The Life and Times of Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France. Remembered for her dysfunctional marriage, ridiculous hairstyles, remarkable beauty by the times standard, and lavish spending habits she is attributed to causing the resent that started the French Revolution and labeled her ‘Madame Deficit’. Marie Antoinette is infamous from France to our own Canada, one of history 's most well known and controversial women.
Marie Antoinette was born Maria Antonia Josepha Joanna in Vienna, Austria on the second of November, 1755. Born as the second last child to the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, Marie lived a childhood of luxury. Typical of the aristocratic girls of the time, Marie was educated …show more content…
A tutor was sent to Austria from the king, Louis XV, to teach his grandsons fiancee. Although she was more intelligent than expected Marie Antoinette was credited with laziness, frivolousness and being difficult to teach. This would unexpectedly foreshadow her rule as Queen, seen by her people as a bad ruler and expensive shopper. However when Marie was sent out to France for her wedding in May of 1770 her people had yet to gain a negative impression of the young Austrian Archduchess. Escorted by a whooping 57 carriages, 117 footmen and 376 horses Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste were married on the 16th of May in the same year as her arrival. Married at fourteen and far from home she found herself unprepared for the life she know led, sending frequent letters home to her mother out of homesickness. To add to her discomfort the young Austrian scorned the multiple rituals she was to perform as French lady of …show more content…
The radical new republic sentenced him to death and on the 21st of the same month his sentence was carried out by the guillotine and period known as the Reign of Terror began. Marie Antoinette, imprisoned in the Temple in Marais, was put on her own trial ten months later. Accused of treason and theft, as well as a false and disgusting charge of sexual assault against her remaining son Marie was found guilty by the all male jury. On October 16, 1783 the last Queen of France was executed. Her last words, to the priest present at the guillotine who told to have courage, were this “Courage? The moment when my ills are going to end is not the moment when courage is going to fail me.” Her son and Dauphine of France Louis XVII followed his parents to the grave on the 8th of June two years later, succumbing to the what most likely tuberculosis. Marie Theresa, her first born, was her last child to die, taking the blood of the French monarchy with her.
Buried in an unmarked grave behind the Church of Madeleine the once Queen of France lay as ordinary as the men and women she once presided over her. The cause of the Revolution, the women that drove the people of France to such ire they revolted against King and Crown, became the embodiment of Revolution ideals, “All men are
Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France. Remembered for her dysfunctional marriage, ridiculous hairstyles, remarkable beauty by the times standard, and lavish spending habits she is attributed to causing the resent that started the French Revolution and labeled her ‘Madame Deficit’. Marie Antoinette is infamous from France to our own Canada, one of history 's most well known and controversial women.
Marie Antoinette was born Maria Antonia Josepha Joanna in Vienna, Austria on the second of November, 1755. Born as the second last child to the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, Marie lived a childhood of luxury. Typical of the aristocratic girls of the time, Marie was educated …show more content…
A tutor was sent to Austria from the king, Louis XV, to teach his grandsons fiancee. Although she was more intelligent than expected Marie Antoinette was credited with laziness, frivolousness and being difficult to teach. This would unexpectedly foreshadow her rule as Queen, seen by her people as a bad ruler and expensive shopper. However when Marie was sent out to France for her wedding in May of 1770 her people had yet to gain a negative impression of the young Austrian Archduchess. Escorted by a whooping 57 carriages, 117 footmen and 376 horses Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste were married on the 16th of May in the same year as her arrival. Married at fourteen and far from home she found herself unprepared for the life she know led, sending frequent letters home to her mother out of homesickness. To add to her discomfort the young Austrian scorned the multiple rituals she was to perform as French lady of …show more content…
The radical new republic sentenced him to death and on the 21st of the same month his sentence was carried out by the guillotine and period known as the Reign of Terror began. Marie Antoinette, imprisoned in the Temple in Marais, was put on her own trial ten months later. Accused of treason and theft, as well as a false and disgusting charge of sexual assault against her remaining son Marie was found guilty by the all male jury. On October 16, 1783 the last Queen of France was executed. Her last words, to the priest present at the guillotine who told to have courage, were this “Courage? The moment when my ills are going to end is not the moment when courage is going to fail me.” Her son and Dauphine of France Louis XVII followed his parents to the grave on the 8th of June two years later, succumbing to the what most likely tuberculosis. Marie Theresa, her first born, was her last child to die, taking the blood of the French monarchy with her.
Buried in an unmarked grave behind the Church of Madeleine the once Queen of France lay as ordinary as the men and women she once presided over her. The cause of the Revolution, the women that drove the people of France to such ire they revolted against King and Crown, became the embodiment of Revolution ideals, “All men are