Queen Marie Antoinette of France

Paper Summary:

This paper states that Marie Antoinette is probably one of the most remembered yet most misunderstood women in history. This paper points out that the life of Marie Antoinette was similar to the lives of most women in the 18th century. The paper relates that women, especially ones in royalty, were seen more as bargaining tokens than human beings, and marriages were not based on mutual love, respect or caring, but on some political alliance or property arrangement. The author underscores that Marie Antoinette was not only a pawn of historical circumstance but her excessive tastes, flippant wit and devotion to Catholicism contributed to the class animosity that underlay the French Revolution. The paper concludes that, if she and her husband King Louis XVI had been more focused on what France needed rather than themselves, the revolution could have been prevented.

From the Paper:

"Marie Antoinette was born to the great Austrian empress Maria Theresa on November 2, 1755. Maria Theresa was a woman who capably ran the Austrian monarchy even after her husband died, leaving her at a country that was clearly unwilling to accept a female monarch. As a young teenager, she was obliged to wed Louis XVI of France to symbolize an alliance made between Austria and France. Ironically, at the beginning of her marriage to the dauphin, Marie Antoinette was much loved by the French people for her kindness to peasants and her willingness to interact with her subjects."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Fraser, Antonia. Marie Antoinette: The Journey. New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 2006.
• Stanley Looms. The Fatal Friendship: Marie Antoinette, Count Fersen, and the flight to Verennes. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1972.
• Stefan Zweig: Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman. New York: The Viking Press, 1933.
• Desmond Seward. Marie Antoinette. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981.
• Rose and Chantal Thomas. The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999.

More papers on Queen Marie Antoinette of France:

• Analytical Essay # 123576 : "Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution"
• Term Paper # 50783 : "Reputations and Realities: Marie Antoinette"
• Film Review # 131182 : "'Marie Antoinette' on Film"

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