October 16th, 1793: execution of marie antoinette

let's talk about the execution of Marie Antoinette

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Révolution_française_(film)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affair_of_the_Diamond_Necklace
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The last letter written by Marie Antoinette, addressed to her sister-in-law Elisabeth who was imprisoned at the Temple along with Antoinette's remaining 2 children (one of which, her son Louis Charles, was kept seperated from his aunt and older sister).

The letter was never delivered, and was, like some of Antoinette's last possessions and most last letters written by those set to be guillotined, kept by the public prosecutor. During the Bourbon Restoration it and the other artifacts were given to Louis XVIII.

>It is to you, my sister, that I write for the last time. I have just been condemned, not to a shameful death, for such is only for criminals, but to go and rejoin your brother. Innocent like him, I hope to show the same firmness in my last moments. I am calm, as one is when one’s conscience reproaches one with nothing. I feel profound sorrow in leaving my poor children: you know that I only lived for them and for you, my good and tender sister. You who out of love have sacrificed everything to be with us, in what a position do I leave you! I have learned from the proceedings at my trial that my daughter was separated from you. Alas! poor child; I do not venture to write to her; she would not receive my letter. I do not even know whether this will reach you. Do you receive my blessing for both of them. I hope that one day when they are older they may be able to rejoin you, and to enjoy to the full your tender care.

>Let them both think of the lesson which I have never ceased to impress upon them, that the principles and the exact performance of their duties are the chief foundation of life; and then mutual affection and confidence in one another will constitute its happiness. Let my daughter feel that at her age she ought always to aid her brother by the advice which her greater experience and her affection may inspire her to give him. And let my son in his turn render to his sister all the care and all the services which affection can inspire.

1/?

2/3

>Let them, in short, both feel that, in whatever positions they may be placed, they will never be truly happy but through their union. Let them follow our example. In our own misfortunes how much comfort has our affection for one another afforded us! And, in times of happiness, we have enjoyed that doubly from being able to share it with a friend; and where can one find friends more tender and more united than in one’s own family? Let my son never forget the last words of his father, which I repeat emphatically; let him never seek to avenge our deaths.

>I have to speak to you of one thing which is very painful to my heart, I know how much pain the child must have caused you. Forgive him, my dear sister; think of his age, and how easy it is to make a child say whatever one wishes, especially when he does not understand it. It will come to pass one day, I hope, that he will better feel the value of your kindness and of your tender affection for both of them. It remains to confide to you my last thoughts. I should have wished to write them at the beginning of my trial; but, besides that they did not leave me any means of writing, events have passed so rapidly that I really have not had time.

3/3

>I die in the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion, that of my fathers, that in which I was brought up, and which I have always professed. Having no spiritual consolation to look for, not even knowing whether there are still in this place any priests of that religion (and indeed the place where I am would expose them to too much danger if they were to enter it but once), I sincerely implore pardon of God for all the faults which I may have committed during my life. I trust that, in His goodness, He will mercifully accept my last prayers, as well as those which I have for a long time addressed to Him, to receive my soul into His mercy. I beg pardon of all whom I know, and especially of you, my sister, for all the vexations which, without intending it, I may have caused you. I pardon all my enemies the evils that they have done me. I bid farewell to my aunts and to all my brothers and sisters. I had friends. The idea of being forever separated from them and from all their troubles is one of the greatest sorrows that I suffer in dying. Let them at least know that to my latest moment I thought of them.

>Farewell, my good and tender sister. May this letter reach you. Think always of me; I embrace you with all my heart, as I do my poor dear children. My God, how heart-rending it is to leave them forever! Farewell! farewell! I must now occupy myself with my spiritual duties, as I am not free in my actions. Perhaps they will bring me a priest; but I here protest that I will not say a word to him, but that I will treat him as a total stranger.

She unironically didn't deserve to die, neither did the king. They were both good people, perhaps the first really gentle king and queen of France in a long time, but had the misfortune of being quite naive and not too bright.

60.000 died of famine in one year in Paris. I'm afraid that one decapitation wasn't enough

Yes. My impression of their family is that they were kinder than the last few generations of rulers.

And if Marie Antoinette was as smart as her mother or her brothers, this wouldn't have happened.

It is sad. The revolution wanted to make it very clear that no one was safe from their "justice".

