Historical Character: Nero and Marie Antoinette

Nero

Nero the Antichrist, the arsonist, the murderer, the matricide, the madman capable of committing any atrocity, the bloodthirsty. But also the artist, the musician, the actor, and the one who "oppressed the great but was kind to the small." (Napoleon Bonaparte)

Nero was the fifth emperor of Rome, the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He ruled for about fourteen years, during which he won the love of his people, captivated and fascinated by his "inexhaustible" generosity. At the same time, he was hated by the authorities, whom he opposed courageously by making political decisions that were reckless and too avant-garde for his time.

Historians, both contemporary and later Christian ones, passed down the "black legend" that still accompanies him. However, modern historiography, with recently discovered archaeological remains and a rigorous control of sources, offers a very different, perhaps more plausible, image of an emperor who was likely not guilty of all that he had been accused of.

Nero is a controversial and contradictory figure. On one hand, his dependent nature is easy to recognize: the Nero in need of love, the "good boy" willing to make any sacrifice to fulfill his mother's ambitions and protect himself from his own insecurities, external threats, and abandonment. On the other hand, his seductive, theatrical, playful, irresponsible, and hedonistic side emerges, as he seeks in every way to free himself from the power of others, from limitations, and from societal norms, obsessively chasing the image of himself as an extraordinary person.

His darker side, characterized by excesses, desperation, violence, and self-aggression, would later emerge, triggered by the fear of being alone and a constant sense of threat to his life and authority. Nero belonged to an imperial dynasty that carried with it a long series of bad deeds: deceit, plots, and crimes that made no one feel safe.

He was born on December 15, 37. His mother was Agrippina the Younger, and his father was Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, known for his arrogance and cruelty. It is said that he told friends who congratulated him on the birth of Nero: "From me and Agrippina, only a dangerous and harmful being for all could be born." He never wanted to take care of his son and died when Nero was only three years old. Agrippina the Younger, an excessively ambitious and power-hungry woman, was immediately exiled by her brother Caligula for being involved in a conspiracy against him; she would only see her son again after four years.

Nero spent his early years deprived of the most intimate family affections. He cultivated a deep bond with his paternal aunt, Domitia Lepida, who raised him with love and sparked

his interest in art and dance. Years later, Agrippina, jealous of the affection between aunt and nephew and worried it might interfere with her own plans for herself and Nero, forced him to testify against his aunt in a political trial, resulting in Domitia’s death sentence.

Upon returning from exile, Agrippina managed to marry Emperor Claudius, even though he was her uncle and married to Messalina. Meanwhile, she provided her son, upon whom she poured her ambitions, with the best education, worthy of a future emperor. Nero was willing to do anything to avoid feeling abandoned again. He knew he was indispensable to his mother’s ambitions and paid a high price for the privilege of being the "chosen one." At Agrippina's insistence, he married his stepsister Octavia, daughter of Claudius, at sixteen, relegating his passion for art and sport to a mere pastime. He had no contact with peers until adolescence because his life was constantly threatened by the plots instigated by his mother.

At seventeen, in 54 A.D., he succeeded Claudius, who had been poisoned by Agrippina. Sources describe his early years of rule as prosperous and happy. Under the influence of Agrippina, Seneca, and the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Afranius Burrus, Nero implemented policies favorable to the senators, restoring the authority they had lost over time and ensuring them privileges and wealth. He was a moderate and diplomatic emperor, rejecting the title of "Father of the Fatherland," saying, "When I deserve it." He repressed spontaneity and instinct, was a devout and obedient son, and his priority was to satisfy his mother's desires, to whom he delegated all power. During these early years, he failed to build an identity separate from Agrippina; he idealized her and sought to establish a symbiosis with her. Coins were minted with their likenesses together, he chose "Optima Mater" as the password for the guards, and allowed his mother to attend Senate meetings in disguise.

Nero was highly dependent on his mother; the role of emperor was too heavy for his age, and he did not feel adequate or up to the responsibilities. Rome was a military power, and everything revolved around battles and bloodshed. However, Nero had a different temperament. He was likable. During his reign, he did not initiate wars of conquest; instead, he focused on defending the borders. He opposed the taking of life in general and is said to have commented with sadness when he had to sign a death sentence, which he was deeply opposed to, saying, "I wish I did not know how to write."

