With this testimony they ventured to accuse Marie Antoinette of
infamy, but the queen gave it no other answer than scornful silence
and a proud and dignified look, before which the judges cast down
their eyes in shame. Then after a pause they repeated their
question, and demanded an answer.
Marie Antoinette turned her proud and yet gentle glance to the women
who had taken possession in dense masses of the spectators' gallery,
and who breathlessly awaited the answer of the queen.
"I appeal to all mothers present," she said, with her sad, sonorous
voice--" I ask whether they hold such a crime to be possible."
No one gave audible reply, but a murmur passed through the ranks of
the spectators, and the sharp ear of the judges understood very well
the meaning of this sound, this language of sympathy, and it seemed
to them wiser to let the accusation fall rather than rouse up the
compassion of the mothers still more in behalf of the queen. Her
condemnation was an event fixed upon, the "guilty" had been spoken
in the hearts of the judges long before it came to their lips, and
brought the queen to the guillotine.
Marie Antoinette referred to this dreadful charge in the letter
which she wrote to her sister-in-law Elizabeth in the night before
her execution, a letter which was at the same time her testament and
her farewell to life.
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