Question

The Queen of France responsible for the French Revolution was __________.
a. Queen Elizabeth
b. Queen Marie Antoinette
c. Queen Marie Teresa
d. Queen Isabella

Answer 1

Hint: This queen was the 15th child of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Maria Therese, the king and queen of Austria. She was also the last queen of France, her husband Louis XVI was guillotined by the public after the fall of the monarchy during the French revolution, the queen too met the same fate.

Complete answer: (i) When Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette took charge of the French empire, they were both 16 and 15 years old respectively.
(ii) Marie was an Austrian princess. After she got married to Louis XVI she had very few royal duties. So, she spent her time roaming around the palace gardens of the legendary Versailles.
(iii) Marie was infamous for being a spendthrift. She had a modern farm built on the palace ground where she and her friends could dress up as milkmaids and spend leisure time.
(iv) There were also a lot of rumours being circulated in France that made the queen’s image worse in people’s mind.
(v) Her spending habits had deeply hurt and offended the public, as France was going through an economic crisis and the majority population was starving.
Ultimately, Marie became the villain in the public eye, who was alone responsible for the crisis in France (this, of course, was not true). People became increasingly resentful.
Finally, in October 1789 an angry mob stormed Versailles and arrested the royal family.
In January 1793, Louis XVI was executed, then in July of the same year Marie was convicted of treason and sent to the guillotine, she was 37 years old.
Thus, the correct option is (b).

Note: The French revolution happened because the people of France had become intolerable towards the inefficient monarchy, many peasants had died because they didn’t have any money, prices of food were skyrocketing, heavy taxes were enforced on the poor whereas the rich nobles were exempted from paying taxes.