He imagined himself more as an artist than as a ruler. What interested him was art, and he loved to spend his time, when allowed, attending chariot races or practicing and performing in singing, acting, and poetry. When asked what he would do if he were deposed as emperor, Nero replied, "Art will always give me the opportunity to live." Before his death, he is said to have uttered the phrase: "What an artist dies with me!"

He harbored a deep passion for Greek society and culture; he praised the importance of art and aesthetics. He never wore the same outfit twice, enjoyed jewelry and fine fabrics, and spared no expense because he felt he deserved the best. He was egocentric and demanding, like a spoiled child claiming his right to happiness. When he performed, no one could leave the theater, not even for an emergency, not even when an earthquake occurred! It is said that some women were even forced to give birth in the gallery.

He lived through romantic fantasies, and through them, he idealized himself. Fantasies, considering his power, which sometimes turned into reality. One day he thought he should experience motherhood; he was obsessed with the desire to live pregnancy and give birth to a child. He summoned the best doctors in Rome to carry out his plan; the extensive explanations about the impossibility of such an endeavor were of no use, and to save themselves from the death threats, the doctors gave him a miraculous potion in which they secretly hid a small live frog. This, moving inside him, was supposed to give the sensation of an advanced pregnancy. Amid the pain, the emperor, thanks to a purge, "gave birth." The frog paraded through the streets of the city on a royal cart, followed by the aristocracy.

As a Hellenistic sovereign, he paid much attention to his appearance in an original and attention-grabbing way. He appeared in public wearing a simple, extremely fine silk tunic, unusually short, without a belt, with bare feet and a scarf around his neck. His well-cared-for hair was rebelliously long, like that of poets.

In contrast, politics was just a duty list. Over time, he began to feel the effects of his mother’s oppressive control, discipline, and the dramatic elections imposed by his role. He aspired to rule alone, desiring "absolute power" to feel free to do whatever he wanted and lead a more carefree lifestyle.

He developed a demagogic policy, granting everyone extreme freedom. He would go down among the public, enjoying mingling with common people. At night, he would leave the palace to visit the slums. During the day, he would delight his people with spectacles and performances, organizing large games and events, and awarding prizes. He banned killing gladiators in the arena. He ordered the distribution of grain during famines. He devalued the currency to stimulate the economy. He sanctioned a tax reform that favored the business classes and penalized the unchecked luxury of the senatorial class and powerful imperial freedmen.

This type of policy proved useful and effective. He spent enormous sums to enrich the city with works of art and monuments, and under his rule, Roman society achieved the highest cultural and artistic recognition. However, the senatorial class, which had been most affected by the reforms, became his enemy forever.

The break came when Agrippina, who despised her son's artistic inclinations and extravagances, which she considered unsuitable for an emperor, began telling everyone that her stepson, Britannicus, the legitimate heir of Claudius, was already capable of assuming the emperor's role. Nero ceased to be the first, the favorite, despite his sacrifices and devout "generosity"; he seemed replaceable. Terrified by his mother's threats, deeply hurt, and feeling unprotected and threatened in his authority, he first poisoned Britannicus during a banquet, then exiled his mother, and then ordered her matricide.

The assassination of Agrippina was a turning point in Nero's life. By exiling her and limiting her interference with his power, he had definitively severed the relationship with the most important woman in his life, the woman to whom he had sacrificed himself and who, for better or worse, had contained his sense of vulnerability and inadequacy. In a way, he had killed the very meaning of his existence. He often said he felt pursued by his mother’s image and by the furies' torches and scourges. Even his loyal collaborators distanced themselves — although they remained accomplices and active defenders of his image — because they could not forget the act of inhuman violence he was capable of.

Given his marked dependence on his mother, he was able to free himself from her because he felt he could trust his second wife, Poppaea. A cunning and ambitious woman, like Agrippina, she was aware of the influence she exercised over the weak and suggestible lover.

In addition to Poppaea, Nero appointed Gaius Ofonius Tigellinus, a rough man known for his cruelty, as his adviser. Tigellinus shared Nero's passion for excesses and led him to distrust everyone and approve drastic measures against enemies or suspected enemies.

Nero freed himself from what was left of the calm child, an art lover driven by feelings of justice, and, overwhelmed by his need for control and Conservation, he transformed into a tyrant.

Tigellinus filled Rome with spies. Any negative mention of Nero ended in homicide or suicide. The famous vengeance following the Pisonian conspiracy: Nero would eliminate all his opponents without hesitation, including his tutor Seneca.

