Louis had been tried before the Convention.  Marie Antoinette was to be condemned by the, if possible, still more infamous court that had been established in the spring under the name of the Revolutionary Tribunal; and on the 13th of October she was at last conducted before a small sub-committee, and subjected to a private examination.  To every question she gave firm and clear answers.[14] She declared that the French people had indeed been deceived, but not by her or by her husband.  She affirmed “that the happiness of France always had been, and still was, the first wish of her heart;” and that “she should not even regret the loss of her son’s throne, if it led to the real happiness of the country.”  She was taken back to her cell.  The next day the four judges of the tribunal took their seats in the court.  Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, a man whose greed of blood stamped him with an especial hideousness, even in those days of universal barbarity, took his seat before them; and eleven men, the greater part of whom had been carefully picked from the very dregs of the people—­journeymen carpenters, tailors, blacksmiths, and discharged policemen—­were constituted the jury.

Before this tribunal—­we will not dignify it with the name of a court of justice—­Marie Antoinette, the widow Capet, as she was called in the indictment, was now brought.  Clad in deep mourning for her murdered husband, and aged beyond her years by her long series of sorrows, she still preserved the fearless dignity which became her race and rank and character.  As she took her place at the bar and cast her eyes around the hall, even the women who thronged the court, debased as they were, were struck by her lofty demeanor.  “How proud she is!” was the exclamation, the only sign of nervousness that she gave being that, as those who watched her closely remarked, she moved her fingers up and down on the arm of her chair, as if she had been playing on the harpsichord.  The prosecutor brought up witness after witness; some whom it was believed that some ancient hatred, others whom it was expected that some hope of pardon for themselves, might induce to give evidence such as was required.  The Count d’Estaing had always been connected with her enemies.  Bailly, once Mayor of Paris, as has been seen, had sought a base popularity by the wantonness of the unprovoked insults which he had offered to the king.  Michonis knew that his head was imperiled by suspicions of his recent desire to assist her.  But one and all testified to her entire innocence of the different charges which they had been brought forward to support, and to the falsehood of the statements contained in the indictment.  Her own replies, when any question was addressed to herself, were equally in her favor.  When accused of having been the prompter of the political mesures of the king’s government, her answer could not be denied to be in accordance with the law:  “That she was the wife and subject of the king, and could not be made responsible for his resolutions and actions.”  When charged with general indifference or hostility to the happiness of the people, she affirmed with equal calmness, as she had previously declared at her private examination, that the welfare of the nation had been, and always was, the first of her wishes.