Credit: This painting still hangs at Versailles.
After the dethroning of King Louis XVI and his arrest in 1791, a group of American investors and Royalist sympathizers, including Philadelphia merchant Stephen Girard, decided to create a haven for Queen Mary Antoinette and French royalists in the wilds of northern Pennsylvania. On October 16, 1793, Mary Antoinette was beheaded in Paris. The next spring a small band of French refugees arrived at Azilum, a new settlement of about 30 rough-hewn log homes.
