MARIE ANTOINETTE FINDS PEACE AT LAST.
Marie Antoinette in her last prison, however, was not without pitying
friends. The fierce communists ordered that she should drink the
water of the Seine, drawn as it flowed past her prison-walls; but
an honest couple, named Bault, obtained the posts of chief gaolers
at the Conciergerie, in the full aim of assuaging the Queen’s
wretchedness. Instead of Seine water, the poor prisoner found daily
in her cell refreshing draughts of water drawn from that well at
Versailles which was the Queen’s chief cellar. She was a great water
drinker.
Madame Bault, to affect harshness, never entered the Princess’s
cell, asserting that to do so was to be contaminated. The royal
tradespeople of former days—especially the fruit-women—brought little
offerings secretly; and so it came about that the Queen, in her last
prison and days, ate such pure, simple meals as those which had been
her favorite food in the old days—a piece of melon, a handful of
figs, a little bread and a glass of water from her favorite well.
The two gowns which the Queen possessed—one white, the other
black,—and which she wore alternately, soon fell to pieces in the
damp prison. Her underclothing was always damp when put on, and often
her shoes would be completely wet; for between her and the river
there was only the part protection of a wall.
Human nature demands some work. Not allowed writing or sewing
materials (Bault’s daughter mended the Queen’s tatters, and gave away
the little fragments which she cut away in the process as relics of
the poor lady), with a pin she scratched her thoughts upon the driest
portion of the walls of her prison. After her death many of these
sentences were copied by one of the commissioners. They were mostly
German and Italian verses bearing reference to her fate, and little
Latin verses from the Psalms. No French did she use, for she had been
brought into the land where that language was spoken to be cast into
prison, and to suffer death. The drier walls were covered with these
mute appeals.
Some idea may be gained of the cruelty exercised towards the desolate
prisoner, when she, asking for a lighter coverlet, and Bault
forwarding the request to a high authority, the latter received this
reply:—
“Take care! Another sign of sympathy such as that, and you will visit
the guillotine before she does!”
Another shape of industry did the poor Queen find. She wished to
leave her daughter a memento of her last days, and she had nothing
to give; so she converted a couple of bone toothpicks into knitting
needles, pulled some worsted shreds from the heavy old coverlet
which they refused to replace with a lighter, and knitted a—garter.
This she, dropped near the friendly Bault, who, with the heart of a
father, understanding the poor little bit of workmanship, let fall
his handkerchief, and so possessed himself of the little treasure.
After her death the tribute reached the young Princess for whom it
was worked—truly a message from the grave.
A few days before her trial, an order, possessed by something
of mercy, arrived, by force of which she was relieved from the
continuous stare of the guard set to watch her. By this relief, she
was enabled to kneel, from which act she had been warned throughout
her confinement.
On October 13th, Fouquier-Tinville notified to Marie Antoinette the
fact of her having been indicted for high treason.
She listened to the reading of the indictment as though to a
death-warrant—the shape, in fact, it really took.
As a matter of form, she chose two counsel for her defence—men who
had secretly sought the appointment, and who, afterwards, of course,
paid for their pity with their lives.
On the 14th, at noon, she made as elegant a toilette as she could—hid
the rags and the patchiness of her white hair as much as possible,
and went up the stone stairs of her dungeon to the judgment-hall
above her prison. The passages were full of people, who reviled
her as she passed along. She bore her head well up, but she could
not change the fallen mouth, the pinched nose, tarnished eyes, and
shrunken, weakened body. But the black circles round those eyes
artificially increased their failing brilliancy, and they fired
glances of scorn and fearlessness at her gibing enemies. She had
never possessed the humble, religious feeling and sweet patience
which distinguished Louis. A perfectly pure woman, at heart, she was
somewhat of a Voltairean; she despised death, and feared no power. We
are as we are made; so, in her final trial, she met the scowls of the
people, chiefly of women, face to face. Some authorities say that one
girl uttered a cry of pity as the Queen passed—she was strangled.
These unsexed wretches had undertaken to accompany the Queen to the
scaffold with every possible indignity.
And she stands before her—judges.
“What is your name?”
“I am called Marie Antoinette, of Lorraine, in Austria,” she replies,
in a low, musical voice.
“Your condition?”
“Widow of Louis, formerly King of the French.”
“Your age?”
“Thirty-seven.”
Louquier-Tinville now read the indictment. It was the summing up of
all her declared crimes of high birth, condition, and rank. She was
quite guilty of all these things. The chief accusations were merely
echoes of all that had been whispered of her in the foulest places.
She was accused of prodigality, licentiousness, and treason to France.
She showed no sign of emotion, beyond an unheeded movement of the
fingers over the bar of a chair, as though they were recalling some
half-forgotten music.
She answered all questions quite patiently, showed sorrow only when
reference was made to the Princess de Lamballe, and only lost her
quietude when one Hébert was called. It is to be hoped this man was
mad. At all events, he spoke to the Queen’s acts while in the Temple;
declared that she was depraved and debauched, and that she had even
corrupted her own son, “that she might poison his body and his soul,
and so reign in his name over the ruin of his understanding.”
This man was mad—there can be no doubt upon the point: he even
included saintly Madame Elizabeth in this frantic idiotic accusation.
Heaven be thanked, those present turned upon him, and cried “Shame!”
The Queen herself shrank, raising her hand as though to guard her
from the wretch.
