austrian princess who was married to Louis XVI at a young age. She served as the Queen of France between 1774 and 1792.

As per World History, Antoinette did not have a good reputation among the people of France, as she likely did not connect with commoners. Her poor reputation and rumors about her personal life, such as the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, led her to become one of the despised women in France, per the publication.

Marie Antoinette's reign as the French Queen was a time of immense political turmoil in the country. There was growing discontentment among the people of France due to the scarcity of basic necessities such as food, water, and shelter.

The working classes of the country were enraged by the upper classes, namely the clergy and the nobility, for controlling most of the country's wealth while having the least burden of taxes.

Meanwhile, the demands of the working class were not met and they had the highest burden of taxes, leading to widespread dissatisfaction. King Louis XVI was unable to resolve the general people's problems.

In 1789, terror broke out as the poor women of Paris marched to the Royal Palace of Versailles and demanded justice for themselves and the royal family's steady return to Paris. Marie Antoinette and her family were placed under house arrest at the Tuileries following the event.

During her time in the palace, she tried to escape to the Austrian Netherlands, but her plan failed and the revolutionary government brought her back to the Tuilerres. When the War of the First Coalition (1792-1797) began, Antoinette tried to bring an end to the revolution by sending word to military contacts in her father's country, Austria.

However, she was accused of treason by the revolutionary government and imprisoned with her family after the Storming of the Tuileres Palace (1792).

In 1793, Marie Antoinette's husband Louis XVI was guillotined by the French revolutionaries as an act of terror. The monarch was accused of treason and conspiring with foreign powers.

However, the French Queen remained under arrest alongside her sister-in-law, Madame Elizabeth, and her children, Mary Therese and Louis Charles. Shocked with grief and trauma after the death of her husband, Antoinette was also separated from her two children in the same year, ahead of her inevitable death.

Marie Antoinette had to face a two-day trial and was sentenced to death after being charged with treason in October 1793. Her last words, composed in a testament (via The Collector), were:

“I have just been condemned to death, not to a shameful death, that can only be for criminals… I am calm, as people are whose conscience is clear. My deepest regret is having to abandon our poor children… I only lived for them…”

Marie Antoinette was beheaded by the revolutionary government on October 16, 1793, at the Place de la Concorde, with thousands of people attending the beheading. As per The Collector, the Queen's decapitated head and body remained unattended after the procedure as the grave diggers ate their lunch next to it. She was temporarily buried in a mass grave.

Almost 22 years after her death, Louis XVI and Antoinette got a proper royal burial. They rest along with other members of the French royalty at the Basilica of St. Denis in Paris to this date.