Furious With Marie As Their Queen example essay topic

Through the history of the world, the people of Earth have seen every kind of leader. We " ve seen good leaders, average leaders, and terrible leaders. Many cases in France's history they have had many leaders go through all of these ranks. For example, Napoleon Bonaparte started out great and slowly went down hill. But never in France's history have they seen such a terrible leader as King Louie the XVI. Louie was not exactly king material.

Louie was fat, shy, gluttonous, gentle, weak minded, not particularly smart and unambitious. He was everything a king shouldn't be. As the French king Louie made just about every mistake a king could possibly make. These mistakes lead to the French Revolution and even the beheading of King Louie.

Throughout Louie's rein one mistake stands out more than any other. The biggest mistake Louie made was when he bribed the Austrian princess Marie Antoniette at the age of fifteen. Because of Antoniette and Louie's passion for her France underwent a horrible time period. She is the worst queen France has ever seen. Blinded by beauty, she led to Louie's death and the uprising of the French people. Louie upon taking his first glance at Marie was breathtaking.

Marie Antoinette is depicted as an absolute beauty. But beauty is at the eye of the beholder, plus she was the queen so many portraits of her might have been fudged a bit to make the un beautiful seem gorgeous. Marie was actually not all that attractive. She had body problems, such as a hump and other deformities. Louie, despite the look of her, was in love at first sight.

In 1770 by ways of bribes and offers to the Antoinette family the two were married. The bribe to get Marie's hand in marriage was one of the first mistakes that Louie had faced. Louie showered Marie with jewelry and hundreds of dresses. Marie got exactly what she asked for every time she asked for it. This had a horrible affect on the economy in France.

All of this buying of dresses and jewelry for the queen was depleting the French money. She was said to have dresses of gold. Some dresses even were covered in diamonds. Marie had a huge amount of dresses all different and all extravagant. There is little doubt that Marie was one of the most well dressed queens in France's history. Not only did she need dresses, she wanted many other exotic things.

She demanded parties for her and her friends and even made a small scale model of Paris. With all of this it is obvious that Marie was a big problem when it comes to the French money. Another way that Marie loved to give away the French money was when some radicals from America came. These radicals asked Louie for some aid in the American Revolution.

The money borrowed by these radicals was promised to be paid back. Marie thought this idea was a great investment and urged Louie to fund these radicals. Well the radicals won and France saw no money for their help. France was in a great depression. France was bankrupt. On top of this was a drought in France making the cost of living skyrocket but the wages of the people stayed the same.

This is a cause of the people of France to get increasingly mad at the leaders. For these reason tells what a terrible lady this was. To me Marie is a perfect example of the woman stereotype. She was the materialistic queen that demanded everything from the king. The queen would even threaten the king with divorce if the king did not give her exactly what he wanted. So this weak minded king knowing the country was running low on money gave the queen everything she asked for without question.

This is just one of the reasons that Marie was a plague on France. The French people were outraged. Here they are, thousands of peasants that work as hard as they can and struggle to live, then a drought comes, the living wages rise and now their kids are starving. While all of these is going on, the queen is picking out her next dress. Even with all the gifts from kind king Louie that just was not enough for the queen. Marie was very promiscuous.

She was often see with many other men and had a lot of affairs. So not only was she a terrible queen she was a horrible wife as well. It is totally obvious that Marie was the worst queen France has seen. She was given everything she wanted but that was not enough for her.

One of these affairs got her in a lot of trouble in the world famous diamond necklace affair. The diamond necklace affair was a con against the queen. The queen actually had no involvement in this con but the blame was put to her and this was a huge reason that the French people started to hate this Austrian lady. The con started with a con-woman named Jeanne de St Remy de Valois. What this woman did was con a Cardinal named Louis de Rohan.

It was said that Marie did not favor Rohan very much because Rohan talked poorly about the queen to her mother. Well Rohan wanted Marie to like him because Rohan wanted to be the Prime Minister. Valois, who was aware of this, thought up a naughty little trick to get herself some cash. The con went pretty well. What Valois did was she made Rohan believe that Marie was actually in love with him.

She told Rohan that she speaks for the queen and that the queen really enjoyed him and started a fake affair between the two. Rohan decided that he wanted a secret meeting with the queen herself. Valois went and got a dress similar to that of the queen's and actually pretended to be the queen. The "queen" convinced Rohan to purchase a necklace for her and she was going to repay the Cardinal. The Cardinal went to the jewelers and told them that the queen wanted this necklace and if they gave it to him he would repay them with the queen's money.

