Essay On Marie Antoinette

682 Words2 Pages

Madeline Hill P4
2/21/14
“I’m sorry, I did not mean to do it.” These were the last words of historical figure, Marie Antoinette, right before being executed for treason. Being viewed as very scandalous in her day, she lived a very interesting life: making the famous quote, “Let them eat cake,” and being accused of treason.
Marie Antoinette was born November 2nd, 1755, in Hofburg Palace, Vienna, France with the birth name Maria Antonia Josepha Joanna. Her parents were Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, and Empress Maria Theresa. She lived a very relaxed childhood, playing with common children. Her and her siblings were treated to gardens and menageries. The education she experienced was typical of an eighteenth century aristocratic girl, learning mostly about religious and moral subjects. While she held a close relationship with her older sister, Maria Carolina, her relationship with her mother was different. Marie Antoinette resented her mother and did not spend enough time trying to show love toward her. Her mother left raising the children to a governess and pawned off her daughters to different political figures as wives.
Marie Antoinette and Louis Auguste were pledged to marry each other in 1765 just months after Louis Augeste’s grandfather, Louis XV, the emperor of France, died. Marie Antoinette set out for France to be married, escorted by fifty-seven carriages, one hundred and seventeen footmen and three hundred and seventy-six horses in May of 1770. They were married on May 16th, 1770, although she was not ready for the marriage. She often wrote home saying that she was homesick, and felt uncomfortable with some of the practices in France. She was made queen at age nineteen. As far as personalities went, Louis and Marie Ant...

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...reason and theft and falsely for sexual abuse against her own son. After the two day trial, an all-male jury found Marie Antoinette guilty on all charges. Marie Antoinette was sent to the guillotine on October 16, 1793. In the moments before her execution, when the priest who was present told her to have courage, Marie Antoinette responded, "Courage? The moment when my ills are going to end is not the moment when courage is going to fail me."
There are two takes on her life: One is that she is a villain. While the other depicts her as a heroine of her time. Both of these opinions are proof of how her life was symbolic to the downfall of European Monarchies in the face of revolution. Thomas Jefferson once said, predicting the way Marie Antoinette would be viewed by posterity, "I have ever believed that if there had been no queen, there would have been no Revolution."

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