The French Revolution was a mistake. Not as bad as the Russian Revolution, but still a mistake.

it wasn't a mistake, the absolute monarchy had to be ended. They should have kept the king and the constitutional monarchy though imo

based thot patrol

>it wasn't a mistake,

this act is what set the other nations of europe against france. napoleon was just the most competant of those revolutionaris after most killed eachother.

strangely he freed jews from ghettos

also strange how english civil war, cromwell allowed jews to return

France was a mistake.

>60.000 died of famine in one year in Paris.

There were no actual famines in Paris during the reign in Louis XVI. There was no widespread/nationwide famine in France during his reign, only 2 instances which were bread shortages in Paris but famine in some provinces which were on the outskirts of France and suffered from poor regulation of trade/delivery of necessary goods, especially during the shortages. It was in one of these provinces that Turgot saw peasants making chestnut flour for bread.

There were two significant bread shortages in Paris (and outside Paris) during his reign. One in 1775, and one in 1787-88. Both were caused by poor harvests due to bad weather.

The shortage in 1775 led to the Flour Wars, with the end result being a restructuring in how the government dispensed grain, flour and finished bread to Paris and particularly the provinces; as well as an edict which required churches and hospitals to have stores of food for people who couldn't afford to buy it. During the 1787-1788 shortage, Louis XVI sold off a ton of items from the palace, slashed court spending, and used that money to import grain and flour from foreign countries to supplement the meager harvest. He also had bread made from stores in the royal granary and had it distributed.

Both Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette heavily subscribed to the idea of royalty being responsible for charity and good works towards the poor. Both gave extensively during his reign, right up until they were imprisoned. One of Louis XVI's most overlooked projects during his reign was funding he gave for research on new types of bread which didn't use traditional grains, which was highly susceptible to poor weather and insects. Obviously, they could not stop everyone from being hungry or stop the poor from being, well, poor--but they did more than other French monarchs and more than monarchs in that time period typically did in regards to specifically helping out the poor.

The revolution wasn't a mistake, the mistake was attempting to reverse it. If it had taken it's course we could have avoided all of the horrors of the past two centuries.

If you've never read the transcript of her trial you should. It's a trip.

At one point she hands a note to her lawyer and they stop the trial and make her stand up and read the note, like a little kid getting caught in school.

One of the guards gave her a glass of water and was later arrested for it. Although I don't know if they recorded this in her trial transcript, it's in books about the trial itself though.

She was accused of sexually molesting her son and didn't respond to the accusation, so one of the jurors pressed her and she got up and dramatically said "If I did not reply it is because Nature herself refuses to recognize such a charge against a mother," then turned to the people watching the trial (mostly the hardened fishmongers who attended executions regularly) and said "I appeal to all mothers who are present here today!" The crowd in the courtroom started cheering her and booing the man who delivered the accusation, and they had to take a recess to calm everyone down.

Some of the witnesses say things like "I was told this by a good citizen who is neighbors with a man whose cousin was once a servant at Versailles." Others end up sticking up for her, such as denying that they had ever seen or heard of her doing anything remotely like what she was charged with.

Some of the charges against her are almost funny. One of the charges is literally that she opened a door leading out of the Tuileries during the royal family's flight in 1791.

She occasionally gets sarcastic/sassy and I'm kind of amazed, considering that she'd been locked up without her children or remaining family for months and they barely took any breaks a this trial which lasted more than 48 hours.

Jacobins were Mugabe-tier

It was a huge mistake. Many of the world's problems can be traced to that.

I think it was Shaw who said that he who worships a king and he who kills him are alike idolaters, she was still symbol of oppression and tyranny and her death however insignificant may look from outside was an important key for future of revolution and some sort of revenge for oppressed masses.

Mugabe is a decent, reasonable and logical man compared to the Jacobins. The Jacobins were literally a mob.

Killing an innocent person on ridiculous charges does not create a good precedent for future revolutions.

The queens party was openly collaborating with the Austrians after fleeing France,but im sure you consider invasion by a foreign power totally benign

And some revolutionaries were PLOTTING to make neo-paganism a thing

Revolutionaries are responsible for the revolution
The King and Queen are responsible for the tyranny that fed it.

