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Legacy This is Marie Antoinette’s legacy, why she made history and the impact she had. Press to Play: media type="file" key="Marie Antoinette Soundtrack - 05 - New Order - Ceremony .mp3" width="240" height="20" align="center"

**Marie Antoinette’s legacy is composed of many factors, many of which are not true. ** Most widely known and remembered stories are of a young Queen of France who enjoyed and lived for the nightlife of France. With parties every night, gambling, dancing and indulging herself in ludicrous and expensive fashion. The strongly believed rumour of the naïve Queen saying, “If they cannot eat bread, let them eat cake!” encourages these ridiculous false accounts of Marie Antoinette being a wasteful, arrogant Queen who deserved to be ridiculed, separated from her family, deposed and executed. In truth Marie Antoinette was married off at a young age to the Dauphin (future King) of France. She was poorly educated in the ways of the French Court and ignored by her new husband Louis XVI, this resulted in her suffering from embarrassment and vicious rumours. To compensate, she indulged in extravagant fashion, taking pleasure in the nightlife of France with her few, yet close, friends. The money she spent made no impact on France’s debt, which had accumulated from years of War before her time. Although naïve, and completely incapable of running a country, Marie Antoinette was an innocent victim of a Revolution long overdue and subject to preposterous propaganda and rumours which only had a seed of truth. She was the last Queen of France, forced to play the part of scapegoat for a country suffering from starvation, war, debt and generations of greedy Monarchs.