... Marie Antoinette, which may not necessarily have been true, but where, nonetheless, widely believed by the people of France to be true. She was called the 'Austrian woman' which, in French, could be interpreted as 'bitch'. She was also disliked for her extravagant spending on clothes and jewellery and her gambling, and was also believed to be unfaithful to Louis. The American ambassador in France wrote that her '...gambling and extravagance have been a major cause of exhausting the government's finances...' So it seems likely that Marie Antoinette did little to improve her ineffectual husbands reputation and, if anything, helped to make matters much worse for him. Another major factor leading to the revolution in France was the growing unrest and discontentment among the people. Before the revolution the system in place was known as the ancient regime. This was similar to the feudal system in England during the 11th ...

See this essay or coursework document in full right now