Last Moments of Marie Antoinette

Last Moments of Marie Antoinette

On the morning of 16th of October 1793, the city of Paris rushed to the great Place de la Révolution, where

a massive guillotine and high scaffold was erected at its center for all to see. Each of those gathered knew well

that the spectacle they were about to see at noon would be no seen both in centuries prior and centuries long after: the beheading of a Queen. The only problem, the Queen herself: Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France of 18 years and the single person blamed for almost all of France's ills, was only told she would loose her head less than a handful of hours ago.

The night before Marie Antoinette's death saw the Last vestiges of her royal dignity stripped away. In the

previous months, the former Queen of France lost her husband to the guillotine, was forcible separated from her children, had seen her best friend, Princess de Lamballe mutilated, and her naked, headless body dragged through the streets of Paris and her head impaled on a spear by the revolutionaries. These were but a fraction of the horrors the Queen personally endured. When she was

seperated from her children, she was locked away in a cold cell without any privacy what so ever and constantly

surrounded by a flock of guards who watched her every move, even at the most private of moments.

On the night of 15th October, she was summoned to a rigged court where she was already ordained to die,

since the guillotines have already been erected. During the procedures, a panel of Revolutionary judges accused

her of a variety of treason, conspiracy and collusion with domestic and foreign enemies. All of this she endured for hours, but what broke the proud woman was when the judges insinuated that she had committed incest by sleeping with her 8 year old son (based on a popular rumor

frequently mocked and repeated in Paris) this more than anything broke her, and after struggling with her emotions, made her respond with the famous response: "Tappeal to

all mothers!" Throughout the trial, Marie-Antoinette, very pale, physically exhausted, but as imposing as ever in her patched-up black dress, defends herself with energy and dignity. The long trial lasted until late into the night and was concluded around 3 in the morning of the 16th with the pronouncement that the former Queen must loose her head.

Marie-Antoinette is taken back to her cell, and although on the brink of collapse from exhaustion,

fetcheda pen, some ink and paper and wrote several letters. One of them for her locked away children, and another for the King's imprisoned sister and her friend Madame Elisabeth. Despite her wishes, the prison wardern

would never deliver those letters to her son and her sister in law, and both died before they were able to hear

from the former Queen.By 7:00 AM, Rosalie Lamorlière, a young servant who has been attending to the former

Queen, brought her a bowlof soup with a thin sprinkling of noodles in them, however the Queen politely refused

to eat. "1 do not need anything anymore" responds Marie-Antoinette. "All is over for me." But upon the girl's

insistence she drank a few spoonful of the soup.

She is informed that she is not to wear her black dress to her execution. She puts on her only other remaining

garment: a white cotton dress, with a black petticoat, black pose and garters, and a white cap adorned with

black ribbon. She has been bleeding profusely (she was suffering from untreated hemorrhoids) and wishes to

change her shirt. However despite her entreaties to the officers for some privacy, they refused to turn away from

her changing. She must do so, only shielded by Rosalie, in the presence of the watching guards.

The prison warden arrives with the court clerk, a judge, and a preist, as well as the executioner Henri Sanson and his aids, they found her kneeling by her bed, in prayers. The executioners cut her hair for decapitation and tied her hands behind her back. Louis XVľs hands were not tied until he reached the foot of the guillotine, but the deposed Queen will receive far less consideration than her late husband. Outside, Paris's street was so congested that the avenue which led from the prison to the guillotine

was lined with several rows of national guards that cleaveda sea of spectators in half for several blocks. Once she leaves the prison she would be watched by a whole city. When she was lead to Cour du Mai, the inner courtyard of the prison, another indignity awaited her. Rather than a stagecoach to lead her to her execution, a privilege once granted to her husband, for her, only a dirty tumbril (a vendor or fruitseller's dirty, open aired wagon) was prepared for her filled with a flooring of dirty straws.

Feeling her bowls loosen- and to prevent the body's reactions after death, the former Queen requested that she would be allowed to relieve herself. The guards initially refused her request, but after some entreaties, the executioner unbound her wrists and she was allowed to do

so against the walls while her killer- Henri blocked her view from the other guards. With this done, the former Queen was again bound and led up the tumbril accompanied by a priest. The executioner and his helper, their hats in hand in sign of respect, also climb onto the cart. It slowly makes

its way through the streets of Paris. She would die with her wrists bound.

The cart slowly makes its way through the streets of Paris, in the midst of a jeering crowd assembled to see

one last time the Queen in her capital. Many of all classes and distinctions hurled curses and insults as she passed. For a whole hour, m Marie-Antoinette sits very straight in the cart, proud and calm in the face of this display of hate,  contempt and scorn.

At last the cart reaches Place de la

Révolution, where she can see both her former home at the distant Palace of Les Tuileries and the guillotine itself. Upon seeing her old palace, she showed a moment of strong emotion, but soon regains her composure. She

steps off the cart promply, lightly.

 Without requiring any help. With a firm step, she climbs the steps to the scaffold. She does not oppose any resistance and when she accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot, she turned to him and apologized, Her last words are recorded as, "Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Je ne l'ai pas fait exprès" or "Pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose",

The blade of the guillotine falls, and like a flash, her head fell into the basket beneath the blade. As per custom, Henri Sanson lifted her bleeding head from the basket and showed in across the 4 corner of

the scaffold. A wild cheer of "Long Live the Revolution" erupted across the square. So dies Marie-Antoinette, two weeks before her 38th birthday. Having been satiated, the crowd soon began to depart, despite the fanfare many noticed that the head shown seemed much older than the woman they expected. She looked old, unkept, and overweight already with shocks of white hair.

No coffin awaited her, so the former Queen's body was thrown into a temporary basket, her head was placed between the legs of her headless body. Her body was

thrown into an unmarked grave in the Madeleine cemetery.

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