‘I do not understand how that could have been, since I have never met her.’

‘Do you persist in your denial that you know this woman?’

‘I am not persisting in a denial. I persist in saying I have never seen her, because that is the truth, and I shall continue to speak the truth.’

Hébert was then called as a witness.

He folded his hands together and turned his eyes upwards while he made the monstrous charge of incest against the Queen.

Everyone in the court was tense, and the silence which followed Hébert’s words was dramatic.

All eyes were on the Queen. She sat stiff and her face was drained of all colour. She did not protest; she did not move.

The women in the gallery had stopped knitting; they were deeply shocked; angry lights appeared in their eyes, and that anger was directed towards the man who had spoken, for they knew him for a liar. Instinct assured them that he lied. They could accuse the prisoner of extravagance, carelessness, pride – any folly – but not this.

Hébert grew uneasy. He sensed that something was wrong; he had expected shocked cries from the women, and abuse to be hurled at the prisoner. This silence unnerved him.

He stood uncertain for a moment; then he plunged on. ‘I … I … it is not my belief that this criminal conduct was indulged in for its own sake, but because the prisoner wished to weaken her son’s health, not only physically but mentally, that she might thus be enabled to dominate him and bend him to her will should he ever gain the throne.’

There was that silence again. The Queen still said nothing. Her expression betrayed nothing. It was uncanny.

One of the jurors said: ‘This matter must be clarified. The prisoner has made no comment on the accusation.’

Antoinette now rose to her feet; her hands fell to her side, and many saw that they were clenched tightly. She looked at Hébert with such disdain that he winced and cowered.

Then she spoke, and her words rang throughout the court with a note of innocence which was unmistakable even to the most insensitive: ‘If I have made no reply, it is because nature refuses to answer such a charge brought against a mother. I appeal in this matter to all the mothers present in court.’

The women in the gallery were with her. Motherhood had been insulted.

All those who were determined to bring the Queen to the scaffold were furious with Hébert.

It was necessary to bring the proceedings to a close for that day, as the sense of excitement in the court was ready to break into open revolt. The market-women had begun to whisper and shake their heads in shocked disapproval.

It was possible that had the trial continued then they would have demanded the liberation of the Queen, questioning whether, since she had been so basely slandered on one matter, she might have been on others?

The Queen was taken back to her cell.


* * *

Robespierre was furious with Hébert.

‘The fool! The idiot! To bring such a charge against her. One only has to look at her to know it is false. All those women … all those mothers can see in her face … can sense in her voice … her love for her son; and they know it for a mother’s love. Is it not enough that she should be Messalina? Must she also be Agrippina? This is a public triumph for Antoinette. For the love of the Republic bring the trial to an end to-morrow, and let this foolish matter be ignored as though it had never been brought up. Concentrate on her extravagance, the matter of the necklace … oh, yes … very particularly on the matter of the necklace. Concentrate on her extravagance and her desire to bring civil war to France. And when she next leaves the court let it be as a woman condemned to die.’


* * *

And the next day this was done.

When Antoinette returned to the Conciergerie she knew that there were but a few hours left to her.


* * *

In her cell she wrote to Elisabeth.

‘It is to you, dear sister, that I write for the last time. I have been sentenced to death, but not to shameful death, since this death is only shameful to criminals, whereas I shall rejoin your brother. I hope to be firm as he was in his last moments. My conscience is clear although I feel great grief because I must forsake my children. Through you, I send to them my blessing, in the hope that some day, when they are older, they will be with you once more and able to enjoy your tender care …

‘I have to speak to you of a matter which is extremely painful. I know how much my little boy has made you suffer. Forgive him, my dear sister; remember how young he is, and how easy it is to make a child say whatever one wants, to put words he does not understand into his mouth … I hope a day will come when he will grasp the full value of your kindness and of the affection you have shown to both my children … ’

She stopped and buried her face in her hands. She could not go on.

But after a while she picked up her pen and resolutely continued to write.


* * *

Rosalie came into the cell.

