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<h3>MARIE ANTOINETTE.</h3> [BORN 1755. DIED 1793.] CARLYLE. <ANTIMG src="images/io.jpg" alt="O" width-obs="67" height-obs="68" class="floatl" />N Monday, 14th October 1793, a cause is pending in the Palais de Justice, in the new Revolutionary Court, such as these stone walls never witnessed—the trial of Marie Antoinette. The once brightest of queens, now tarnished, defaced, forsaken, stands here at Fouquier-Tinville's judgment-bar, answering for her life. The indictment was delivered her last night. To such changes of human fortune, what words are adequate? Silence alone is adequate. There are few printed things one meets with of such tragic, almost ghastly significance, as those bald pages of the Bulletin du Tribunal R�volutionnaire, which bear title, "Trial of the Widow Capet." Dim, dim, as if in disastrous eclipse, like the pale kingdoms of Dis! Plutonic judges, Plutonic Tinville; encircled nine times with Styx and Lethe, with Fire-Phlegethon and Cocytus, named of Lamentation! The very witnesses summoned are like ghosts; exculpatory, inculpatory, they themselves are all hovering over death and doom; they are known in our imagination as the prey of the guillotine. Tall ci-devant Count d'Estaing, anxious to show himself patriot, cannot escape; nor Bailly, who, when asked if he knows the accused, answers with a reverent inclination towards her, "Ah, yes, I know Madame." Ex-patriots are here, sharply dealt with as Procureur Manuel; ex-ministers, shorn of their splendour. We have cold aristocratic impassivity, faithful to itself even in Tartarus; rabid stupidity of patriot corporals, patriot washerwomen, who have much to say of plots, treasons, August tenth, old insurrection of women. For all now has become a crime in her who has lost. Marie Antoinette, in this her utter abandonment and hour of extreme need, is not wanting to herself, the imperial woman. Her look, they say, as that hideous indictment was reading, continued calm. "She was sometimes observed moving her fingers, as when one plays on the piano." You discern not without interest across that dim Revolutionary Bulletin itself, how she bears herself queen-like. Her answers are prompt, clear, often of laconic brevity; resolution, which has grown contemptuous without ceasing to be dignified, veils itself in calm words. "You persist, then, in denial?" "My plan is not denial; it is the truth I have said, and I persist in that." Scandalous H�bert has borne his testimony as to many things; as to one thing concerning Marie Antoinette and her little son, wherewith human speech had better not further be soiled. She has answered H�bert; a juryman begs to observe that she has not answered to this. "I have not answered," she exclaims with noble emotion, "because nature refuses to answer such a charge brought against a mother. I appeal to all the mothers that are here." Robespierre, when he heard of it, broke out into something almost like swearing at the brutish blockheadism of this H�bert, on whose foul head his foul lie has recoiled. At four o'clock on Wednesday morning, after two days and two nights of interrogating, jury charging, and other darkening of counsel, the result comes out—sentence of death. "Have you anything to say?" The accused shook her head, without speech. Night's candles are burning out; and with her, too, Time is finishing, and it will be eternity and day. This hall of Tinville's is dark, ill-lighted, except where she stands. Silently she withdraws from it to die. There was once a procession before, "on the morrow," says Weber, "the Dauphiness left Vienna. The whole city crowded out, at first with a sorrow which was silent. She appeared. You saw her sunk back into her carriage, her face bathed in tears; hiding her eyes now with her handkerchief, now with her hands; several times putting out her head to see yet again this palace of her fathers, whither she was to return no more. She motioned her regret, her gratitude, to the good nation which was crowding here to bid her farewell. Then arose not only tears, but piercing cries on all sides. Men and women alike abandoned themselves to such expression of their sorrow. It was an audible sound of wail in the streets and avenues of Vienna. The last courier that followed her disappeared, and the crowd melted away." The young imperial maiden of fifteen has now become a worn, discrowned widow of thirty-eight, grey before her time. This is the last procession. "Few minutes after the trial ended, the drums were beating to arms in all sections; at sunrise the armed force was on foot, cannons getting placed at the extremities of the bridges, in the squares, crossways, all along from the Palais de Justice to the Place de la R�volution. By ten o'clock, numerous patrols were circulating in the streets; thirty thousand foot and horse drawn up under arms. At eleven, Marie Antoinette was brought out. She had on an undress of piqu� blanc; she was led to the place of execution in the same manner as an ordinary criminal, bound in a cart, accompanied by a Constitutional Priest in lay dress, escorted by numerous detachments of infantry and cavalry. These, and the double row of troops all along her road, she appeared to regard with indifference. On her countenance there was visible neither abashment nor pride. To the cries of Vive la R�publique, and Down with Tyranny, which attended her all the way, she seemed to pay no heed. She spoke little to her confessor. The tricolour streamers on the house-tops occupied her attention in the Streets du Roule and Saint-Honor�; she also noticed the inscriptions on the house-fronts. On reaching the Place de la R�volution, her looks towards the Jardin National, whilom Tuileries; her face at that moment gave signs of lively emotion. She ascended the scaffold with courage enough; at a quarter past twelve her head fell. The executioner showed it to the people amid universal long-continued cries of Vive la R�publique." <div class="figcenter p4"> <ANTIMG src="images/i217.jpg" width-obs="73" height-obs="141" alt="Decoration" /></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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