In 64 A.D., a great fire destroyed Rome. Many blamed Nero, who, in his delusions of grandeur, immediately took the initiative to build, on the ruins, the Domus Aurea, the largest residence ever built by a sovereign in the heart of the city, and also a bronze statue over 30 meters tall, the Colossus of Nero, in which he assumed divine appearances. Nero was probably unjustly accused; he was not in Rome when the fire started, but to divert suspicion, he made sure to blame the Christians: thousands of them died in atrocious suffering.

During the following years, amidst fierce repression, food shortages, and rebellions in Spain, Gaul, and North Africa, tensions against Nero grew stronger. The crisis could have been resolved, but Nero could only imagine acts of revenge or dream of the troops’ repentance by presenting himself unarmed and pleading before them. The Senate deposed him and declared him "public enemy," ordering his arrest and flogging until death. The Praetorian Guard abandoned the palace. Nero begged at all the doors of his friends, but found no one willing to help or accept killing him. "So, do I have neither a friend nor an enemy?" he cried.

Abandoned by everyone, he took refuge six kilometers from Rome, in the house of a loyal freedman. Despite his despair, Nero did not give up easily and hesitated for a long time, unable to kill himself and avoid greater disgrace. Only when he heard the horses of the Praetorians approaching, did he kneel and, helped by the freedman Epaphroditus, stab himself in the neck. He died by forced suicide at the age of thirty-one, when, in the anguish of loneliness, he was forced to act because this time, no fantasy could save him.

Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette is a very representative historical figure of this subtype. The Queen of Versailles prominently displayed her personality traits.

Here is a description by Stefan Zweig, her most prominent biographer: “Marie Antoinette was neither the great saint of monarchy nor the lost figure of the Revolution, but a character of a middle type: a woman who was truly ordinary; neither too intelligent nor too foolish; neither fire nor ice; with no particular tendency toward good nor the slightest inclination toward evil.”

Despite living in an era where her role had clearly defined protocols, Antoinette sought to live on her own terms; attempting to disregard the obligatory protocols established in her time, in her quest for freedom and autonomy. This ultimately led to a great tragedy that affected both her and her family, reflecting the historical period: a nation, ignored and disregarded, filled with hunger and despair, decided to end the monarchy and everything it represented.

The Queen's Early Years

Marie Antoinette was born on November 2, 1755, in the rooms of the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, as the fifteenth child of Queen Maria Theresa of Habsburg. The little girl was baptized as Marie Antoinette Josefa Johanna, and within the family, she was called Antoine

(or Madame Antonia). In her book Reinas Malditas (Cursed Queens), Cristina Morató notes: "The chamberlain of the court wrote in his notebook: 'Her Majesty has happily given birth to a little archduchess, but completely healthy.'"

At the time of Marie Antoinette's birth, her mother, Maria Theresa, was 38 years old and ruling the Austrian Empire. She was a sovereign deeply dedicated to her duty of governance and was one of the most powerful women in Europe at the time.

Marie Antoinette’s childhood is described as idyllic. She lived in palaces with botanical gardens, collections of wild and exotic animals, and various residences for the family depending on the seasons. She particularly enjoyed one residence that was described as her favorite, where the children enjoyed the countryside and the liberties not normally allowed within the Viennese court.

Her father, Emperor Francis I, of a cheerful, relaxed, and carefree character, helped ensure that the upbringing of his children resembled that of a normal bourgeois family, without expectations during their stays outside the palace, allowing them to behave more freely: "Everyone was indulgent with the charming Antoinette, including her father, who had a weakness for her. Her mother, less benevolent, called her rebellious, impulsive, and capricious. She did not realize that, through her behavior and pranks, the little girl was constantly trying to attract her attention..." The little one, who never felt loved by her mother, sought refuge in her sister Maria Carolina... they formed a very special bond, and both were extroverted and very talkative children.

Her Artistic Development

As she grew, Marie Antoinette developed artistic talent, participating in celebrations where children danced, sang, and performed characters, all encouraged by her parents, who instilled in her a love for music. She received instruction from the best teachers of the time in singing and dance.

All of the queen’s daughters were educated to become the monarchy of the future, learning the customs of the time. This education included attitudes of modesty, submission, and skills to behave according to custom. In the monarchy, appropriate and royal behavior was expected, in line with their role in continuing the family line.

