She was compared to the most dissolute women in history - Messalina, Agrippina, Theodora; she earned a reputation as the "high priestess of lesbian love." Her wastefulness was considered the main reason for the collapse of the French economy before the start of the revolutionary events. The terrible end on the scaffold under the knife of the guillotine surrounded the image of Queen Marie Antoinette with the aura of a martyr. What made King Louis XV choose a princess from the camp of former enemies as his wife to the heir to the throne of France? Why did the marriage of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette remain childless for seven years? What connected Marie Antoinette with her favorites, Princess Marie-Thérèse de Lamballe and Duchess Yolande-Gabrielle de Polignac? Why did the queen value the company of her male favorites so much? Who were considered the true fathers of the royal couple's children? Under what unusual circumstances was the Swedish king Gustav Adolf IV conceived? Was Swedish Count Axel von Fersen really Marie Antoinette's lover? Why did the royal family's escape from Paris fail? Was Marie Antoinette an innocent victim of the French Revolution? What fate does time have in store for the children and favorites of the executed monarchs?