>The queens party was openly collaborating with the Austrians after fleeing France

If you're talking about Louis XVI's brothers, neither she or Louis XVI condoned them. Louis XVI sent his brothers multiple letters, especially after Provence fled in 1791, telling them to stop raising armies and threatening invasion. At one point he threatened to remove Provence from the line of succession if he didn't stop trying to declare that Louis XVI was incapable of acting of his own will and that he (Provence) should be considered regent and therefore have the authority to send both foreign and emigre armies into France.

Neither Louis XVI nor Marie Antoinette condoned an invasion by a foreign power. Both wrote quite explicitly that foreign armies should never be allowed onto French soil because it would start a civil war and result in the death of countless French people. When they were caught in Varennes in 1791, the reason why they ended up being sent back to Paris was that they refused to call for the aid of Austrian soldiers who were stationed just over the border and could have rescued them.

What Marie Antoinette eventually supported was for the European powers to create a congress which declared that the National Assembly must pledge itself to agree to uphold the king's rights and authorities, which were themselves guaranteed (or supposed to be guaranteed) by the new governing laws of France. Even then, she had to be persuaded to allow the Congress to declare itself armed (she went back and forth with Axel de Fersen on this). And then after the Declaration came out and it was quite aggressive, she wrote that she and the king were dismayed that the Powers had chosen to threaten taking violent action on France because it would threaten the security of not just the royal family, but French citizens as well. In response Louis made a declaration declaring that any European power who harbored emigre armies would be considered an enemy of France.

No it resolved itself in the form of Caesar. Many of the world's problems can be traced back to the fact that the Optimates won the Napoleonic Wars. Caesar should have won so our civilization could have moved forward, but instead it was held back and now look where we are? The decay is already terminal and we never even reached maturity.

>They were both good people

Atheists hate monarchists.

Why would you say that?

>The King and Queen are responsible for the tyranny that fed it.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were the most liberal monarchs on the French throne in... pretty much ever. If absolute monarchy had been actually absolute, and Louis XVI could have just forced through his radical changes for French society, France would have almost certainly never had a revolution because almost all of the social conditions which helped create the atmosphere for the revolution would have been eased if not more or less resolved beforehand.

Jacobins and Robbie P did nothing wrong.

there's also this, written in a prayer book she was allowed to keep in prison

>My God, have pity on me! My eyes have no more tears to cry for you my poor children; farewell! farewell!

Robespierre initially protested against bringing Marie Antoinette to trial, since it was a guaranteed death sentence, and recommended she be sent to Austria in exchange for French captives instead. He filed a motion to have her trial taken off the agenda of the Tribunal. Then one of his political enemies filed a motion that his motion be investigated for counter-revolution and he withdrew it to avoid his own death.

He also did the same for Madame Elisabeth, the king's sister, although in this case it was simply speaking out against her being charged and executed rather than filing formal motions.

Because that's the way of civilizations user. Caesar is a harbinger of the triumph of force over money. Napoleon was our Caesar and we crushed him, so now what are we left with? Hitler? We crushed him too. No, now Caesar will come from the US and he'll have the entire force of that jingoistic nation of zealots at his back. Certainly more force than Germany or France could ever wish to muster.

>There were two significant bread shortages in Paris (and outside Paris) during his reign. One in 1775, and one in 1787-88. Both were caused by poor harvests due to bad weather.

To which the retard reacted by raising the taxes on wheat and putting checkpoint at the entrance of cities to take 30% of each wheat charriot enering a city

A chemise worn by Marie Antoinette in the Conciergerie prison, which is where she spent the last 2 months of her life.

Have you even read Spengler? Caesarism is not supposed to be a good thing, it's the last stage of decay.

>To which the retard reacted by raising the taxes on wheat and putting checkpoint at the entrance of cities to take 30% of each wheat charriot enering a city

When did he do that? The Flour War riots were sparked by Turgot's introduction of free trade of grain, and so afterwards Louis XVI went back to the old system because of it resulting in people hoarding existing grain and charging too much for it, resulting in the bread shortages.

I didn't say it was a good thing? I just don't think it's good to put it off, the repercussions are only going to get worse. It's best to just get it over with.

You clearly didn't understand spengler

>Napoleon was our Caesar
actually, you have very definitely never read spengler

>muh Hebrew bogeyman
Fuck off, retard

She was an adulteress. Got what she deserved.

Its better for the wife to die with her husband than to die alone. IT was a mercy more than a punishment, she literally asked to be killed with her husband after hearing he was to be executed

She and her family should have been disposed, not executed

Do you have a single fact to back that up?

t. nonarguments who didn't understand Spengler

She was fucking some officer I don't know I only saw this film.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Révolution_française_(film)

...

