Student Question

After reading a letter from Queen Marie Antoinette defending her actions during the food shortage, how would you, as a peasant, respond? Do you support the revolution and her execution?

Quick answer:

As a peasant, after hearing Queen Marie Antoinette's letter defending her actions during the food shortage, I would feel angry and unsupported. Although not all issues may be her fault, her role in the oppressive system makes her culpable. The monarchy's failure to address the suffering of the peasantry justifies support for the revolution and potentially even her execution, as the entire system needs dismantling for true change.

Expert Answers

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First of all, as a peasant I cannot read or write. There's part of the problem. However, if someone read me the letter and I dictated my response, I would be angry. I would argue that as Queen it is her responsibility to take care of me. If she doesn't, she had better watch out.
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If Marie Antoinette wrote a letter to the peasantry that argued that the current monarchy was not responsible for the horrid conditions of the French peasantry, every peasant in France would have condemned her words.  Futhermore, it must not be forgotten that people who are hungry, people who witness their children hungry are capable of extraordinary acts of self preservation.  If I were of the peasant class in France 1789 I would warn our despotic Queen that good people who are hungry, and good people who have hungry children might be forced to use extreme...

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measures against their King and Queen if their King and Queen refuse to see the effect that their abuses and corruptions have had on the people of France.

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If I were to read such a letter (or have it read to me, as the above answer suggests) my response would read something like this.

Well, Queen, I agree that it's probably not all your fault.  But first of all, did you ever try to do anything to make things better for all of us?

But more than that, Queen, even if it's not all your fault, it IS the fault of the whole system that we have where the first two estates dominate us and have so many privileges.  You're part of that system and maybe even the second most important part.

So, maybe you don't deserve to die any more than any other individual.  But I think the whole system deserves to die.  That's why I support the Revolution.  And for the whole system to die, I think a lot of the important people in that system have to die.

I'm a little bit sorry it has to be that way... probably about as sorry as you truly were for all our problems.

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