Judging the queen

It took the Revolutionaries three days and two nights, from 14th to 16th October 1793, to sentence and execute Marie-Antoinette. She was doomed from the outset. The dramatic face-off between the former Queen of France and her judges in the Salle de la Liberté in the Paris Revolutionary Tribunal was not only a closed hearing, but also a dialogue of the deaf and a showdown. Although this was the trial of a queen, it was also the trial of a foreigner, a woman and mother. Emmanuel de Waresquiel recounts the trial in the light of previously unpublished sources, focussing in turn on the accused and her accusers, with their fears, bravery, certainties, fantasies and hatred. He presents it as a turning point for the Revolution and one of the most paroxysmal moments of the Terror. It was full of opposites, as if everything were drawn in black and white: men and women, virtue and betrayal, equality and privilege, the nation and Europe, the Republic and the monarchy. The greatest French civil disputes have all been tragedies, thrusting the protagonists into situations of uncertainty. Victims and executioners no longer had control over their own destiny.

Release : 8/10/2016
368 pages
ISBN : 9791021010567
Author : Emmanuel de Waresquiel
Publisher : Editions Tallandier
Dimensions: 21,5 x 2,6 x 14,5 cm
Language : French