She brought a bowl of soup with her.

The Queen was lying fully dressed on her bed.

‘It is seven o’clock, Madame,’ said the girl. ‘Will you not take a little soup?’

‘I am not hungry, Rosalie.’

‘Madame, you ate nothing yesterday. You will be so weak. To please me … ’

The Queen smiled. ‘You have been good to me, Rosalie,’ she said. She took the bowl and tried a spoonful; she looked apologetically at the girl, for she could manage no more.

Rosalie turned away because she was crying.

After a while she said: ‘Madame, there are orders that you should not wear black.’

‘Do they care then what I wear?’ She laughed. ‘They have always been interested in what I wore. Is this interest to continue then … right to the end?’

‘You are to wear your white dress, Madame.’

‘I will change. I need new linen.’

‘Has the haemorrhage been bad, Madame?’

The Queen nodded.

‘I have a clean chemise here now. I washed it.’

The gendarme, stationed at the door, advanced into the room as the Queen slipped behind her bed to change.

He stood watching her insolently.

‘Cannot I have this little bit of privacy?’ asked Antoinette.

Rosalie cried: ‘Stand back awhile.’

‘My orders are not to let the widow out of my sight,’ said the man.

Rosalie stood in front of him and lifted her blazing eyes to his face.

He was a little man, and Rosalie’s face was on a level with his. He was abashed by the scorn and contempt he saw there; even as Hébert had been made to feel by the women in the gallery of the court.

He did not attempt to advance, and so the Queen changed her clothes and put on the white dress.


* * *

She was praying when, an hour later, her cell was invaded by the judges, the executioner and a priest.

Her sentence was read again; then Henri Samson, the executioner, cut off her hair and tied her hands behind her back.

‘Is that necessary?’ she asked.

‘Those are my orders,’ said Samson.


* * *

The tocsins were ringing. The people were lining the streets. The troops were on guard, and many of the streets were barred to other traffic.

This was the day for which so many had longed. They would stand in safety and see the Queen ride by to her death.

It was a little past eleven o’clock when the tumbril drew up outside the gates of the Conciergerie. The Queen took her place in the rough cart; there was merely a bare board on which to sit, yet she, in her white cap with her ragged hair showing beneath it, sat as though this were the glass coach in which she had made her entry into France.

Samson stood behind her guarding her on her ride through the streets.

It must not be too quick, that ride. All the people of Paris wanted to see her during her last hour on Earth. In the crowd pamphlets were being sold: La Vie Scandaleuse de Marie Antoinette. Most of these had been composed by Jeanne de Lamotte.

Many had come out to shout their scorn at her; but it was not easy to do this, for the woman in the tumbril, sitting so erect, her hands tied behind her back, rode as though she were still a Queen.

As the tumbril passed the church of Saint-Roch, someone cried out: ‘Death to the wicked woman who tried to ruin France! Death to the Austrian whore!’ But no one took up the cry, and the Queen did not seem to hear it.

The tumbril had crossed the river and was rumbling along the rue Saint-Honoré. There a man raised his sword and shouted: ‘There she is, the infamous Antoinette. She’s finished at last, my friends.’ But no one responded.


* * *

Into the Place de la Révolution. Here the crowds were thickest. Two objects dominated the grim place; one the statue of the Goddess of Liberty, the Phrygian cap on her head, and the sword of justice in her hand; and the other that grim instrument of death – the guillotine.

Beside this last the tumbril had come to a halt. Antoinette stepped down almost eagerly.

She mounted the steps looking neither to right nor left; she showed no sign of fear. As Louis had done before her, she was ready and, it seemed, fearless.

For a moment she looked at the Tuileries and thought she saw instead the glorious Palace of Versailles, and herself coming there as a young girl to the shy husband who had seemed afraid of her. She thought of Trianon – her own beloved Petit Trianon – and of the days and nights she had spent there with Axel de Fersen. All so unimportant now – of such small significance; for this was the end. The end of sorrow; the end of pain.