>The absolute state of Veeky Forums

She did not cheat on her husband. There is a rumor/myth that she and Axel von Fersen had an affair, but there's no actual evidence for it. Just because it's featured in a movie doesn't make it true.

The primary reason that the affair has stuck so much in popular culture is a series of books from the 1930s where a few historians and writers wrote rather aggressive attacks against the 19th century histiography of Marie Antoinette which primarily portrayed her as saint-like, with the primary attack being "She was fucking a dashing Swedish count, who fulfilled her in ways her husband couldn't!

It's not like I didn't expect the kind of response that I got. But I didn't remember that name and I'm not gonna watch a 5 hour long movie again just to find it.
I kind of assumed this was happening because French court was depraved as fuck.

Good books on the revolution?
Im reading through Napoleon the Great at the moment and I was looking to pick up "Talleyrand" afterwards, but I haven't actually read anything on the revolution itself.
Is Simon Schama's "Citizens" Veeky Forums approved? Post charts if you have one.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affair_of_the_Diamond_Necklace

>the daughter of a peasant whore decides to con a jeweler
>one thing leads to another, the queen is decapitated, the ancien regime implodes and the European international order is thrown into chaos

...

...

If you've never read anything on the revolution, I'd look for a concise history to get a good idea of the basic events before looking for more specialized books or books which chuck a ton of detailed information at you. A Concise History of the French Revolution by Sylvia Neely is IMO the most objective concise history out there. So many concise histories tend to either be radically "for" or "against" the revolution to the point where any information you're trying to gain gets lost. Neely's book is rarely anything but a helpful presentation of the facts, whose interpretation is up to you. Very occasionally she offers an interpretation of her own, but to where it's clear that it's her own POV and not an objective fact.

As for other books... I guess it just depends on what you're looking to read about. I dont know if there's any charts out there. Now I want to make one though.

Totally agree on this.
Her trial and king's as well were a farce of justice. Their respective lawyers were quite good. But their fate were sealed anyways.

Oh I should have mentioned I have listened to podcast series that covers the events on the revolution in pretty good detail, but my retention is better with reading.
If I'm already familiar with the events would you still recommend Neely for a concise history?

For the other books, apart from biographies, all I can remember wanting to read about were what exact enlightenment philosophers/writing was most influential to the revolution and the Jacobins and if any of it would be worth reading.
Hey of you do make a chart it would be appreciated. I have checked the chart threads many times and never found anything or at least anything worth while.

I'd still recommend Neely! I think she helps to really chart out the major causes and events of the revolution itself.

that's a lotta blood

Who dis?

the habsburg whore and her husband deserved everything they got

enemies of the citizens of the republic, traitors
vive la france!

You are sooo edgy and cool

Thank you, will you be my bf?

One does not reign innocently. Every king is a rebel and an usurper.

She was complicit of his crimes against the nation. She deserved death, and her death was useful to the republic.

It's pretty hard to look at history and not come to the conclusion that being kind to poor people just ends with the poor people murdering you.

Oh sweet baby jesus, I hope this is some god-tier bait, and you are not really that dense.

>She deserved death, and her death was useful to the republic.

Oh yeah, pissing off the rest of Europe and inciting both interior violence in France and more violence outside of France--with the result being dead French civilians and soldiers, as well as changes in the European power's policies regarding French POWs and French citizens as collateral--was totally useful to the republic.

Louis XVI's death was useful to the republic in that it cemented the end of the old order and legalized the new one. Marie Antoinette's death, like Madame du Barry's death, like Madame Elisabeth's death, like the death of various literal old aristocrats who didn't do anything except be too weak to flee like their younger counteprarts, were acts of pointless vengeance and hatred.

Same with Louis. Louis conceded to everything the people wanted from 1789 onward, continually refused to shed French blood even when it meant his own freedom was forfeit, etc, yet he was called a tyrant and executed for it. What was it G. Morris wrote to Thomas Jefferson? Something like, "It is one of the most shocking things that the mildest monarch to ever hold the French throne should be persecuted as a tyrant, even to death."

Marie Antoinette's actual personality and behavior versus her public reputation in France is a pretty interesting case study for why public image in 18th century Europe was really important.