Execution of Marie Antoinette
Events moved rapidly as Louis was separated from his family and tried with undermining the Republic. He was found guilty and executed on the 15th January 1793. The National Convention struggled to deal with the now Widow Capet. As the continued assault on France from Prussia and Austria continued and royalist rebels rose in the Vendee radicals called for further measures. The Dauphin, Louis Charles was removed from Marie Antoinette’s care and placed in the hands of devoted radicals who would reeducate him in the ways of the revolution. Soon Marie Antoinette would be removed and placed in the Conciergerie known as the waiting room of the guillotine. Under pressure from more radical elements such as Hebert Marie Antoinette was put on trial. The trial on the 14th October 1793 saw accusations of liaising with the enemies of France. The outlandish accusations of instigating orgies at Versailles and astonishingly incest with her own son were also levelled at her. Testimony for this last charge came from Louis Charles himself who had been coerced into delivering condemning evidence against his own mother. On the 16th October she was found guilty of depleting the national treasury, providing information to the enemy and conspiring against the state. She made a composed journey to the scaffold despite the abuse of some from the crowds. Her last words were said to be, “Pardon me, sir, I meant not to do it,” as she stood on the executioner’s foot. Her body was thrown in an unmarked grave.
Madam Campan (one of the Queen’s lady in waiting) on Marie Antoinette’s trial. Taken from Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Complete Madame Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan, Echo Library (2007) p245
What affecting things I have heard the Queen say in the affliction caused her by the belief of part of the Court and the whole of the people that she did not love France! How did that opinion shock those who knew her heart and her sentiments! Twice did I see her on the point of going from her apartments in the Tuileries into the gardens, to address the immense throng constantly assembled there to insult her. “Yes,” exclaimed she, as she paced her chamber with hurried steps, “I will say to them Frenchmen, they have had the cruelty to persuade you that I do not love France! – I! The mother of the Dauphin who will reign over this noble country!- I whom providence has seated upon the most powerful throne of Europe! Of all the daughters of Maria Theresa am I not that one whom fortune has most highly favoured?| And ought I not to feel all these advantages? What should I find at Vienna? Nothing but sepulchres! What should I lose in France? Everything which can confer glory!”
Letters from Helen Maria Williams on the trial of Marie Antoinette. Taken from Letters Written in France, Broadview Literary Texts, (2002) p172
Marie Antoinette made no defence, and called no witnesses, alleging that no positive fact had been produced against her. She had preserved an uniform behaviour during the whole of her trial, except when a starting tear accompanied her answer to Hebert. She was condemned about four in the morning, and heard her sentence with composure. But her firmness forsook her in the way from the court to her dungeon-she burst into tears; when, as if ashamed of this weakness, she observed to her guards, that though she wept at that moment, they should see her go to scaffold without shedding a tear.
In her way to execution, where she was taken after the accustomed manner in a cart, with her hands tied behind her, she paid little attention to the priest who attended her, and still less to the surrounding multitudes. Her eyes, though bent on vacancy, did not conceal the emotion that was labouring in her heart- her cheeks were sometimes in a singular manner streaked with red, and sometimes overspread with deadly paleness; but her general look was that of indignant sorrow. She reached the place of execution about noon; and when she turned her eyes towards the garden and the palace, she became visibly agitated. She ascended the scaffold with precipitation, and her head was in a moment held up to the people by the executioner.
Gouverneur Morris comments on Marie Antoinette’s execution in October 1793. Taken from Witnesses to the Revolution American: American and British Commentators in France 1788-1794, Weidenfeld and Nicholson (1989) p181
The queen was executed the day before yesterday. Insulted during her trial and reviled in her last moments, she behaved with dignity throughout. This execution will, I think, give future hostilities a deeper dye, and unite more intimately the Allied Powers. It will silence the opposition of those who would not listen to the dismemberment of their country, and therefore it may be concluded that the blow by which she died was directed from a distance. But whatever may be the lot of France in remote futurity, and putting aside the military events, it seems evident that she soon be governed by a single despot.