The Death of Marie Antoinette

Today, in 1793, Marie Antoinette was executed. In tribute to this much slandered lady, here's the death scene from my novelette The Martyr-Queen. 

In the early hours of October 16^th, 1793, Antoinette, now thirty-seven, sits in her cell in the Temple prison in Paris, writing a last letter to her sister-in-law Élisabeth. It is to you, my sister, that I write for the last time … She reflects on Élisabeth’s unwavering support during the four years of imprisonment … I have just been condemned, not to a shameful death, for it is shameful only for criminals, but to rejoin your brother.   Like him innocent, I hope to display the same firmness as he did in his last moments…She recalls her husband’s recent death by guillotine: sobbing in the prison the night before, saying her goodbyes as he squeezed her hand for the last time, then watching him mount the scaffold the next morning, seeing the blade drop, severing her heart … Let my son never forget his father’s last words, which I distinctly repeat to him, never to try to avenge our death. I have to mention something which pains my heart. I know how much distress this child must have given you. Forgive him, my sister, remember his age and how easy it is to make a child say anything you want, even something he does not understand …  

Tears sting her eyes as she recollects her motherly misery: after Louis’s execution, her little seven-year-old son, Louis-Charles, was torn from her arms by the revolutionary authorities after an hour-long struggle. At her trial, in order to blacken her name as much as possible, they made him testify that she had immorally abused him – him, her little “chou d’amour”. When a jury member goaded her to address the accusation, she answered, “If I did not reply, it is because nature refuses to answer such a charge against a mother.” Gazing at the women in the courtroom crowd, she continued, “I appeal to every mother here.” The people bellowed their disgust at the charge, but the moment of sympathy was all too brief. Upon being asked if she had anything to say for herself, she addressed her accusers: “I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long.”

… I die in the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion, in the religion of my father, in which I was brought up and which I have always professed… I sincerely beg pardon of God for all the faults I have committed during my life. I hope that in His goodness he will receive my last wishes, and those I have long since made, that he will receive my soul in his mercy and goodness. I ask pardon of all those I know, and of you my sister in particular, for all the distress I may, without wishing it, have caused them. I forgive all my enemies the harm they have done me. I say farewell here to my aunts and to all my brothers and sisters. I had friends. The idea of being separated for ever from them and their troubles forms one of my greatest regrets in dying . . . She thinks back on these dear companions: the Princesse de Lamballe, with her angelic spirit and her ghastly end – cut from her body by a vengeful mob, her head was brought on a pike for Antoinette to see, but she swooned in horror before they could display it. Then, of course, the wise Duchesse de Polignac, and the brave Swedish Count Axel von Fersen, who had helped with the arrangements for the family’s attempted escape; they’d only gotten as far as the town of Varennes before they’d been re-captured . . .  Let them know, at least, that up to my last moment I was thinking of them. Farewell, my good and loving sister. May this letter reach you! Think of me always, I embrace you with all my heart, together with those poor, dear children. My God! What an agony it is to leave them forever! Farewell! Farewell! I shall henceforth pay attention to nothing but my spiritual duties.

A few hours later, it’s time. The young maid who attends her arrives to help her prepare, dressing her in an unadorned white piqué morning gown and tucking her hair, gone grey with suffering, into a white lawn cap. The men arrive to conduct her to her death, and the executioner, Sanson, crops her tresses for the blade. Her hands bound behind her, she gets into the cart they have brought, and after a ride through jeering crowds, she arrives at the scaffold. The priest at her side (one of those who has renounced the Catholic faith which Antoinette holds so dear) advises her, “This is the moment, Madame, to arm yourself with courage.”

“Courage? The moment when my ills are going to end is not the moment when my courage is going to fail me,” she replies. 

As she hastens up the steps, she treads upon Sanson’s foot; startled, he cries out in pain. Giving him her most gracious smile, she apologizes, “I am sorry, Monsieur. I did not do it on purpose.” Kneeling for a moment, she whispers a prayer, then rises. With a last look toward the Temple prison, she murmurs, “Adieu, once again, my children. I go to rejoin your father.” Sanson lays her on the plank, tying her down with rough ropes. 

The blade falls. 

Image: A close-up of a 1790 portrait of Antoinette with her children Marie Thérèse and Louis-Charles, by François Dumont.