Louis XVI And Marie Antoinette: The French Revolution

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France was a strong country that had a strong military force but it’s biggest problem was the weak monarchy. The monarchs at the time were Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. She was an Austrian born queen of France, who was later overthrown and executed by guillotine. She was the daughter of the empress of Austria, Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor, Francis I. Marie Antoinette had a hard childhood due to the many death and adversities that happened to her at a young age. She had obtained an education that was common for a girl in an aristocratic family at the time. The education mostly focused on religious and moral principles. While her brothers could study more scholarly subjects like mathematics and science. When the Seven Years' War ended …show more content…
The king, Louis XVI was generous by nature, but his manners were brusque, cold and formal. His advisors always marked that he has a look of compassion every time he was told about the disasters of the people. The people in France in the 18th suffered food shortages and many starved to death. The people in France were divided into three estates, the groups that specified your social status in France. The first estate consisted clergy, second was the nobility and the third was the rest of the population. The two upper estates had a lot of privileges like exemption to pay taxes which infuriated the third estate because they had to pay high taxes even thought their wages were really low. Harvests increased the prices of grain all across France and Marie’s excessive lifestyle progressively became the issue of popular discussion and rage. People accused the queen of “ignorаnce, extrаvаgance аnd аdultery”, some did it via propaganda cartoons and others called her ‘Madame Deficit’ because she spent a lot of money while people were starving. One of the main reasons was the Age of Enlightenment, the people of France began questioning themselves if it was the right way to live their lives and the doubted the power of monarchy, which later led to the fall of monarchy. France was an absolute monarchy with a weak monarch. Louis XVI Louis XVI favored his own hobbies to the court intrigues. He loved hunting and fishing more than his own wife because he could spend week doing it. He was incapable of string decisive actions and he was very indecisive. France had some financial difficulties, the government had large debts with heavy interest caused by extravagant spending of money on courts, primarily on Marie Antoinette. I think Marie spent all the money on herself because she tried to make her existence at Versailles little bit better since she could not do

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