Marriage at a Young Age

At twelve years old, her mother decided that Antoinette would become the wife of the Dauphin of France, Louis-Auguste of Bourbon. The queen could see that she was a very attractive young woman, with some defects that could be corrected, such as crooked teeth that at the time were fixed with wires and a forehead said to be too wide, which a stylist helped to conceal.

For her future, attractiveness did not seem to be a limitation, but her poor education was. She barely knew how to write, and whatever she wrote lacked spelling rules. She had no interest in reading, history, literature, or languages. Marie Antoinette was joyful, charming, and pleasant, but this lack of interest in learning and cultivating herself would mark her fate: “Playful, distracted, mischievous, naughty, little Marie Antoinette, despite her great understanding, never showed the slightest inclination to deal with any serious matter.”

As a preceptor, she was assigned Abbot Vermond, who described the young girl in class: “She has more intelligence than was suspected for a long time, but unfortunately, this intelligence, until the age of twelve, has not been accustomed to any concentration. A little laziness and a lot of lightness made it even harder to give her lessons.”

At twelve, the carefree archduchess learned she would be the Dauphine of France. Her mother, a few months before her departure, spent more time with her, trying to converse and prepare her for her future reign.

Becoming the Dauphine

At thirteen and a half years old, France formally requested Marie Antoinette’s hand in marriage. The slender teenage girl, with little bust and short stature, did not seem the most developed or prepared for such a role. However, upon meeting her father-in-law, King Louis XV, he found her charming, spontaneous, and childlike, and he informed her mother, Queen Maria Theresa, that the French royal family was delighted and considered her a blessing.

As for the Dauphin (her future husband), he was an introverted and unattractive adolescent, who upon meeting her, remained formal and protocol-driven, without enthusiasm. This would mark their early married years, filled with indifference and blandness, avoiding consummating the marriage and failing to become the ideal couple that the court and the people so desired. They spent these years without much novelty: the young Marie Antoinette, to kill her boredom, played with her new husband's younger siblings, living a life of monotony.

At first, she appeared friendly to the conventions of the court, but the rituals at Versailles clearly bothered her. From morning to night, all moments of the day were filled with strict

behavioral protocols and being attended to according to the French court's regulations. This, along with the constant presence of court hierarchies, determined everything: her hygiene, her clothing, her hairstyle, her activities. Around five hundred people could be in her service, although she only spoke to a few of them.

Teenage Diversions

Upon turning eighteen, Marie Antoinette sought distractions by attending the opera, theater, and horse races with her brother-in-law. The search for fun became more pronounced as she began sneaking out of Versailles at night to spend long evenings in Paris.

From then on, her husband, Louis XVI, became more interested in her, complimented her, and expressed pride in her. However, due to the lack of sexual life between them, caused by the Dauphin’s phimosis, Marie Antoinette sought refuge in her distractions:

“For years, her sexuality was excited in this unsatisfactory, shameful, and depressing way, which never satisfied her desires. Thus, it is clear that this constant and unfulfilled sexual excitement, caused by her husband, became the typical clinical consequence of a permanent state of arousal. In her core, she had never felt true emotions and couldn’t calm herself. This woman, still not consummated after seven years of marriage, needed movement and noise around her. What began as a playful and joyful fascination with distractions slowly turned into a delirious, unhealthy obsession, considered scandalous by the court, against which Maria Theresa and all her friends fought in vain.”

Becoming Queen

A year later, King Louis XV died, leaving the way open for Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to become the Kings of France. Her role as the new sovereign developed through continuous nighttime excursions to Paris with ladies and gentlemen from her inner circle. She would also decorate a small palace, the Petit Trianon, which her husband, the new king, had just gifted her. Here, she would spend over ten years, using it as a refuge that no one could access without her invitation. Decorated meticulously, without limits on funds, it would not require the protocol followed at Versailles.

“For the Marie Antoinette of nineteen, being a queen meant exclusively being the most elegant, most coquettish, best dressed, most flattered, and above all, the most entertaining in the entire court.”

Marie Antoinette did not seek to leave a legacy in history; she was a teenage queen with little vision for the future. Her interests extended no further than herself and her pleasures, and she had no interest in providing the world with any ideology. “Since childhood, she had only shown a strong, stubborn, and often childish instinct for independence; she didn’t want to dominate, but neither did she want to be dominated or influenced by anyone. For her, being sovereign was simply about being free.”

