xcuse or
pretest for putting her to death.--WEBER'S "Memoirs of Marie Antoinette."]

Fouquier nevertheless declared her to be sufficiently convicted;
Chaveau-Lagarde made unavailing efforts to defend her; and the
unfortunate Queen was condemned to suffer the same fate as her husband.

Conveyed back to the Conciergerie, she there passed in tolerable composure
the night preceding her execution, and, on the morning of the following
day, the 16th of October, she was conducted, amidst a great concourse of
the populace, to the fatal spot where, ten months before, Louis XVI.
had perished.

[The Queen, after having written and prayed, slept soundly for some hours.
On her waking, Bault's daughter dressed her and adjusted her hair with
more neatness than on other days. Marie Antoinette wore a white gown, a
white handkerchief covered her shoulders, a white cap her hair; a black
ribbon bound this cap round her temples.... The cries, the looks, the
laughter, the jests of the people overwhelmed her with humiliation; her
colour, changing continually from purple to paleness, betrayed her
agitation.... On reaching the scaffold she inadvertently trod on the
executioner's foot. "Pardon me," she said, courteously. She knelt for an
instant and uttered a half-audible prayer; then rising and glancing
towards the towers of the Temple, "Adieu, once again, my children," she
said; "I go to rejoin your father."--LAMARTINE.]

She listened with calmness to the exhortations of the ecclesiastic who
accompanied her, and cast an indifferent look at the people who had so
often applauded her beauty and her grace, and who now as warmly
applauded her execution. On reaching the foot of the scaffold she
perceived the Tuileries, and appeared to be moved; but she hastened to
ascend the fatal ladder, and gave herself up with courage to the
executioner.

[Sorrow had blanched the Queen's once beautiful hair; but her features and
air still commanded the admiration of all who beheld her; her cheeks, pale
and emaciated, were occasionally tinged with a vivid colour at the mention
of those she had lost. When led out to execution, she was dressed in
white; she had cut off her hair with her own hands. Placed in a tumbrel,
with her arms tied behind her, she was taken by a circuitous route to the
Place de la Revolution, and she ascended the scaffold with a firm and
dignified step, as if she had been about to take her place on a throne by
the side of her husban