16th October 1793: Marie Antoinette executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris

Marie Antoinette and her children had continued to be held prisoner in the Temple following the execution of her husband, the former King Louis XVI. Calls for her trial grew louder following the creation of the Committee of Public Safety during the period known as the Terror. This became the National Convention’s preferred policy following the fall of the more moderate Girondins at the end of May.

Marie Antoinette was moved to an isolated cell in the Conciergerie. Meanwhile her son, Louis-Charles, was sent to live with a Jacobin cobbler as a form of revolutionary re-education. While imprisoned in the Conciergerie the former queen plotted a failed escape attempt known as ‘The Carnation Plot’ which is believed by some to have convinced the Committee of Public Safety to bring her to trial in front of the Revolutionary Tribunal on 14 October.

Although the guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion, Marie Antoinette had expected to be sentenced to life imprisonment or exile. Having been found guilty of treason, she was instead sentenced to death and transported to the guillotine in an open cart. It’s widely reported that she showed courage throughout the remaining hours of her life including in the face of extreme verbal abuse she suffered on the hour-long journey to the Place de la Revolution.

While climbing the steps to the scaffold the former queen accidentally stepped on the foot of the executioner. She reacted by saying, ‘Pardon me, sir, I meant not to do it’. These were her last words before the blade fell at 12.15pm. She was buried in an unmarked grave in the Madeleine cemetery.