Do you like or hate Marie Antoinette?

Question

I just wrote a 7 page research paper on why should not have been executed, and that she is one of the most misuderstood figures in history.

Just wondering what people's thoughts of her were in the present day! Thanks :)

Thanks, your answers are excellent!
I just wanted to clear up the whole let them eat cake thing:

The original The French is Qu'ils mangent de la brioche. It has been suggested that the speaker's intention wasn't as cynical as is generally supposed. French law required bakers to sell loaves at fixed prices and fancy loaves had to be sold at the same price as basic breads. This was aimed at preventing bakers from selling just the more profitable expensive products. The let them eat brioche (a form of cake made of flour, butter and eggs) would have been a sensible suggestion in the face of a flour shortage as it would have allowed the poor to eat what would otherwise have been unaffordable. It's rather a mouthful, so to speak, but if the phrase had been reported as 'let them buy cake at the same price as bread' we might now think better of the French nobility

Answer 1

I believe that Marie Antoinette was near oblivious to the times surrounding her. She was infatuated with having the best clothing, the best mansions, the best everything. And she had her husband wrapped around her finger, doing everything to please her. You combine that with very violent and overly militant army of starving peasants, anyone will obviously see WHY she was killed. However I think that her actions, though neglecting the interest of the common public, did not merit death. The militant peasants were much more violent and almost oppressive than were our American forefathers in the American revolution. The french sought utter domination and retribution, our forefathers sought independance and separation. They had swung all the way from a monarchy to a mobocracy. Marie Antoinettes should have been held prisoner, and sentenced by a jury of her peers. That would have been just to her, and would have fulfilled what the french were looking for in their revolution, to protect the rights of man.

Answer 2

Neither. She was just caught in an unfortunate time-warp.
She was less extravagant than many of her predecessors.
She was subjected to a sustained campaign of obscene vituperation by the Duke of Orleans.
A lot of the things she lost prestige over were not the old things but misguided attempts to move with the times like wearing potato flowers and a straw hat. (Rather similar to the British Royal family and Royal It's a Knockout, or the disastrous tea-with-Indira Christmas message).
The 'let them eat cake' is much older.
The terrible conditions of the French peasants are largely a myth invented to excuse the brutality of the Revolution.

Answer 3

There is no reason why I should hate her. Being French, I am attached to the values brought about in my country by the Revolution, but at the same time, I think that the executions of the royal family should have been avoided. Marie-Antoinette suffered a lot, and so did her young son Louis (during his mother's trial, he was forced to say that he had had an incestuous relationship with her, which was of course untrue).

Answer 4

Never met her, so I have no opinion. Do you mean do I think she is the Paris Hilton of her time or has she been tainted by history, then it is the latter. Some scapegoat had to be found for the end of that lot of Bourbons, and the foreign wife of the king suited the apologists

Answer 5

She was a product of her times. The horrible living conditions of the French peasant was not created by her or her husband. But they did not help alleviate the situation, but at that time in history did rulers alleviate the misery of the poor?
It was just a fact of life, and in many circles the idea of "the poor will always be with us" was heartily believed in. In many cases this philosophy still exists, the super rich are still here and the abject poor are still here also. .

Answer 6

they most certainly shouldn't. the french have always been a bit on the slow side though. the two best things to every emerge from france, marie antoinette :an austrian nicolas sarkozy: a czech

Answer 7

She was an ignorant , the way she lived was all she knew, & the way nobility had always lived. So she was a victim of circumstance, although the system was guilty for its treatment of the French people.

Answer 8

Actually, she was very representative of the nobility in her day. She was clueless as to how brutal the nobility had been for years to the peasants, so ignorant that when they rebelled and she was told they were hungry, she said, "let them eat cake." That just tells you how out of touch the woman was with reality. She was pathetic, so much so, it is hard to hate her or love her.

Chow!!

Answer 9

I think she was way too young and immature to rule (first of all) No one really told her what was in her job description. I really liked her because when you think of her u think of excess. It would be great to live like she did. To say the least her life AND death were spectacular something most of us will not have.

Answer 10

Well she was pretty crude and selfish to the poor. Though she might have made some changes with her royal status, her treatment to the lower classes is pretty unforgivable.