Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony Featured Several Beheaded Marie Antoinettes as a Nod to France's History

The Olympic opening ceremony morbidly spoke to France’s history.

Clips from Friday’s event show the heavy metal band Gojira performing with the opera singer Marina Viotti, who were joined by several Marie Antoinettes who sang the famous song from the French Revolution, "Ah! Ça Ira!" per TMZ.

But the Antoinettes were… beheaded. Red fireworks cascaded into the sky—a reference to blood—and there was fire, as Gojira’s band members appeared in the windowsills of the Conciergerie. The building was where Marie was imprisoned before the revolution.

The performance paid homage to the country’s past and to the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution, which lasted 10 years, from 1789 to 1799.

Antoinette was France’s last queen. She married King Louis XVI in 1770 at the age of 14 and remained a queen consort until her husband officially became king in 1774. She was unpopular and highly controversial in her adopted country and later became known as Madame Déficit due to her extravagant spending.

A year after the monarchy was abolished in 1792, Louis XVI was executed by guillotine, and Marie’s own beheading soon followed.