Dagoty’s portrait of Marie Antoinette in 1775…

Dagoty’s portrait of Marie Antoinette in 1775 features the distinctive pouf style coiffure: her own natural blonde hair is extended on the top with an artificial hairpiece of great height and complexity.

The queen's situation becomes more precarious when, on August 6, 1775, her sister-in-law, the comtesse d'Artois, gives birth to a son, the duc d'Angoulême (who will later become the presumptive heir to the French throne when his father, the comte d'Artois, becomes King Charles X of France in 1824).

There follows a release of a plethora of graphic satirical pamphlets, which mainly center on the king's impotence and the queen's searching for sexual relief elsewhere, with men and women alike.

Among her rumored lovers are her close friend, the princesse de Lamballe, and her handsome brother-in-law, the comte d'Artois, with whom the queen has a good rapport.