Marie Antoinette born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last Queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an Archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child of Empress Maria Theresa and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Marie Tussaud was born Marie Grosholtz in 1761 in Strasbourg, France. Her mother, Anne Made, took her to work as a housekeeper in the Berne home of Dr. Philippe Curtis who was highly skilled at wax modeling.  Marie Tussaud would go on to make death masks of Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, Charlotte Corday, Robespierre, Marat and sadly her former employer. After an execution took place, Marie crept into Madeline Cemetery with her carpet bag of tools and set to work making her effigy of the famously dead.

In 1802, she left the horrors of the Revolution behind her (and also her husband and youngest child), and spent the rest of her life traveling throughout England displaying her wax models. Marie Tussaud never returned to France. She died in 1850, at the age of 88. Her sons carried on her legacy by displaying her wax models and growing the enterprise that has become Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum today. Many of Marie’s models can still be seen today in Madame Tussaud's, London including the deaths’ heads of Robespierre, Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, Marat in his bath and even the guillotine that killed Marie Antoinette.

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