But one juryman was nearly as bad as Hébert.
“Why does not the accused answer?” this foul wretch asked.
“I do not answer,” she said—and once again, it is said, she looked
radiantly beautiful in her momentary indignation—“because these are
accusations to which nature refuses a reply.”
She turned to the women, with whom the court was crowded.
“I appeal from him to all mothers present.”
To the honor of these women be it said, they cried Hébert down—and so
he passes out of this history.
The Queen met questions having reference to the King with equal
calmness. It being alleged that she endeavored to obtain ascendancy
over him through his mental weakness, she replied, “I never knew
that character of him. I was but his wife, and it was my duty and my
pleasure to yield to his will.”
By not one word, tending to save herself, did she injure the memory
of her husband.
One line in the trial is enough to show what a mockery it was.
The Public Prosecutor cried, “All France bears witness against this
woman!”
For form’s sake, the jury deliberated an hour. She was recalled to
hear her sentence, but the cheering and screaming of the people told
her its terrors before the judge spoke—_death!_
Nine months since the King died, and now there was an end to her
weary waiting.
Asked if she had anything to say why the sentence of death should not
be carried out, she respected herself in her very silence, and turned
away, as though quite prepared for execution.
It was now five in the morning, and her last day was come. At
half-past five she was permitted to write a letter to the King’s
sister, Madame Elizabeth. This lady never saw it. The document was
found long afterwards amongst the papers of one Couthon.
“I write to you, my sister,” she begins, “for the last time. I
have been condemned, not to an ignominious death—that only awaits
criminals—but to go and rejoin your brother. Innocent as he, I hope
to show such firmness as the King’s in his last moments. I grieve
bitterly at leaving my poor children. You know that I lived but for
them and you—you who, in your love, have sacrificed all for us. I
learnt, at my trial, that you are separated from my little girl. In
what a position I leave you! I dare not write to her; they would
not give her my letter, and, indeed, I do not know that you will
receive this.”
Some words of this final letter are inexpressibly touching. “Let my
son never forget his father’s last words. _Let him never seek to
avenge our deaths!_”
She then goes on to apologize for the child’s possible conduct to
her, after the influence over him necessarily obtained by Simon, his
tutor, and meekly she urges that he is so young he is incapable of
knowing what he does.
“Think of me always,” she says, in conclusion. “Good heaven, and my
children! How heart-rending it is to leave them for ever—for ever!”
This letter being finished, she kissed each page lovingly, and folded
it.
So far, the Republic had not entirely declared against high heaven,
and priests were still recognised by those who had subscribed to the
articles of the Revolution, and one of these men was offered to Marie
Antoinette to aid her in her last moments. She refused to see him.
The Convention (still sitting) insisted upon one of these officials
accompanying her to the scaffold. There was no devotion amongst them.
All hesitated, for all feared that the Queen would be torn to pieces
on her way to the scaffold.
One proffered his help.
“Thank you,” said the Queen; “I have no need of your services, though
I am a great sinner. But I am about to receive a great sacrament.”
“Martyrdom,” said the priest, in a low voice; and he bowed and
retired.
She prayed alone.
However, she had been secretly informed that at a certain house on
her way to execution a minister would be stationed, who would give
her absolution as she passed in the cart.
She dressed herself in the white gown, put a white cap on, bound with
a black ribbon—and so came before the people.
Then she drew back—her queendom still remained. She had not thought
the people so fallen that she should be taken to the scaffold in the
common cart. The King had been taken to death at least in such a
vehicle as he had been accustomed to.
Alas! When Louis died all pity had expired; with her death, all
France was to gasp with thirst for blood.
She mounted the cart—her hands having been bound behind her, and in
the midst of a raging crowd. The cart swayed, and she could scarcely
keep her seat on the plank.
She grew red and pale by turns, as she was dragged through the mob.
The patience and pity exhibited by the King she could not imitate.
Her lips were bitter each moment; but she never took her dry, hot
eyes from the raging people.
Suddenly, her head falls humbly, and, her hands being tied, she makes
the sign of the cross by three motions of the head.
Her pride had passed with that unseen blessing from the house on her
way to execution. When the Palace of the Tuileries came in view—the
place where she had spent nearly half her life—tears fell down her
face.
A few turns of the wheels, and she was at the foot of the scaffold.
Reaching the place, accidentally she trod upon one of the
executioners’ feet.
“Pardon me,” she said, in a sweet, courtly voice.
She knelt for an instant, rose, stretched her neck towards the
distant towers of the Temple, and cried, “Good-bye, my children! I am
going to your father.”
She did not, like her husband, speed to Heaven. It was rather that
she fled from earth.
The executioner was trembling more than his victim, so that she
suffered a long agony of a few moments after she was upon the plank.
The assistant executioner took his brother’s place.
The head fell. It was taken up and carried around the scaffold.
“_Long live the Republic!_” saluted this brave display.
The Revolution thought itself avenged—it was befouled.
She came a foreigner—and they killed her.
Thus she died. Frivolous in prosperity, she died with intrepidity.
Her misfortune was her mistrust of the people in her early days—her
catastrophe, that all the sin and wickedness of the Court was laid to
her account.
Called upon to fill a throne, those who called her gave her not even
a tomb—for you may read in a parish register, “_For the coffin of the
Widow Capet, six shillings!_”
With her life, France threw away all Christian mercy. Crimson swept
over the breadth and length of the land.