What are some of Marie Antoinettes acheivments?
She contributed a lot of money to welfare and the needy, as did
Louis XVI: At the fireworks celebrating the marriage of the young
prince and princess in May 1774, there was a stampede in which many
people were killed. Louis and Antoinette gave all of their private
spending money for a year to relieve the suffering of the victims
and their families. Marie-Antoinette's reputation for sweetness and
mercy became even more entrenched in 1774, when as the new Queen
she asked that the people be relieved of a tax called "The Queen's
belt," customary at the beginning of each reign. "Belts are no
longer worn," she said. Louis XVI often visited the poor in their
homes and villages, distributing alms from his own purse. During
the difficult winter of 1776, the King oversaw the distribution of
firewood among the peasants. Louis was responsible for many
humanitarian reforms. He went incognito to hospitals, prisons, and
factories so as to gain first-hand knowledge of the conditions in
which the people lived and worked. The King and Queen were patrons
of the Maison Philanthropique, a society founded by Louis XVI which
helped the aged, blind and widows. The Queen taught her daughter
Madame Royale to wait upon peasant children, to sacrifice her
Christmas gifts so as to buy fuel and blankets for the destitute,
and to bring baskets of food to the sick. Marie-Antoinette took her
children with her on her charitable visits. The Queen adopted three
poor children to be raised with her own, as well overseeing the
upbringing of several needy children, whose education she paid for,
while caring for their families.
Marie Antoinette established a home for unwed mothers, the
"Maternity Society," mentioned above.
There was food for the hungry distributed every day at
Versailles, at the King's command. During the famine of 1787-88,
the royal family sold much of their flatware to buy grain for the
people, and themselves ate the cheap barley bread in order to be
able to give more to the hungry.
Every Sunday, Marie-Antoinette would personally take up a
collection for the poor, which the courtiers resented since they
preferred to have the money on hand for gambling. The queen
supported several impoverished families from her own purse.
Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette contributed a great deal
throughout their reign to the care of orphans and foundlings. They
patronized foundling hospitals, which the Queen often visited with
her children.
The king and queen did not see helping the poor as anything
extraordinary, but as a basic Christian duty. The royal couple's
almsgiving stopped only with their incarceration in the Temple in
August 1792, for then they had nothing left to give but their
lives.