The jewelers gave the necklace to the Cardinal and he took it to Valois. It was said that Valois took the necklace to London and sold it. A theory on why Valois made this con was to get money to get a higher social class. After a while the jewelers went to the queen in order to receive these payments for the necklace and the queen told them that she never ordered the necklace. The queen investigated and the Cardinal and some others were arrested and Valois seemed to get away with this con. This all may not have been Marie's fault but the whole incident did not help Marie's popularity.

Gossip swept the country with stories of Marie and her affairs with other men and the people got even more furious with Marie as their queen. Also as a result of this Louie was to become aware of his wife's secret life drawing him closer to her. This lady was terrible to France. She would spend and spend and would give nothing back. The logical thing for this queen to do would be to stop spending. If she stopped spending money and buying her dresses and jewelry then the country would not lose as much money.

This was the exact intent of Louie's financial advisor Turgot. "yes, I have made up my mind: M. Turgot she have finance". This was a quote from the king himself. It is obvious that Turgot was an important man in the King's life. I know that you are determined and upright and that I could not make a better choice" stated the king to Turgot. Turgot used his common sense to help the financial depression that France was in. Turgot basically tried to tax landowners and put a stop to the queen's spending.

The reforms that Turgot proposed where not popular with most people. Turgot's plans where not popular to important people in France. They did not want to pay taxes. Marie did not like Turgot. He wanted to put a stop to her spending. So the king dismissed Turgot.

Turgot was a bright man. He did want he had to, to help France. France was out of money and he did the smart thing to get it back. One of the big reason's he got dismissed was because he wanted to put a stop to the queen's spending.

Allowing the queen to spend money was the only reason that she stayed with the king. She would threaten the king with divorce and would basically pull Louie's strings. So the king had no other choice, he fired Turgot and hired another. This was a major problem.

If Turgot's plans would have went through the revolution might not have happened. One of the biggest problems with Marie Antoinette is she was totally oblivious to the welfare of the people. She was born into royalty and lived it her whole life. She had no idea that people everywhere were starving because of her spending.

She did not know that the people were getting increasingly mad at her. She did not know that she was unpopular with the French people. In all reality the French people hated her. They gossiped about her and blamed her for a lot of the problems France faced. There is a famous rumor about Marie Antoinette.

In October 1789, the women of French got increasingly mad. Their children were starving so they decided to ban together and a group of about 20,000 women marched to Versailles. The women stood outside of the queen's palace complaining and wanting change. Queen Antoinette had no idea why the women where there. When told of why the women where out there the legend goes that Marie replied "well if they are hungry, let them eat cake". This of course is a rumor that got mixed up with the true.

Marie may not have actually said this comment but the rumor did start and for years people believed this rumor. The whole rumor about her implies a few things about her. One, she is obviously viewed by many people as ignorant enough to say something this insensitive comment. Also it explains how much the queen really did not understand the well being of the people she was running. Marie ignorance for the French people was shown many times throughout her rein. When the revolution was getting ready and everyone was as mad as they could be Marie made another stupid mistake.

She decided that the people of France needed to just see her. She thought a glimpse of her would be enough to calm the people down. So what she did was rode in her carriage through the streets of Paris waving at the people in her nice little gown. This to the people was just a slap in the face and just made the people increasingly mad at her. With all these examples of how she was a terrible thing to happen to France she unintentionally sparked a conflict with Austria.

Marie was Austrian born. Her family ruled Austria. When the revolution got bad and the fear for Marie's life increased Austria wanted her back. The French people on October 16, 1793 the revolutionaries put Marie Antoinette to death by guillotine. This really made Austria mad at France making them a enemy to France. For all of these reasons and more I believe that the biggest reason for the downfall of Louis XVI and the French revolution is Marie Antoinette.

There is hundreds of cases where you can go through and point to different mistakes Marie made. If it was not for this woman history would be a lot different as we know it. France may not have went through all the hell they went through in the years following. Marie Antoinette was the worst mistake Louis XVI made in his rein of France.

Bibliography

Conrad, Lindsay, Who was more detrimental to the French Revolution: Marie Antoinette or Louis XVI? , web Bernard, Louis XVI The End of a World, (London: W.H. Allen, 1968) Furn eaux, Rupert, The Last Days of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, (New York: The John Day Company, 1971 Wikipedia encyclopedia, Affair of the Diamond Necklace, web Necklace Affair.