Marie-Antoinette E-Book

50MINUTES

• Herausgeber: 50Minutes.com
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Serie: History
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 33

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Keen to learn but short on time? Get to grips with the life of Marie-Antoinette in next to no time with this concise guide.

50Minutes.com provides a clear and engaging analysis of the life and reign of Marie-Antoinette. In 1789, a bloody revolution broke out in France, and four years later the king and queen were executed. A range of factors led to this shocking outcome, from Marie-Antoinette’s perceived frivolity and disloyalty to France to the role of an increasingly powerful and hostile press. Marie-Antoinette is one of the iconic figures of French history and continues to fascinate and divide opinion even today.

In just 50 minutes you will:
• Learn about Marie-Antoinette’s upbringing in Austria and her marriage to Louis XVI of France
• Evaluate her behaviour as dauphine and queen of France, which gave her a reputation for carelessness and frivolity
• Analyse how her reputation and reaction to the events of the French Revolution led to her unpopularity and downfall

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Leseprobe

Marie-Antoinette

Key information

Born: 2 November 1755 in Vienna.Died: 16 October 1793 in Paris.Role: Queen of France from 1774 to 1791.Key life events:The second-youngest child of Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor (1708-1765) and Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780), at the age of 14 Marie-Antoinette became a crucial pawn in the late 18th-century game of diplomatic alliances in Europe. Her mother, who wanted to secure an alliance with France, promised her in marriage to the dauphin Louis-Auguste (1754-1793), the grandson of Louis XV (1710-1774) and therefore heir apparent to the French throne. The two were married on 19 April 1770, first by proxy at the Augustinian Church in Vienna, and then at Versailles on 16 May 1770.When King Louis XV died on 10 May 1774, the dauphine became Queen of France and Navarre. The happy and cheerful new queen was in the middle of a brilliant society, among which were a few favourites. They lived a lavish life at the Palace of Versailles, the Petit Trianon and the Hameau de la Reine, surrounded by the schemes, gossip and intrigues of the court.Throughout the French Revolution, which began in 1789, she was the focus of the discontent of the populace, and her unpopularity grew until the royal family fled to Varennes on 20 June 1791, at which point all respect for her was lost. On 10 August 1792, revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace and imprisoned Marie-Antoinette in the Temple, which became a prison, and then in the Conciergerie until her execution. She was guillotined in the Place de la Révolution in Paris on 16 October 1793.Her premature death at the age of 37, at the height of the revolutionary upheaval, made her one of the foremost legendary figures in the history of France. At once the target of criticism and a subject of compassion, she opened up an inexhaustible and controversial debate.

Introduction

Marie-Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, grew up at the court in Vienna with her 15 brothers and sisters. At the age of 14, she married Louis-Auguste, the grandson of King Louis XV. Marie-Antoinette was now dauphine, and the young girl was released with no precautions into the middle of the intrigues of the court at Versailles, where countless rival factions opposed one another. When she became Queen of France on 10 May 1774, as the wife of the timid and simple Louis XVI, she led a frivolous and carefree existence centred around the theatre and games, away from all political wrangling. The victim of a smear campaign in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace which shook France in 1785-1786, she did not take care to protect her public image, which was gradually becoming tarnished.

While the Estates-General were threatening the monarchy, her second son, the dauphin Louis-Joseph (1781-1789), died in June 1789 at the age of eight. Disoriented and swept away by the revolutionary upheaval, she struggled in the middle of events that she did not fully grasp. She was placed under house arrest in the Tuileries Palace in 1790, before escaping along with the rest of the royal family to go to Varennes. However, she was stopped on the way and brought back to Paris by force in June 1791, where she was imprisoned in the Temple. After the execution of Louis XVI on 21 January 1793, her children were taken away from her. On 2 August, she was finally led to the Conciergerie as a prisoner to await her trial. She was sentenced by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 16 October 1793 and guillotined on the same day.

An iconic figure of the Royalist cause and exalted by Romantic historians during the 19th century, Marie-Antoinette nonetheless remains a controversial character, sometimes dismissed as an inconsequential beauty, sometimes seen as the Machiavellian influence behind the Counter-Revolution.

The life of Marie-Antoinette

A young archduchess in Vienna (1755-1770)

Marie-Antoinette was the 15th