Part I: IntroductionLouis XVI and Marie Antoinette ruled during a time when France was unstable and when the French Revolution took place. They were openly ridiculed due to their failure to produce an heir to the throne. People's anger was also focused on the fact that the royal family lived in Versailles, demonstrating alienation from French citizens. At this point in France, the debt was already large enough for the country to allocate most of its income to repaying the debt, but the newly crowned king did nothing to help this, in fact he made it worse. A regressive tax system was implemented to help the country avoid bankruptcy after a meeting in the States General where the poor now had to pay even more money. The Estates General was the meeting of all three estates, allowing them to vote on different issues in France. The diamond necklace affair destroyed the queen's reputation when the French believed she had taken part in a crime. The march to Versailles took place when Parisian women asked the royal family to return to Paris. The Escape to Varennes was an event during which the royal family attempted to escape Paris and travel to Austria, but were captured by the inhabitants of Varennes (“French Revolution”). With the debt, the Estates General, the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, the March on Versailles and the Flight to Varennes, the reputations of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were destroyed, ultimately leading to the French Revolution and their demise. Part II: Background informationLouis XVI, grandson of Louis In 1774, after assuming the heir to the throne as king, the people...... middle of paper...... France (Shusterman, 51-53). When Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were captured at Varennes and returned to the Tuileries Palace, absolutism was essentially abolished, and there was now a reason to kill the king (Jordan, 24-27). This affected the rest of Europe because they, too, fought in the French Revolution to try to restore the Absolute Monarchy. There were revolutionaries from the countries surrounding France and others. Austria was hit in a big way because this is the country Marie Antoinette is from. They tried to do everything they could to protect the royal family, including a threatening document stating that if the revolutionaries harmed the king or queen, Austria would kill the citizens. King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were one of the most important people in French history and a significant part of European history as a whole.