The Rise of Maternality

At twenty-two, Marie Antoinette received a visit from her older brother, Joseph II, sent by their mother, Queen Maria Theresa, to speak with her husband and convince him to undergo surgery to treat his phimosis, thus enabling them to consummate their marriage. The second purpose of the visit was to speak with her sister and call her attention to correct her reckless behavior. The visit bore fruit, and a year later, the queen gave birth to a daughter.

E3 years later, in 1781, she had her first son, the Dauphin Louis-Joseph. Four years later, her third child, Louis-Charles, was born, followed by her final daughter, Sofia Beatriz, who died of tuberculosis at one year of age.

With motherhood began the first transformation of Marie Antoinette, not yet the decisive one, but a beginning. The pregnancies forced her into several months of deprivation from her senseless distractions. The delicate pleasure of playing with her children soon became more attractive than the frivolous joys of the gaming table. Her strong need for tenderness, previously wasted on vain coquetries, had finally found its true purpose. The path toward self-awareness opened before her.

Despite showing her new role as a mother and bearer of heirs to the throne, rumors and criticism of Marie Antoinette's behavior did not cease. Her unpopularity continued due to the constant favoritism shown toward her favorites. Additionally, her attitude toward political decisions, reckless and detached from the needs of the governed, only exacerbated the situation in a country that was tired of being ignored.

The Austrian group constantly tried to push her toward politics, but it was in vain, for in order to reign or co-reign, she would have had to read daily, constantly, papers and documents for several hours. However, the queen disliked reading. She would have had to listen to the ministers' reports and reflect on them, but Marie Antoinette disliked thinking. The mere act of listening was a severe effort for her wandering spirit. “She barely hears when something is said to her,” complained the ambassador Mercy in Vienna, “and there is almost never an opportunity to discuss any serious or important matter with her or to

capture her attention toward a crucial issue. Her thirst for pleasure exerts a mysterious power over her.”

Thus, little by little, after ten years in power, frustration and hatred begin to germinate. The resentful groups include the nobility and parts of the bourgeoisie; pamphlets continue to circulate. However, she feels immune, believing that she is in no danger, and maintains her proud and contemptuous demeanor despite the increasingly powerful slanders: “Smiling and light-hearted, Marie Antoinette passes beside danger. Words are, for her, nothing more than blades in the wind. To wake her up, a storm must come.”

Another Scandal in the Court

Although her nightly walks in Paris have ceased, she now dedicates her free time to decoration. She acquires a new palace, causing more public displeasure and earning her the title of “Madame Deficit.” Her love for theater and being in the spotlight makes her want to participate in a play about The Barber of Seville, which she plans to perform in the same palace theater. At this time, she is asked to pay for a lavish diamond necklace she supposedly ordered, which was delivered to a supposed close friend of hers.

This deception causes Marie Antoinette great indignation, as she believes the responsible party (actually as deceived as she was) is Cardinal Prince de Rohan-Guemenee, whom she does not like and sends into exile. Without investigating or considering the consequences of the scandal, this becomes another example of her poor decisions, further sinking the monarchy into collective disapproval, being labeled as unjust and immoral.

Awakening in Revolutionary Times

Although the Parliament has unmasked the culprits behind the necklace scandal, the poisoned seed has already sprouted. The scandal puts Marie Antoinette in the public eye.

The bourgeois society of France is awakening, influenced by Voltaire and Rousseau, questioning the privileged lifestyle of the monarchy, and giving birth to the awareness of a new social vision where the people and the state should no longer be slaves to the kings and their whims. For the first time, exact figures on the financial situation are made public: millions of pounds in financial deficit.

Marie Antoinette begins to react, but too late:

“A crackling lightning bolt had to fall to make Marie Antoinette leave her proud and indifferent laisser-faire. At this moment, she is awake; now she begins to understand what she had omitted from her duties. That ill-advised, deaf woman, who had been blind to all favorable advice, now hurries to correct, in a visible way, the most irritating of her faults. With one stroke, she immediately limits the costly trappings of her life... For the first time, Marie Antoinette lives with her ears alert; for the first time, she does not obey the old power, the fashion of her world, but the new one, public opinion.”

