Marie Antoinette From Love to Hatred – Part 4

The sad end of what started so well

The family lives again in the Tuileries, however, under stricter supervision. King Louis completely fell into apathy, so Maria Antoinette takes the initiative in their own hands. In secret correspondence, she asks Austria for help.

The war between Austria and France began, but it did not alleviate the fate of the royal family. On the contrary, the queen is accused of collusion with the enemy and the king, the queen and their children are imprisoned in the Temple. The power passed to the Convention, the monarchy fell.

In prison with special prisoners are treated well, they are even allowed to live together. In December 1792, the trial of the king began. He was accused of plotting against a free nation, in an attempt on the security of the state. The king did not admit his guilt, but nevertheless, with a margin of just one vote, was sentenced to death by the Convention.

On January 21, 1793 the king, saying goodbye to the weeping Maria Antoinette and the children, went to the scaffold. He was holding with a truly royal dignity. His last words were: “I am innocent of the crimes in which I am accused. May the Lord forgive my murderers. ”

In August of the same year, Marie Antoinette was separated from the children and transferred to another prison in the hope that Austria would begin negotiations on the end of the war. But the Austrians did not seem to be interested in the fate of their former princess.

In the prison on the island of Cité, the disgraced queen was kept in Spartan conditions: a bed without linen, a rough-hewn table, two stools. Marie Antoinette did not take off any more mourning – the black dress was on her until the last day. Most of all, she suffered from separation from children – her daughter and younger son Louis-Charles. Her elder son, heir to the throne of Louis-Joseph, died before the revolution from typhus.

I must say that the adherents of the monarchy, the royalists, did not sit idly by. They were preparing the queen’s escape, which, undoubtedly, would have succeeded, had it not been issued by one of the gendarmes, to which Marie Antoinette asked for a note. After this incident, she was transferred to another cell and tightened conditions of detention.

In October 1793, the trial of the Queen began. She was accused of treason against France and collusion with the enemy, in profligacy and debauchery, and also in incest. The queen remembered everything. Numerous witnesses appeared at the trial, most of whom were false witnesses. But nevertheless, the queen, just like her husband, was sentenced to death by cutting off her head.

The next day, October 16, at 4 o’clock in the morning, Marie Antoinette read the verdict, the executioner cut her hair and put shackles on the back of her hands.

In the open wagon, she was taken to the place of execution, and the same people that 23 years ago met her with joyful shouts and flowers, now spit in her direction and threw stones. About noon, the former Queen of France Marie Antoinette ascended the scaffold. She accidentally stepped on the foot of the executioner, and her last words were: “Forgive me, monsieur, I’m not on purpose.” After a few seconds, the blond head fell to the feet of the raging crowd.

Her remains were thrown into a common pit in which the executed criminals were buried. Thus ended the story of a woman who was in fact only to blame for the fact that she was extremely unhappy married.