Armed with Louis-Charles’s “confession,” Hébert was ready to launch his strike against Marie-Antoinette. By now, as one of the leaders of the Commune, Hébert wielded immense power and had set his sights on becoming Minister of the Interior. In September 1793, by putting pressure on the Convention with popular demonstrations, he helped to push through the Law of Suspects, which defined those who could be arrested for treasonable activities and was enforced by the Revolutionary Tribunal. He also continued to enjoy widespread popular support through his paper,
Le Père Duchesne,
and was determined to deliver to the people that long awaited prize: the queen’s head.
Four days after her son’s ordeal, at six in the evening, Marie-Antoinette was taken from her cell and led across the courtyard to the Revolutionary Tribunal for a preliminary examination prior to her full trial. The guards escorted her into a chamber lit by only two candles casting two pools of light in what was otherwise a large, dark space. She could sense the presence of people in the room watching her, but couldn’t see them. Immediately before her were her inquisitors: the public prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville,
and the Tribunal President, Armand Martial Herman. In this intimidating atmosphere she had no illusions about what lay ahead; yet even now she maintained her composure and her self-respect. This once-conceited, frivolous, and selfish young woman of Versailles stood before her inquisitors, full of courage and highly articulate.
She was accused of crimes that had circulated many times before as rumors, but were now paraded as solid, indisputable facts. She had sent millions of livres to Austria and squandered huge sums of money on clothes, jewels, and private palaces like the Trianon. She was the one who had constantly preyed on her husband, taking advantage of his weak nature to manipulate him against the people. Had she not persuaded Louis Capet against signing the Assembly’s decree on refractory priests? Had she not instigated the flight to Varennes, persecuting Capet into complying with the treason of trying to leave France? Had she not trampled the tricolor cockade underfoot at the banquet in October 1789 and organized a counterrevolution? As they pressed their numerous accusations, Marie-Antoinette could not be caught out. It was an impressive performance, which at times left her examiners frustrated that they could not expose her. “Never for one moment have you ceased wanting to destroy liberty. You wanted to reign at any price and to reascend the throne over the bodies of dead patriots,” stormed Herman.
“We never wished for anything but France’s happiness” came her dignified reply. When her examiners accused her of plotting with her husband to deceive France, she replied, “Yes, the people, have been deceived. They have been cruelly deceived, but not by my husband or me.” Marie-Antoinette was not about to make some last-minute grovelling accommodation with the ideals of the revolution. She had indeed hoped that France’s enemies would prevail, crush the revolution and restore the monarchy, but her examiners failed to force an admission. “No doubt you regret that your son has lost a throne which he might have ascended if the people, finally conscious of their rights, had not destroyed that throne?” She replied cleverly, “I shall never regret anything for my son when his country is happy.”
At eight o’clock in the morning on Monday, October 14, 1793, Marie-Antoinette was taken back to the
Grande Chambre
for her full trial. This time it was packed with people. As she entered, a proud, frail figure dressed in black, the crowd was shocked at the immense change in her. The so recently charming, much-fêted queen was turned into a haggard old woman. Her dark clothes only served to emphasize her frailty; the widow Capet was almost unrecognizable from the young princess of twenty years ago. Yet here, in the flesh, was the she-devil of the pamphlets and
libelles,
and the public’s curiosity was insatiable.
The trial was to take place before five judges and a jury of twelve, all eager patriots of whom Robespierre would approve. The lengthy indictment against her was read out. The Widow Capet was accused of the treason of conspiring with her brother against France, of influencing Louis to veto the decrees of the Assembly, of organizing counterrevolution, of maintaining secret relations and correspondence with the enemy, of numerous conspiracies. To support their case the prosecution relied mainly on the testimony of forty-one “witnesses,” all stooges of the revolutionary government.
However, one accusation against the queen was to cause a sensation. This was not a charge levelled by some republican fanatic against a former queen. Marie-Antoinette was about to stand condemned by the evidence of her own son. She was utterly unprepared for what was to follow.
Jacques-René Hébert stepped forward to drop his carefully orchestrated bombshell. Simon, he explained, had caught the young Capet in the act of masturbating. When questioned, the child had admitted that “he owed his familiarity with the fatal habit to his mother and Aunt Élisabeth.” Hébert went on to reveal that the boy had made a declaration in the presence of both the Mayor of Paris and the Prosecutor of the Commune that “these two women often made him sleep between them and that acts of the most uncontrolled debauchery were committed there.” To ensure that his claim had full impact on the court, Hébert spelled it out clearly: “There is no doubt, from what Capet’s son has said, that an act of
incest
was committed between mother and son!”
Hébert, the professional insinuator, who for much of his working life had profited from selling the image of a queen who would stop at nothing to satisfy her monstrous sexual appetites, now distorted her grotesque image one step further. Here was a demon she-devil who would even have sex with her own son if it suited her purposes. He proceeded to explain to the court
why
she chose to have incest with her son. “There is reason to believe that this criminal intercourse was dictated not by pleasure, but by the calculated hope of enervating the child, whom they still like to think of as destined to occupy the throne and whom they wished to be sure of dominating morally.” To make his view more persuasive, he added his evidence. “As a result of the efforts he [Capet’s son] was forced to make, he suffered a hernia for which a bandage was needed.”
The queen was finally brought face to face with the journalist whose web of lies and deceit had for so many years spun the tales of horror that slowly and inexorably brought her to this terrible point. Now like a creature ensnared on the point of death, she hesitated, her mind apparently frozen, reeling from the accusations made against her. It is not known what was passing through her mind: whether she was too appalled and distressed at the idea of what had been happening to her son, or whether she was overwhelmed as she glimpsed the power of this latest lie to sway opinion. Not only was she a scheming, politically motivated, promiscuous wife, but now she was also the worst of mothers.
