Marie Antoinette Quotes

October 16, 1793

Her trial lasted two days. The charges included treason and, grotesquely, incest with her son. She was thirty-seven, her hair had turned white, and she was bleeding from uterine hemorrhages. On the morning of October 16, 1793, her hands were bound behind her back. She was loaded onto an open cart and driven through jeering crowds to the Place de la Révolution. When she accidentally stepped on her executioner's foot, she said: 'Pardonnez-moi, monsieur, je ne l'ai pas fait exprès.' It was the last sentence she ever spoke. The blade fell at 12:15 in the afternoon. She was the girl they sent from Vienna to save an alliance. The alliance did not save her.