Marie Antoinette Information

Archive for March, 2010

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How Did The French Revolution Began

Question: Marie Antoinette – French Revolution Essay Help!!?

‘The Responsibility for the French Revolution was hers and hers alone.’ How far is this interpretation justified?

(her being Marie Antoinette)

My teacher expects v. good standards.

Tell me what paragraphs I should write about and I can write well but I am stuck on what to write about and where to begin. I think that the French Revolution would have started without her; but it wouldn’t have started when it did. ie:- as quickly

Thanks
any help appreciated

Answer: Maybe it was hers alone in a way that she was the representative of all that ostentation, opulence and being a more visible figure bore the brunt of the plebeian ire. Anyway she was the queen and therefore the most well know guillotinee. Watch the movie with Kirsten Dunst in it. I think she was probably 18 or 19 at the time and can’t be held accountable for her actions.
Trace her origins. Was she a 18th century Paris Hilton? How did she become queen. Was her mind totally bereft of brains. She never really asked that the people eat cake. It’s just attributed to her.

La Revolution Française

The French Revolution Blake

Question: What genre is William Blake’s “Infant Sorrow”?

I want to say lyric but I’ve always been terrible at identifying genres of poetry– can anyone help? Also, am I correct in saying that the cultural context of this poem was the end of the French Revolution, thus a time where Blake would have a more negative worldview?

Answer: William Blake was a Romantic poet, writing in the era of Romanticism. He was a writer of lyrical ballads, and I would agree with you about the lyric part, but I would also look into conversation poems. As for the cultural context, I would see the French Revolution not as providing a negative world view, but a positive one. Romantic poets usually saw the French Revolution as a breaking of unfair class strictures, and a freeing of the rustic. It was also the time of the Industrial Revolution, and this would have led Blake to a more negative worldview, as the Industrial revolution involved the destruction of nature, and man moving away from both God and nature (which to the Romantics were intimitly connected) and more towards a capitalist/greed centred view, which had more focus on the needs of the individual rather than humanity as a whole. Blake’s poetry in particular was focused on the transition from innocence to experiance, and in a way the French Revolution represented that too. I would be focus on linking the cultural context of the time to a loss of innocence and how this effected Blake’s poetry.
hope this helps!

William Blake’s Songs of Dissent Part 2

What Was The French Revolution About

Question: What’s some good historical fiction about the French Revolution?

I’ve really gotten into the French Revolution, and I was wondering if anyone here has any suggestions for historical fiction (or even entertaining non-fiction) that they would recommend reading. Please and thank you.

Answer: Non-fiction:

Christopher Hibbert–Days of the French Revolution
Simon Schama–Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
William Doyle–Oxford History of the French Revolution
RR Palmer–Twelve Who Ruled
Ruth Scurr–Fatal Purity: Robespierre & the French Revolution
David Andress–The Terror
Georges Levebvre–The French Revolution
Norman Hampson–Danton
–The Life & Opinions of Maximilien Robespierre
–A Social History of the French Revolution
Claude Manceron–Age of the French Revolution, 5 vols.:
–vol. 1: Twilight of the Old Order
–vol. 2: The Wind From America
–vol. 3: Their Gracious Pleasure
–vol. 4: Toward the Brink
–vol. 5: Blood of the Bastille
Antonia Fraser–Marie Antoinette: The Journey
George Rude–The Crowd in the French Revolution
Jean Orieux–Talleyrand: The Art of Survival
JM Thompson–Leaders of the French Revolution

Marie Antoinette Negative

Question: marie antoinette- can you please tell me some french revolution historians who portrayed marie negatively?

i would apreciate any historians who prortayed her un a negative light so i can contrast it to the modern historians:)

Answer: Jean Jacques Frauix was one of them…

Jason Schwartzman Slideshow

French Revolution Enlightenment Ideals

Question: Can anyone help me with this essay question?? Its about the French Revolution…?

I have an essay test in 2 days and this is my question..any input would be nice..its for AP world history. Thanks!

“Assess whether the French Revolution was the realization or betrayal of the ideals of the Enlightenment. ”

Answer: It was a resounding repudiation of the Enlightenment.

According to the 18th century French journalist, Jacques Mallet du Pan, the works of the philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau, were the “Koran of the revolutionaries.” Consequently, the failures of the revolution can be directly linked to the flaws in Rousseau’s philosophy.

In “The Social Contract,” Rousseau maintained that “Civil Society” emerges from the creation of a “General Will” among the people. The people create this will, and in doing so yield their sovereignty to it. In this regard, Rousseau is in line with the earlier English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, whose works were later repudiated by the Enlightment’s most successful political philosopher, John Locke.

Locke maintained that people never yield their soveriegnty to the state, but merely “lend” it based on the continuing good behavior of the government; and that should the government be destructive of the ends for which it was created, the people have the right to replace that government any time they wish. This interpretation informed Thomas Jefferson’s views on government which he wrote in the Declaration of Independence.

Both Hobbes and Rousseau believed that the surrender of soveriegnty was permanent. This was a huge mistake. But Rousseau makes more mistakes.

He also maintained that freedom was only possible within the General Will, and that if people did not wish to join, they should be compelled to do so. In other words, since freedom is good, and freedom is only possible within the General Will, the people should be “forced” to be “free.” The idea of force as a means of getting people to do what you want them to do, and justifying it on the basis that you know better, and are therefore doing the right thing, flies in the face of the basic paradigm of “Liberty” and the “Rights of the Individual” which lay at the center of Enlightenment thought.

Rousseau exacerbates the problem by announcing that the actions of the General Will are infalible. The General Will can do no wrong. Therefore he is giving absolute power without checks to individuals who will wield the power of the General Will. This was a repudiation of the basic Enlightenment ideals as expressed by both Locke, and another Enlightenment philosopher, the Baron du Montesquieu, whose 1748 book, “The Spirit of Laws” called for limited government through separation of powers, and widespread civil rights and liberties for all.

Enter Robbespierre.

Robbespierre was a committed disciple of Rousseau who saw himself as the embodiment of the revolution and the General Will of the people. He enacted massive reforms which were slow to take hold. And frustrated by the slow pace of reform, Robbespierre resorted to widespread terror as a means of getting what he wanted.

The idea of terror as a means of effecting social change is totally out of sinc with Enlightenment values, but is the inevitable consequence of following a flawed political philosophy that accepts force as a means of compliance, and accords infalibility to those who act in the name of the people.

The resulting chaos of the Terror, caused the fall of Robbespierre, and the eventual rise of the dictatorship of Napoleon. Neither of these men is indicative of Enlightenment values.

The ideals of the Enlightenment were about the liberation of the individual FROM government, and the limitation of government to impose itself on the individual. Men like Locke, Jefferson and Montesquieu were indicative of that trend. Men like Hobbes, Rousseau, Robbespierre and Napoleon were the antithesis of that vision. And as the French Revolution was the product of the later group, it must be viewed as a repudiation of the Enlightenment’s core values.

Hope this gives you some ideas. Cheers.

Russell Shorto: Choose Your Enlightenment