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There he had no choice but to repeat what he’d told the soldiers. Then the cry went up:

“This fellow’s just left her.… He saw her.… What did she say?… What’s she doing?… Is she still as arrogant as ever?… Has she finally caved in?… Is she weeping?…”

The Knight answered all these questions in a voice that was weak, gentle, and affable all at once, as though this voice was the final manifestation of the life hanging by his lips.

His response was the simple truth: but this truth was a eulogy to Antoinette’s backbone, and what he said with the simplicity and faith of an evangelist threw anguish and remorse into more than one heart.

When he spoke of the little Dauphin and of Madame Royale, of this Queen without a throne, this wife without a husband, this mother without her children, this woman finally alone and abandoned, without a friend among all the butchers, more than one brow, here and there, became veiled in sadness, more than one tear sprang up, furtive and burning, in eyes previously gleaming with hate.

Eleven o’clock rang out from the Palais clock and all noise ceased on the instant. A hundred thousand people counted each stroke of the hour as it called out and was answered by the beat of their heart.

Then the last vibration of the final stroke died in the ether and a great commotion was heard behind the doors at the very moment that a cart, coming from the quai aux Fleurs, where the flower market was, carved its way through the throng of spectators and guards and parked at the foot of the steps.

Soon the Queen appeared at the top of the immense flight of steps. Every possible passion was concentrated in the crowd’s eyes; their breathing was shallow and quick.

Her hair was cut short; most of it had gone white during her captivity and this silvery tone made her pearly white skin all the more delicate and luminous, made the beauty of this Daughter of the Caesars5 almost celestial in this, her final hour.

She was dressed in white and her hands were tied behind her back.

When she showed herself at the top of the stairs with abbé Girard on her right, accompanying her against her will, and the executioner on her left, both men dressed in black, a murmur ran throughout the crowd—one that God alone, who can see into men’s hearts, could understand and formulate as truth.

At that moment a man passed between Marie Antoinette and the executioner. It was Grammont, intent on pointing out to the Queen the ignoble cart.

In spite of herself, the Queen took a step back in shock.

“Get in,” said Grammont.

Everyone heard him; you could have heard a pin drop in that moment, so great was the emotion.

Then they saw the blood rush to the Queen’s cheeks and right to the roots of her hair. Immediately afterward her face became deathly pale again.

Her white lips parted.

“Why a cart for me,” she said, “when the King went to the scaffold in his carriage?”

Abbé Girard then said a few words to her in a very low voice. No doubt he was battling this final cry of royal pride in the condemned woman.

The Queen closed her mouth and faltered. Sanson held both arms out to steady her, but she stood up straight and tall again before he could touch her and swiftly descended the steps, while the aide righted a wooden footstool at the back of the cart. The Queen climbed up, the priest climbed up after her. Sanson made them both sit down.

When the cart began to pull away, the people surged forward in one tremendous movement. But since the soldiers weren’t sure what the movement meant, they promptly joined forces to hold the crowd back as best they could. As a result, there was a great empty space between the cart and the front rows of onlookers. Within this space a mournful howling rent the air.

The Queen leapt to her feet and scanned the sea of bodies. Then she saw her dog, missing for two months; her little dog, who had not been able to get into the Conciergerie with her and who now hurled himself at the cart, despite all