The trial of Marie-Antoinette

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The trial of Marie-Antoinette

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After the execution of King Louis XVI on January 21, 1793, Marie Antoinette, who was responsible for the act, was not sued initially. There are different hypotheses surrounding the execution. Some among the revolutionaries wished to keep her as a bargaining ship for the Austrian Empire, and some historians even think that the Girondins wished to preserve "a future regent for the Constitutional King Louis XVII (the son of Marie Antoinette), because they hoped he would be able to come to the throne in the end".
None of these assumptions can be easily proved, but we can also assume that the execution of the King traumatized some supporters of the Revolution in a way, and it increased the fear to be invaded by foreign armies. The reason for the fear was that the revolutionaries were by now regicidal, and the members of the Convention probably thought it wiser to delay the issue of Marie Antoinette's statement. But in March 1793, there was the uprising of "rebels" in Vendée, followed by the murder of Marat by Charlotte Corday in July; which rekindled the threat of a counter-revolution and revenge from their part.

First, a political sentence
1. A double crime : the kingship ( a queen) and the gender (a woman)
2. A stranger : 'the Austrian woman'
But also a moral judgment
1. The 'Messaline' Marie-Antoinette
2. A denunciation of loose morals

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[...] However, the trial was a strong political symbol, different from the King's one, since it had been the specific work of the Convention whereas Marie-Antoinette was judged not only by the Revolutionary Court, but in an underlying way, by the city of Paris: shedding the blood of the former Queen appears as an act of communal violence to bind the sans-culottes to the new established Court. p.507-8). No wonder Hébert claimed in his newspaper Le Père Duchesne have promised the head of Antoinette. [...]

[...] And as a matter of fact, the truth was that Marie-Antoinette never accepted the Revolution: she wrote to her brother (the Emperor Joseph) in the early stages of the Revolution, Assembly is not the Nation ( ) All the crimes of the Revolution will be remembered”, which demonstrates her contempt for a Revolution she deems completely illegal and unfounded since the Nation she assumed was the King. That despise also appears in her reluctance to demand for an extension of time to prepare her defence at her trial (because it meant that she recognized the authority of regicidal revolutionaries) and in her last letter have just been condemned to death, not a shameful death, that can only be for criminals, but in order to rejoin your brother”). [...]

[...] A double crime : the kingship ( a queen) and the gender woman) According to St Just and his discourse before the opening of the King's trial man can reign innocently ( ) Every King is a rebel and a usurper” (St Just Speech 13 November 1792): the crime of Marie-Antoinette lies in her nature itself, since she bore the title of Queen and was of royal descent. The paradox is that the Revolutionary Court insisted on the fact it wasn't the trial of the former Queen of France (the name of was even prohibited), it was the widow Capet who was judged under the common law: the purpose is to make the defendant unremarkable. [...]

[...] That image of Marie-Antoinette strongly contrasted with the one of the “pure heroes of the Robespierre the Incorruptible for example” p140) and the Revolutionary Court, with the prosecutor Fouquier, embodies those republican virtues in front of the “female monster” and took on the role of the redeeming justice. So, even if Marie-Antoinette is convicted on political charges, the sentence includes an underlying, but strong, moral judgement A denunciation of loose morals The former Queen “represents a body of debauchery and crimes, sexual but with a political p13). [...]

[...] Besides Marie-Antoinette's trial and execution are often put in parallel with other said criminal women of the Revolution, even though in reality they didn't share anything in common: Mme Roland, Olympe de Gouges, Charlotte Corday blamed for their sexual gender and also for their assumed sexual emancipation”. Besides, being a monster, Marie-Antoinette is said to be thirsty with the people's blood. A witness accused her of being responsible for the crime of the Champs de Mars, another of desiring the destruction of the Nation and of having drunk with the Flanders garrison in the honour of monarchy and contempt, while they trampled the revolutionary cockade and ended the night in orgy. [...]

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