At the outbreak of the Revolution, she was living at Luciennes in great luxury on the fortune left her by the duke.  Probably she would have escaped the guillotine had she not been so possessed with the idea of retaining her wealth.  Four trips to England were undertaken by her, and on her return she found her estates usurped by a man named Grieve, who, anxious to obtain possession of her riches, finally succeeded in procuring her arrest while her enemies were in power.  From Sainte-Pelagie they took her to the Conciergerie, to the room which Marie Antoinette had occupied.

Accused of being the instrument of Pitt, of being an accomplice in the foreign war, of the insurrection in La Vendee, of the disorders in the south, the jury, out one hour, brought in a verdict of guilty, fixing the punishment at death within twenty-four hours, on the Place de la Republique.  Upon hearing her sentence, she broke down completely and confessed everything she had hidden in the garden at Luciennes.  On her way to the scaffold, she was a most pitiable sight to behold—­the only prominent French woman, victim of the Revolution, to die a coward.  The last words of this once famous and popular mistress were:  “Life, life, leave me my life!  I will give all my wealth to the nation.  Another minute, hangman! A moi!  A moi!” and the heavy iron cut short her pitiful screams, thus ending the life of the last royal mistress.

Chapter XII

Marie Antoinette and the Revolution

The condition of France at the end of the reign of Louis XV. was most deplorable—­injustice, misery, bankruptcy, and instability everywhere.  The action of the law could be overridden by the use of arbitrary warrants of arrest—­lettres de cachet.  The artisans of the towns were hampered by the system of taxation, but the peasant had the greatest cause for complaint; he was oppressed by the feudal dues and many taxes, which often amounted to sixty per cent of his earnings.  The government was absolute, but rotten and tottering; the people, oppressively and unjustly governed, were just beginning to be conscious of their condition and to seek the cause of it, while the educated classes were saturated with revolutionary doctrines which not only destroyed their loyalty to the old institutions, but created constant aspirations toward new ones.

Thus, when Louis XVI., a mere boy, began to reign, the whole French administrative body was corrupt, self-seeking, and in the hands of lawyers, a class that dominated almost every phase of government.  In general, inefficiency, idleness, and dishonesty had obtained a ruling place in the governing body; the few honest men who had a minor share in the administration either fell into a sort of disheartened acquiescence or lost their fortunes and reputations in hopeless revolt.