THE DEATH OF MARIE ANTOINETTE.
[TO THE EDITOR OP TED " SPECTATOR." J
Sin,— Some of your readers who, like myself, were interested by your article in the Spectator of May 27th, on the "Prison
Life of Marie Antoinette," may perhaps also be interested by the following unpublished account, which I venture to send you, of her last moments. I came upon it not long ago in a note-book kept during the Revolution by my great-grandfather, Mallet du Pan, who, though no longer in Paris at the time, always drew his information from trustworthy and carefully organised sources. I do not remember to have seen it stated elsewhere that Marie Antoinette was actually dead before she reached the scaffold ; but to those who know David's moving and terrible sketch of the ill-fated Queen on her way to execution, the suggestion will not seem an improbable one :— Ce malheureux ensuite la Reine de passer dans
la chambre voisine pour y faire son horrible et derni6re toilette. Elle y pass& avec fermet6. On la deshabilla, on lui coupa lea cbeveux, on lui mit un bonnet rond, une couverture qui l'enveloppait, et pardessus un manteau de lit de mousseline. Dana cot equipage on la conduisit h. la charrette, oi elle fut plash) entre deux bourreaux. Cette infortunee Princesse soutint cot horrible appareil et in traversee immense avec serenit6, regardant is foule avec indifference. Male, arrives an bout de la rue Royale, lorsqu' elle apereut la Place de la Revolution, la fouls, l'echafaud, le souvenir de son manage ou celui de la mort du Roi la frapperent de saisissement. L'opinion generale eat qu'elle expira. Arrive° a la guillotine, les bourreaux furent obliges de la prendre et de In porter sin' Is bane ; elle n'avait plus de sentiment. L'un des bourreaux dit memo It quelques scekrats qui lui reprochaient do la porter : Eh, no voyez vous pas qu'elle a dejk passe ! "
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