Marie Curie

“He wanted to be a good king and help his subjects, but he faced enormous debt and rising resentment towards a despotic monarchy . . . Louis lacked sufficient strength of character and decisiveness to combat the influence of court factions or give support to reformers in their efforts to improve France 's government” (qtd. in “Louis XVI). The last king of France, King Louis XVI ruled during the French Revolution until he was eventually overthrown and executed. The French Revolution occurred due…

One sure way to make even the closest of friends hate you is to be a traitor. Nobody likes a traitor. Turn against your friends, your military, or your country and you may go down in history for your treachery. People will hate you for years and years to come. Judas Iscariot, who some Christians may recognize as the man who betrayed Jesus Christ, is still taught about and looked down on today. Benedict Arnold and Robert Hanssen, two American traitors, were passionately hated for years until…

build up. For the period of 15 months, it is believed that over 40,000 people who were believed to be or were counter-revolutionaries were executed by guillotine. This including King Louis XVI’s wife and France’s last queen Marie Antoinette. Along the same route as her husband, Marie was placed on trial for high treason and was found guilty. She is executed nine months after King Louis XVI on 16 October…

"No body and no individual may exercise authority which does not emanate from the nation expressly..." (Source E). This quote, from the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizens, is one of the many ideas that came after consistent agitation in France before the beginning of the French Evolution. Starting at the roots of King Louis ' unreliable rule and ending in a forceful voice from the third estate, France entered a chain of chronological causes that brought a desperate need for Revolution;…

Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette has been at the center of movie critic controversy since its release. It has been regarded as stylistically beautiful and fun to watch, while also accused of being devoid of any historical significance. While the film nods its head to popular culture, it does follow the life of the Austrian Archduchess turned French Queen Marie Antoinette. The film opens as Marie Antoinette begins her journey to France to meet her future husband, Louis Auguste (Louis…

Olympe de Gouge was a French revolutionary writer in the 18th century. Gouge was well educated and relocated to Paris after the death of her husband with the hopes of becoming a playwright and political pamphleteer (Frankforter, 491). Although she also wrote about the abolition of slavery, she is most famous for her document Declaration of the rights of Women (Frankforter, 491). It was her persistence to influence revolutionary change for woman’s rights that resulted in her execution by the…

Let them eat cake. This short, yet powerful statement, is attributed to the French monarch, Marie Antoinette, and she can be seen saying it in the 2006 movie titled Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola. The movie follows the life of the young queen after she arrives from Austria and is thrust into a lavish life as the new Dauphine of France. However, much like the powerful statement of ‘let them eat cake’, which is falsely attributed to Antoinette, many points of this movie fell short of any…

Edmund Burke’s famous essay, “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” has expressed great disappointment and disapproval of the French Revolution. Burke has constantly attacked French revolutionaries who he claimed bypassed France’s ancestors and founding fathers to construct a new society from scratch. This paper will address three main points of the assigned section which are: disregard of old system in France, reasons against the Enlightenment and the sophists it has created. Lastly,…

Modern History Essay Draft Comte de Mirabeau claimed that “In time of anarchy one may seem a despot in order to be a saviour.” This is evident in the French Revolution, specifically the Terror (1793-1794), which was a period of anarchy in France. A despot refers to government which holds all the power and uses it in an oppressive and tyrannical way. The revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre seemed despotic during the Terror, through several of his actions such as; his exploitation of fear,…

Treason is an extremely dangerous that not only challenges the authority of the monarch, but also endangers the life the monarch, as well as the lives of others. One instance in which the monarch’s life was threatened was the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. This plot was an unsuccessful assassination attempt against King James I and the Parliament of England on November 5, 1605. This plot was organized by Robert Catesby and group of English Catholics, which included Guy Fawkes. This group wanted to end…