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The cart stopped at the foot of the scaffold.

The Queen, who had doubtless never imagined this precise moment, snapped out of her trance: she swept her haughty gaze over the crowd and the same pale young man she had seen before standing on a cannon appeared to her again from on top of a milestone.

From this vantage point, he sent her the same worshipful salute he had addressed to her as she was leaving the Conciergerie; then he immediately jumped to the ground.

Several people saw him and, as he was dressed in black, the rumor quickly spread that a priest had waited for Marie Antoinette in order to grant her absolution as she mounted the scaffold. They could say what they liked—the Knight didn’t give them a second’s thought. In extreme moments, there is a supreme respect for the things that matter.

The Queen nimbly descended the three steps of the footstool. She was supported by Sanson, who showed her the greatest consideration up until the last, all the while carrying out the task he himself seemed condemned to perform.

While she was walking toward the steps of the scaffold, a number of horses reared up; a number of guards on foot and a number of soldiers on horseback seemed to wobble and lose their balance; then something like a shadow could be seen slipping beneath the scaffold. But calm reestablished itself almost in the same instant. No one wanted to leave their place at this solemn moment, no one wanted to miss the slightest detail of the great tragedy that was about to unfold. All eyes were on the doomed woman.

The Queen was already on the platform of the guillotine with the priest still talking at her. An aide pushed her gently from behind; another undid the fichu that covered her shoulders.

Marie Antoinette felt that infamous hand flutter at her neck; she made a sudden movement and stepped on Sanson’s foot as he was busy, unbeknownst to her, tying her to the deadly frame. Sanson pulled his foot away.

“Pardon me, monsieur,” said the Queen. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Those were the last words uttered by the Daughter of the Caesars, the Queen of France, the widow of Louis XVI.

The quarter hour after midday rang out from the clock at the Tuileries. And at that very moment Marie Antoinette fell into eternity.

A terrible cry, a cry that summed up all that forbearance could possibly contain, such as joy, horror, grief, hope, triumph, expiation, smothered like a hurricane another cry, feeble and lamentable, which came from beneath the scaffold at the same moment.

The gendarmes heard it, faint as it was, and stepped forward. The crowd was thinner now and spread out like a river that has burst its banks, breaking through the hedgerow of soldiers and sending them flying, washing over the foot of the scaffold like a tidal wave and carrying it away.

Everyone wanted to see close up the remains of a royalty they believed forever destroyed in France.

But the gendarmes were looking for something else: they were looking for the shadow that had broken through their lines and slipped under the scaffold. Two of them came back, dragging by the collar a young man who was pressing to his heart a handkerchief stained with blood.

The man was followed by a little spaniel who howled forlornly.

“Death to the aristocrat! Death to the ci-devant!” shouted a few men of the people, pointing at the young man. “He dipped his handkerchief in the Austrian woman’s blood: put him to death!”

“Good God!” cried Maurice. “Lorin, do you recognize him? Do you recognize him?”

“Death to the royalist!” repeated the maniacs. “Get that handkerchief off him! He wants to keep it as a relic. Take it off him! Take it off him!”

A proud smile fluttered across the young man’s lips. He tore his shirt, baring his chest, and dropped his handkerchief.

“Messieurs,” he said, “this blood is not that of the Queen; it is my own. Let me die in peace.”

And a deep and streaming gash appeared, gaping, under his left breast. The crowd screamed and moved back as the young man slowly fell to his knees, gazing at the scaffold as a martyr would gaze at an