The Final Days of MARIE ANTOINETTE

2 AUGUST 1793

“THE WARDENS TOOK GREAT RISKS TO PROVIDE MARIE ANTOINETTE WITH SMALL COMFORTS”

Marie Antoinette arrived at the Conciergerie in the Temple Prison, Paris, at 3am, after being torn from the arms of her daughter, Marie-Thérèse, and her sister-in-law, Madame Élisabeth. Her husband, King Louis XVI, had been executed earlier in the year and her youngest son, Louis Charles, had been taken from her a month earlier.

Marie Antoinette was quickly escorted to a cell below the level of the prison courtyard. The brick-tiled floor was covered with muddy slime and water trickled down the walls due to the proximity to the Seine. When the river was low, it was possible to see shreds of the old wallpaper – decorated, ironically, with the fleur-de-lis.

The queen stared at the bare walls. When she found a nail, she hung her watch on it and then stretched out on her bed – a folding cot that was thought (by some) too good for the queen. “The most infected dungeon with