She begins to experience fear of all that she had ignored, and is moved:

“Marie Antoinette has bitten the bitter apple of knowledge and loses her sonambulistic security, for only those who are unaware of danger remain fearless.”

She decides to withdraw from frivolous circles; she lives more calmly in the company of her children, wishing to turn back time and correct her mistakes, but the people and the bourgeoisie do not forget, and they allow the punishment for her indifference and contempt of those years to fall upon her.

The Revolution Reaches the Queen

In the lead-up to the Revolution, tragedies do not cease. On June 4, 1789, her eldest son, the Dauphin Louis-Joseph of France, dies of tuberculosis, and Marie Antoinette is devastated. Although public opinion is heating up, there is still in her and the king an innocence of what the people are capable of doing:

“This rigid and unshakable will of Marie Antoinette in the face of the Revolution, however, does not contain (at least at first) the slightest animosity against the people… She considers the people as ‘le bon peuple.’”

On July 14, 1789, the Bastille is taken, and the kings have no idea of the magnitude of what is about to happen. Marie Antoinette’s closest friends flee Versailles, including the Duchess Yolande de Polignac, whom she had protected for years, giving her and her family important positions, and who is now fleeing in the midst of the storm.

Her ministers suggest that Marie Antoinette leave the country, but she insists on staying by the king’s side, as the mother of the Dauphin. Meanwhile, the enemies of the monarchy and the ambitious fuel rumors with pamphlets that the queen is promiscuous, homosexual, wasteful, and, ultimately, a foreigner who has turned the country upside down.

The queen never took those defamations seriously because she did not know her people; she had never left her comfort zone, her palace-to-palace travels; she neither knew nor cared about the country she ruled.

The Revolution Comes to Versailles

On October 5, 1789, a crowd, mostly women full of hatred and demands, bursts into Versailles, shouting insults at Marie Antoinette. She manages to escape from the aggression, which reaches her chambers, and she and her family leave for Paris the following day, where they are insulted and threatened, eventually settling in the Tuileries Palace.

Months later, as they try to lead a normal life in the Tuileries, the kings begin to realize their lives are in danger and plan to move to a province where they would be protected and could restore order. Their flight will take place at night, but they are caught and detained. They enter the city to be met by crowds waiting for them with insults and threats. They are watched and held in the palace.

Marie Antoinette has aged in these days of chaos and revolution; she is only thirty-six but feels the full weight of her mistakes upon her. She and her sovereign husband have lost the power and place they once believed were theirs forever. Trying to find strength in weakness, she seeks support and writes letters to other monarchies that have abandoned her. She writes a letter to Count Mercy-Argenteau, the Austrian ambassador in France, who had been her advisor for over twenty-five years before leaving to serve Marie Antoinette’s brother, King Leopold:

“I do not know what action to take or what tone to adopt; everyone accuses me of hypocrisy, of falsehood, and no one can believe—with good reason—that my brother cares so little about his sister’s dire situation, as to remain silent without doing anything. Hatred, distrust, and insolence are the only things that now move this country.”

Terror is Coming

The royal family is moved to a fortress after the palace has been looted, while their fate is debated. The kings do not know that the enemies of the revolution are being killed, including beloved friends. Marie Antoinette writes during these days:

“In misfortune, you discover your true nature,” and promises not to show weakness in the face of the terror that runs through the streets of Paris.

The royal family is on the brink of annihilation. First, King Louis XVI is taken to the guillotine. Then, the Dauphin Louis-Charles, the only surviving son, is imprisoned, dying two years later of malnutrition and tuberculosis in an isolation cell, having just turned ten.

Marie Antoinette is taken to a dungeon, not before saying goodbye to her daughter, whom she leaves in the hands of a sister-in-law. After two months, she is brought in for trial, and despite her weariness and delicate health, she faces the accusations, not denying anything she has done. She spends a year in confinement, defending herself calmly and precisely at every hearing.

The calumniators and false accusations parade. In one of these hearings, she exclaims:

“Yesterday I did not know the witnesses, and I did not know what they would declare. Well, no one has said anything positive about me. I will say, finally, that I was only the wife of Louis XVI, and that I had to comply with his will.” When Marie Antoinette finally hears her sentence and is condemned to death, she hardly reacts.

In her final moments, walking without forgetting her dignity, she ascends, firm and dignified. Upon reaching the scaffold, she stumbles with her executioner:

“I ask you to forgive me, sir. I did not do it on purpose.”