Mortal enemies

A crowd has been slowly assembling in Revolution Square to see an extraordinary spectacle. Everybody could see the fatal blade of the killing machine shining in the morning sun, oh, it was well sharpened! Then, there was a murmur: the guards are coming! the guards are coming!

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But let me go back in time.

He was a french lawyer and politician who, because of his radical and uncompromising style, was called the “Incorruptible”. Although initially opposed to death penalty he later embraced the radical purification of politics by the killing of his enemies. His period at the helm of the “Convention Nationale” as the revolutionary Parlament was named, was called “the reign of terror” and hundreds were sentenced to death under mere suspicions of treason, sedition and conspiracy.

Died 28/7/1794 at 36 years of age.

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And She was a sweet girl,raised in the comfort of an Imperial Court, not used to any kind of physical hardship. Her world was gay and easygoing. She could play “hide an seek” in palaces with 100 rooms. Only, in the city she lived in, she had three palaces: Hofburg, Schönbrunn and Belvedere and, yet, although she had the best teachers available, at age 10 still couldn’t write or read properly. Her only obligation was to be happy.

Died 16/10/1793 at 37 years of age

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By an extraordinary twist of destiny, the fates of these two characters, the pampered girl and the passionate revolutionary, were bound to clash in one of the most agitated periods of History. And, by an even more extraordinary coincidence, both ended their lives in the same manner, with one year difference: their heads severed by the fatal blade.

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The spoiled girl, born in imperial Vienna, was to become the Queen of Fance. While French people were starving, she led an extravagant, luxurious and carefree life in the Versailles Palace. Some say that her promiscuous and lavish way of living caused the people’s hate and precipitated the French Revolution. She was dubbed the Autrichienne (autre chienne, in French, another bitch).

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This quiet life at the Palace was disturbed by one of the most extraordinary events in History: The French Revolution.

In 1789 a mob stormed Versailles Palace, it was led mostly by women and went so far as to the Royal Bedrooms. They played hide and seek with the royals. The royals hid but they were found trembling in a safe room. King Louis XVI (a Bourbon) and Queen Marie Antoinette of France (a Hausburg) were transported to the Tulleries Palace in Paris under house arrest and under the watchful eye of the National Guard.

The story of the royal family imprisonment was cruel.

At the beginning, the royal family was together in a palace The Tulleries, they still had their servants, their dresses, their jewels, their courtesans, their relatives. They tried to escape but they were discovered and brought to Paris again, slowly, for the people to see and insult them.

To avoid further escape attempts, they were moved to a castle (The Temple). A few servants, one relative, the royal children. Only two rooms.

An extraordinary session of the National Assembly was held to discuss the the fate of the deposed monarchs. Our brash revolutionary, called “the incorruptible”, took a leading role.

--The monarchs are an obstacle to the Revolution—he said

--The king and the queen must die, so that the nation may live. They could function only as a threat to liberty and national peace –he added.

The King was summarily judged and executed in the Revolution square.

Maria Antoinette was now alone with her children.

She was no longer the Queen, only Capeto’s widow.

After another escape attempt, she was further stripped of the only things she had: her children, her clothes, her only servant, even her little watch with which she counted the endless hours of her captivity, and led to a dungeon: La Conciergerie.

She now only had her life. But it was to be taken away soon.

She was judged for treason in the National Convention.

Her last will was intercepted by the young revolutionary and lost for many years.

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Now let’s go back to The Revolution Square where the people were whispering “the guards are coming, the guards are coming”! Escorted in an ox-driven cart came the offender, Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, pale, dressed in a plain white dress. She was taken out by the guards and helped up the stairs. Inadvertently, she stepped on the executioner’s foot.

- Excuse me, sir, I meant not to do it!

A true dame to the very end!

The executioner tied her hands on the back and with an expert gesture made her lay under the killing machine. Then, a firm pull on the rope and the fatal blade fell on her neck and did its job. Then the severed head was put to a pole and shown to the crowd. A big roar of applause rose from the populace amid shouts of ¡Vive la Revolution!

As for her nemesis, Maximilien Robespierre, his revolutionary zeal made him clash with other political factions. He was on the losing side on an internecine war and was summarily judged, declared enemy of the revolution and executed in the guillotine in the next year. The vengeful crowd assembled once more in La Concorde square in Paris.

The crowd was much smaller than the Queen’s. The French people was kind of getting used to the spectacle…

Was she the depraved woman who attracted the hate of the people and became the catalyser of the French Revolution?

Was she an heroine?

Today we recognise that she was neither a bitch, the Austrian bitch, neither a heroine. Se was obliged by the circumstances to be bigger than her true dimension.