Marie Antoinette: Hero Or Villain

Marie Antoinette was the wife of King Louis XVI of France, she was an Austrian princess who was sent to France to marry the dauphin of France at fourteen years old. She spent her time dancing at parties, playing cards and shopping. Marie Antoinette was very profligate in her spending, she didn’t know about the people of France’s suffering, she was also a good person. Marie Antoinette is seen as a villain because she was oblivious to how much debt they were in and how the people were starving, she didn’t consummate her marriage early, she was arrogant and petty, but towards the end of her life she was a good person and great mother .

Marie Antoinette was sent to marry Louis-Auguste, the dauphin de France in 1768. She had grey-blue eyes and

ash blonde hair. He was introverted, shy and indecisive, and loved reading and metalwork and she was outgoing and bold, a social butterfly who loved gambling, partying and extravagant fashions.The young couple married on April 19, 1770, afterwards she would often stay up past midnight partying when her husband was already in bed and she woke up after 12 when Louis had been working for hours. There was no time to consummate their marriage. When Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette’s mother, found out that her daughter was yet to consummate her marriage after seven years of being married she sent her son Joseph II to fix the problem. Joseph II acted as sort of a marriage counselor for the young couple. Joseph II worked out the young couples issues and Marie Antoinette and Louis had a daughter named Marie Therese Charlotte. In order to have a successor to the throne Marie Antoinette had to have a boy, so when her first born was a girl she reportedly said “Poor little girl, you are not what was desired, but you are no less dear to me on that account. A son would have been property of the state. You shall be mine.” At first Marie Antoinette looked down on her husband, she eventually developed a genuine fondness for him. For his part, Louis was completely devoted to her and never took a mistress, this showed restraint which was very strange for an 18th-century French king. No one knows who was really at fault for not consummating the young marriage, but it is easy to blame Marie Antoinette because of her late night partying. Marie Antoinette was a strong willed vivacious woman, who did what she wanted. She had a small jealousy problem.
King Louis XV had a mistress by the name of Madame Du Berry.

Madame Du Berry was a very snobbish woman who was very full of herself. Marie Antoinette thought it beneath her to speak to the mistress and because of social ranking Madame Du Merry could not speak to Marie Antoinette unless Marie Antoinette spoke to her first. Her mother told her that it was unwise to snub the king's favorite, so one day she walked by her and said "There are a lot of people at Versailles tonight, aren't there” to Madame Du Berry. She later said to her mother "My duties here are sometimes hard to fulfill.” The way Marie Antoinette acted towards Madame Du Berry may seem iniquitous, but Madame Du Berry was equally to blame for the little feud. She didn’t usually interrupt her husband's work, but when she first got to France she interrupted an official German greeting with, "Speak French, Monsieur. From now on I hear no language other than French." Marie Antoinette was famous for her fashion, especially her extravagant wigs, she was once rumored to have worn a model of a ship on her powdered wig. The man behind her extravagant wigs was Leonard Autie, a country barber from the south of France who invented of the pouf. Marie Antoinette had a little village built so she could pretend she was a milkmaid, she enjoyed roaming her village with her daughter. She had a “little white dress” made which was shocking to all who saw her in it because when she wore she didn’t look like a queen. She was really into fashion, even though she was hated by most of the French people they still copied her

style.
The royal family attempted to escape France in June 1791, but they were captured and brought back to Paris. King Louis XVI was placed on trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death. On January 21, 1793, he was dragged to the guillotine and executed. Several months later an all-male jury found Marie Antoinette guilty as well and was also sentenced to death. On the night before her execution, she wrote a letter to her sister-in-law, Elisabeth. The letter reads "I am calm….as people are whose conscience is clear." Right before she was executed the priest who was present told her to have courage, in which she responded, "Courage? The moment when my ills are going to end is not the moment when courage is going to fail me." Her last words were "Pardon, monsieur, je ne l'ai pas fait exprès” which translates to “excuse me, sir, I did not mean to do it." When she accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot. Marie Antoinette did not seem very villainous in her last days, this is because as she got older she wasn’t as extravagant as she once was, but the damage was done she was already seen as the as the villain by the people.
Although she spent loads of money and was oblivious to the sufferings of the people of France, Marie Antoinette was a fairly good person. She was a loving mother that was very involved in her children's lives. She did not deserve to die the way she did. She was beheaded on October 16, 1793, by order of the Revolutionary tribunal. She was 37 years old. After her execution, they put her body in a coffin and buried it in an unmarked grave, and she stayed there till 1815 when King Louis XVIII returned to the throne following the exile of Napoleon, he ordered the bodies of his older brother, Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette exhumed and given a proper burial alongside other French royals inside the Basilica Cathedral of Saint-Denis. In conclusion, Marie Antoinette would be defined as a villainous hero, she is therefore a villain.