Queen Marie - Antoinette and Her Contribution to French History

Queen Marie-Antoinette and her contribution to French history

The life of Queen Marie-Antoinette was marred with a lot of controversies, which are being analyzed today for its veracity. This easy shall dig deep into the early life of Queen Marie-Antoinette and how she ended up in the royal family in France and how she contributed to the French Revolution, which is a huge part of the French history. Also, an overview of the situation surrounding her predicament; which eventually led to her death shall be mentioned which; in the context of this write-up is the French Revolution.

Previous to the queen becoming part of the French, she was Maria Antonia Josepha from Austria, the fifteenth child of her parents. Her parents were Roman Emperor Francis I and Maria Theresa. Her mother was the archduchess of Austria and the Holy Roman Empress as well as Queen of Hungary and Bohemia (Grolier, 1998). That means that Queen Marie-Antoinette came from a royal family in Austria. As a sign of peace deal between Austria and France, after seven-year war, she was married to Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France (Grolier, 1998). In essence, she was the atoning sacrifice used to sustain the peace deal between France and Austria.

After the marriage, she was not much of influence but after the death of Louis XV in May 1774, Louis-Auguste, Dauphin became the next monarch and was addressed as Louis XVI (Fraser, 2001). Meanwhile, the contribution of Queen Marie-Antoinette to the French Revolution was directly not her own making (Castelot, 1957). There has been animosity between France and Austria because of years of fighting war. It is apparent that the French used her betrothal and marriage to Louis-Auguste, Dauphin as an opportunity to fight for revolution that was waiting to happen in France (Fraser, 2001).

When Louis XVI took over the mantle of leadership, there were underlying problems, which the general French society was averse to. France had being under monarchy for many years but due to changing trend in the world, like the American Revolution, France was already gearing towards a revolution but was looking for something as an excuse for the revolution.

Louis XVI was left to handle the problems he inherited. These problems included: extreme national financial crises due to the seven years war fought by France; general and nationwide poor harvest which led to very high prices of bread and other foodstuffs which the general populace could not afford but the nobility could easily afford it; payment of taxes on crop by the Roman Catholic Church since most lands in France belong to the church; refusal of the majority of the French people to be continuously ruled by the nobility and royalty (Grolier, 1998).

These and many others problems were the reasons why the French Revolution was agitated. As was expected of the Queen, Queen Marie-Antoinette spent quite a lot of money on attires and jewelry (Fraser,