On October 16, 1793, at 12 o’clock in the morning, the until recently Queen of France was to be beheaded in the center of Paris. A crowd waited eagerly to witness one of the most famous executions in history, surpassed only by the execution of her husband, King Louis XVI, nine months earlier. It was the culmination of the process that had begun in 1789 with the French Revolution.
“Everyone stands there very early so as not to miss the unique spectacle of watching a queen being ‘shaven by the national razor.'” The curious crowd has been waiting for hours. To avoid boredom, he chats a little with a pretty neighbor, laughs, jokes and looks at the latest newspaper with headlines like this: “Marie Antoinette says goodbye to her little ones”. It’s about guessing in a quiet voice which heads will fall into the basket in the next few days. They now buy lemonade, bagels and nuts from street vendors. “The big scene is worth a little patience,” said Stefan Zweig in his famous Biography of Marie Antoinette.
That morning, more than ten thousand people gathered at the Place de la Révolution in Paris – today’s Place de la Concorde. It was a “gigantic” space, as the author defined it. More than 350 meters long and 210 meters wide, no pin could fit into it. It was as if the entire city had rushed to take a seat at the somber performance that was about to take place.
The Revolutionary Court had handed down a verdict two days earlier. Marie Antoinette She was found guilty and sentenced to death by guillotine for treason. She was blamed for promoting all kinds of conspiracies, satisfying her excessive whims, destroying the country’s finances and maintaining an incestuous relationship with her son Luis Carlos, the Dauphin of France. Since August of that year, she had been held in the Torre del Temple a la Conciergerie, an old fortress that had been converted into a Republic prison.
“Nothing can harm me”
“Now nothing can hurt me,” he complained repeatedly, according to Cristina Morató’s story in “Cursed Queens” (Plaza & Janés, 2014). He knows that the time has come and confidently says goodbye to his 14-year-old daughter María Teresa and his sister-in-law Princess Isabel, to whom he entrusts the care of his little ones. However, they did not allow him to say goodbye to his son Luis.
When she arrived at her new prison with a bundle in her hand as her only luggage, the guard registered her as prisoner No. 280. He then led her to her cell without giving her an explanation. This was her final resting place before she was guillotined three months later. It was a dirty, moldy dungeon in which he had to endure very low temperatures. And all of this without being allowed to see any of his family. The die was cast. She spent hours lying under a blanket and staring into space.
Bleeding
“At 37 years old, he looks 60 and his health has deteriorated greatly due to the bleeding he is suffering,” says Morato. In these last days she was convinced that her life was marked by fate and that events seemed to prove her right. He was born in Vienna on All Souls’ Day 1755, as if it were a sign. The birth had been difficult and stressful. This happened on the eve of a strong earthquake in Lisbon that reduced the city to rubble. The Kings of Portugal were supposed to be his godparents, but they were unable to attend the baptism because of the tragedy.
The author says that this girl caused more hatred and fear than any other ruler of that time: “Being one of the most beautiful and happiest princesses on the continent, she was found guilty of treason and died on the guillotine at the age of forty.
When the Revolutionary Court read her the verdict two days before her execution, Marie Antoinette could only say: “I was a queen and you took my crown.” You killed my husband and robbed me of my children. All I have left is my blood: take it, but don’t let me suffer any longer. At this moment she was wearing a simple, worn black dress. She was emaciated, pale and had a corpse-like appearance. It’s difficult for the packed audience to recognize them.
“I am innocent”
In his last letter before going to the scaffold, he wrote to his sister-in-law, Princess Elizabeth: “I have just been sentenced, not to an honorable death, which is only for criminals, but to be reunited with your brother the King. Like him, I am innocent and hope that in the final moments I can show the same firmness as he did. I feel calm, as if your conscience can’t blame you for anything. “It fills me with deep regret that I had to abandon my poor creatures.”
When he finished the letter, he kissed each page several times. He then folded it up and gave it to the prison warden, Warden Vault. The gendarme standing guard in front of the cell noticed this and confiscated the file from the guard. Elizabeth would therefore never receive the Queen’s last will and testament.
It seems that the queen is gathering strength for the last minutes of her life. His image is a far cry from the frivolity he displayed in his 37 years of life. Shortly before, she had given her close friend Lady Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland, a small bag containing a good handful of gray, brilliant and ruby pearls. She knew that because of her diplomatic immunity, no one would search her. Marie Antoinette must have had some hope of regaining this little treasure one day if she could escape her prison guards.
Beheading of Marie Antoinette based on a drawing by an unknown author from 1793
Marie Antoinette’s castles
On October 16, 1793 at 11 a.m. the executioner named Henri Sanson appeared. He was the son of Charles-Henri Sanson, who in turn executed her husband. The prison warden’s wife then carefully cut his hair. The person responsible for operating the guillotine blade hid the locks in his pocket. Then they put her on a cart with Father Girard, parish priest of Saint-Landry and constitutional priest appointed by the Revolutionary Court. Although Marie Antoinette refused to confess because she was not allowed to choose her priest, he accompanied her throughout the journey.
The executioner stood in the cart behind the queen. The vehicle left the conciergerie courtyard and slowly made its way through the crowd on both sides of the street. More than 30,000 soldiers formed a barrier along the route. Marie Antoinette had her hands tied behind her back as if she were a prisoner. When she passed by, everyone booed and insulted her. She remained silent. Neighbors filled balconies and stood on rooftops to witness some of the macabre details of the scene.
The condemned woman entered the Plaza de la Revolución at midday. Zweig described the scene with a certain literary license:
« Above this swarm of curious people, black and undulating, two silhouettes rise rigidly, the only lifeless things in this space full of human animation. On the one hand, the slim line of the guillotine with its wooden bridge that leads from here to the afterlife. At the top of his yoke, however, the shining signpost, the freshly sharpened blade, sparkles under the dull October sun. Light and slender, her figure stands out against the gray sky like a forgotten toy of a terrible god. The birds, unaware of the dark meaning of this cruel instrument, carelessly play over it with their fluttering.
The Leech Queen
When he reached the place where the guillotine was located, he got off the cart and climbed the stairs that led to the platform. The dethroned queen, described by the French as a “leech,” appeared pale and exhausted with fatigue before the 10,000 morbid spectators. The sun blinded his eyes, which he had accustomed to the darkness for two months, and one of them lost his shoes. This is now kept in the Museum of Fine Arts in Caen. With the other he accidentally stepped on the executioner’s foot. “Sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t do it on purpose,” he commented.
In contrast to Louis XVI. Marie Antoinette did not address her former subjects. Sanson’s assistants placed her on the guillotine’s wooden board and held her head with a crescent-shaped stick. A few seconds later he dropped the blade and severed the head with a single blow. Then he picked it up to show the crowd. It was 12:15 p.m. The whole square shouted: “Long live the Republic!” The crowd remained silent as they left the square.
