with having overthrown a throne only to erect a scaffold in its place; and she declared that the execution of the queen would exceed in foulness all the other crimes that they had yet committed.  She was a foreigner, she was a woman; to put her to death would be a violation of all the laws of hospitality as well as of all the laws of nature.  The whole universe was interesting itself in the queen’s fate.  Woe to the nation which knew neither justice nor generosity!  Freedom would never be the destiny of such a people.[13]

It had not been from any feeling of compunction or hesitation that those who had her fate in their hands left her so long in her dungeon, but from the absolute impossibility of inventing an accusation against her that should not be utterly absurd and palpably groundless.  So difficult did they find their task, that the jailer, a man named Richard, who, when alone, ventured to show sympathy for her miseries, sought to encourage her by the assurance that she would be replaced in the Temple.  But Marie Antoinette indulged in no such illusion.  She never doubted that her death was resolved on.  “No,” she replied to his well-meant words of hope, “they have murdered the king; they will kill me in the same way.  Never again shall I see my unfortunate children, my tender and virtuous sister.”  And the tears which her own sufferings could not wring from her flowed freely when she thought of what they were still enduring.

But at last the eagerness for her destruction overcame all difficulties or scruples.  The principal articles of the indictment charged her with helping to overthrow the republic and to effect the reestablishment of the throne; with having exerted her influence over her husband to mislead his judgment, to render him unjust to his people, and to induce him to put his veto on laws of which they desired the enactment; with having caused scarcity and famine; with having favored aristocrats; and with having kept up a constant correspondence with her brother, the emperor; and the preamble and the peroration compared her to Messalina, Agrippina, Brunehaut, and Catherine de’ Medici—­to all the wickedest women of whom ancient or modern history had preserved a record.  Had she been guided by her own feelings alone, she would have probably disdained to defend herself against charges whose very absurdity proved that they were only put forward as a pretense for a judgment that had been previously decided on.  But still, as ever, she thought of her child, her fair and good son, her “gentle infant,” her king.  While life lasted she could never wholly relinquish the hope that she might see him once again, perhaps even that some unlooked-for chance (none could be so unexpected as almost every occurrence of the last four years) might restore him and her to freedom, and him to his throne; and for his sake she resolved to exert herself to refute the charges, and at least to establish her right to acquittal and deliverance.