When she was asked what she had to say about the charges being made by Hébert, which the court heard had been corroborated by a sworn statement signed by her son, she replied that she had no knowledge of them. Her composure began to falter. Overwhelmed by the charges of sexually abusing her own son, she desperately tried to remain calm. She was asked once more about the accusation—by her own son—that she had abused him. Again she replied that she had no knowledge of the charges. She was pressed by the judges to say more. Why was she being so reticent? Was this the reticence of guilt?
Gathering herself to make a measured, dignified stand against these preposterous charges, finally she rose from her chair.
“If I have not answered, it was because Nature refuses to answer such a charge against a mother,” she said, her reply charged with emotion. She turned to the audience in the courtroom. “I appeal to all mothers in this room.”
For a moment the courtroom wavered. Her dignity and courage inspired interest—even a little sympathy. The charge against the former queen did not seem credible. Such was the disruption that the proceedings were suspended for a few minutes.
However, members of the jury had heard all the stories of her sexual depravity before. The scandal sheets had been full of it for years. Now that her own son had confessed to the most disgusting debauchery, they were ready to believe it to be true. Such was the deep-seated loathing in France for the “Austrian bitch,” entrenched by years of unchallenged slander, that her spirited defense was seen as further evidence of her arrogance, pride and utter contempt for the French people.
At around three A.M. in the morning of October 16, the jury retired to deliberate. Outside, a large crowd gathered in the bitter cold, eager for news of the hated queen. As the jury reentered an hour later, a deep silence fell over the courtroom.
By a unanimous vote, Marie-Antoinette was found guilty of all the charges against her. She was asked if she had anything to say. She shook her head. Then the Tribunal President, Herman, announced the verdict: “This tribunal, following the unanimous declaration of the jury … condemns the said Marie-Antoinette, known as Lorraine of Austria, the widow of Louis Capet, to the death penalty.”
If she was terrified, she did not betray herself. She showed “no sign of fear, indignation or weakness,” recorded one of the lawyers, until she was out of the public gaze. The condemned woman almost fell as the guards escorted her back to her cell in the
Conciergerie.
In the few hours left before her death, she was allowed no visitors and could not see her son and daughter. Instead, she wrote to her sister-in-law, Élisabeth:
16th October, half past four in the morning
It is to you, my sister, that I write for the last time. I have just been condemned, not to a shameful death—death is only shameful for criminals—but to rejoin your brother. Innocent like him, I hope to show the same courage as he, in these last moments. I am quite calm as when one’s conscience is clear. I am profoundly grieved to have to quit my poor children. You know that I existed only for them; and you, my good tender sister.
She then wrote at length of her children, hoping that one day they could be happy:
I hope that one day, when they are older, they will be able to rejoin you, and be happy in your affectionate care. Let them both keep in mind what I have continually shown them, that principle, and dedication to duty, form the first basis of life, and that their mutual friendship and confidence will constitute its happiness. Let my daughter feel that because she is older, she should always help her brother with the advice, which her greater experience and her friendship may inspire her with. Let my son, on his part, render to his sister all the attention, all the services that friendship may suggest. Let them both, in a word, feel that in whatever position they may be placed, they will never be truly happy unless they are united … for happiness is truly doubled when shared with a friend.
She specifically urged Louis-Charles never to seek revenge for what had happened. “Let my son never forget the last words of his father, which I emphatically repeat: ‘that he never seek to avenge our deaths.’”
Although she had been condemned by the testimony of her son, her love for him never faltered. Knowing the pain that Louis-Charles must have caused Élisabeth by his “confession,” she urged her sister-in-law to forgive him.
I have to speak to you on a subject which is sorely painful to my heart. I know how much pain this child must have given you. Please forgive him, my dear sister. Think of his age and how easy it is to make a child say what one wishes, and even what he does not comprehend. I only trust a day will come when he appreciates more fully all your goodness and tender affection for both of them.
She paid tribute to her few friends for their support. Of her family and friends she wrote:
The thought that I am about to be separated from them forever, and of their troubles, is one of the deepest regrets that I bear with me in dying … . Adieu, my good and loving sister, may this letter reach you! Think always of me; I embrace you with my whole heart, and my poor, dear children. My God, it is agony to leave them. Goodbye. Goodbye …
When she had finished, grief overcame her and she broke down, weeping. Rosalie, the servant, came to see her early in the morning. “Entering her cell, I saw that she was all dressed in black, stretched out on her bed. ‘Madame,’ I said to her, trembling. ‘You took nothing to eat last evening, and almost nothing during the day. What do you want to have this morning?’ The queen was shedding abundant tears.
‘Ma fille,
I no longer need anything. Everything is finished for me.’” The maid persisted, determined to find someway of revitalizing her before she had to face her final ordeal. “‘Madame, I’ve kept some bouillon and noodles on my oven; you need to sustain yourself,’ she insisted. ‘Allow me to bring you something.’ The queen’s tears redoubled and she said to me, ‘Rosalie, bring me only some bouillon.’” However, the queen could only manage a few spoonfuls. “I swear to God that her body received no other sustenance and I had reason to believe that she was losing all that blood.”
Before the execution, she was ordered to change out of her mourning dress. The officer of the Gendarmerie on duty had been told to keep her
under constant guard. She tried to obtain a little privacy to change her bloodstained undergarments with Rosalie standing by her bed, blocking the view of her body. The officer would not have it, and instantly moved to the bed head to watch the queen change. The queen appealed to him: “In the name of decency, Monsieur, allow me to change my linen without a witness.”