Marie Antoinette's Darkest Days: Prisoner No. 280 in the Conciergerie

by Will Bashor

Overview

This compelling book begins on the 2nd of August 1793, the day Marie Antoinette was torn from her family’s arms and escorted from the Temple to the Conciergerie, a thick-walled fortress turned prison. It was also known as the “waiting room for the guillotine” because prisoners only spent a day or two here before their conviction and subsequent execution. The ex-queen surely knew her days were numbered, but she could never have known that two and a half months would pass before she would finally stand trial and be convicted of the most ungodly charges.

Will Bashor traces the final days of the prisoner registered only as Widow Capet, No. 280, a time that was a cruel mixture of grandeur, humiliation, and terror. Marie Antoinette’s reign amidst the splendors of the court of Versailles is a familiar story, but her final imprisonment in a fetid, dank dungeon is a little-known coda to a once-charmed life. Her seventy-six days in this terrifying prison can only be described as the darkest and most horrific of the fallen queen’s life, vividly recaptured in this richly researched history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538138908
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/21/2020
Pages:	392
Sales rank:	1,063,152
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Will Bashor is the author of the award-winning Marie Antoinette’s Head: The Royal Hairdresser, the Queen, and the Revolution and Marie Antoinette’s World: Intrigue, Infidelity, and Adultery in Versailles. He holds a doctorate in international studies from the American Graduate School in Paris and is professor of global issues at Franklin University. Visit him at www.willbashor.com.

Table of Contents

AUTHOR’S NOTE PROLOGUE CHRONOLOGY INTRODUCTION PART ONE: THE CONCIERGERIE Chapter 1: Transfer from the Temple Prison À Savoir: “The Queen of France at the Conciergerie” Chapter 2: The Queen’s Dungeon Cell À Savoir: The Queen’s Final Portrait Chapter 3: The Horrors of the Conciergerie À Savoir: The Game “Guillotine” Chapter 4: Kindhearted Souls À Savoir: Rosalie Lamorlière PART TWO: RESCUE THE QUEEN! Chapter 5: Royalist Supporters À Savoir: The Queen’s Expenses in the Conciergerie Chapter 6: The Carnation Plot À Savoir: “Le Chevalier de la Maison Rouge” Chapter 7: The Queen’s New Cell À Savoir: The Controversy Chapter 8: Tightened Security À Savoir: Count Fersen Meets Rougeville PART THREE: THE QUEEN’S ARRAIGNMENT Chapter 9: Prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville À Savoir: Jacques-Louis David Chapter 10: The Indictment, the Jury, and the Witnesses À Savoir: Le Tribunal Révolutionnaire Chapter 11: The Revolutionary Tribunal – Day One À Savoir: Meteorologists Report Chapter 12: The Revolutionary Tribunal – Day Two À Savoir: Meteorologists Report PART FOUR: OCTOBER 16, 1793 – COLD & CLOUDY Chapter 13: The Queen’s Last Rites À Savoir: The Queen’s Dog Chapter 14: The Route of the Fatal Tumbril À Savoir: Sanson Obituary Chapter 15: The “National Razor” À Savoir: Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin PART FIVE: THE ABSURDITY Chapter 16: The Unfortunates and the Sole Survivors À Savoir: Madame Élisabeth of France Chapter 17: La Cimetière de la Madeleine À Savoir: Basilica of Saint-Denis EPILOGUE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS & CREDITS SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ENDNOTES

Editorial Reviews

A fascinating book that brings eighteenth-century France to vivid life. Mixing memory and archives with great skill and rich writing, Will Bashor pulls the reader into the dark cell where the queen of France, Marie Antoinette, spent her last days. Nothing escapes the acute vision of this historian-novelist: the prices of meals, the barking of the dogs, the tiny notes written by the queen a year before, the weather on the fatal day—October 16, 1793—and, of course, the scaffold in front of the Tuileries. No better proof that ‘Grande Histoire’ can be understood with ‘Petite Histoire.’ Un régal!

Jean-Clément Martin

A brilliant and ambitious tour de force. Will Bashor is the first historian to focus on this most dramatic period of the queen’s life. Impressively documented and researched, his intriguing book will be a must-read for all who are passionate about the most pivotal epoch in French history.

Professor Yolande Aline Helm

A fascinating portrayal of Marie Antoinette’s last days. Anyone who is in thrall to her story, as I am, will find this a compelling account of her tragic fate. Will Bashor’s meticulous research creates a vivid and memorable image of the people with whom she interacted, the prisons where she was confined, her journey to the guillotine, and her final resting place.

Dana Ivey

In meticulous detail and with a seemly sense of empathy, Will Bashor recounts the last tragic days of Marie Antoinette. Her confinement, trial, and execution are recorded with supreme precision. The fear and insecurity of the fallen queen in her stinking dungeon and on her way to the guillotine are almost palpable. Written in a lucid style that reads like a novel, this impressive book on the fate of France’s last queen reminds us ruthlessly of the cruel side of the French Revolution. Will Bashor at his best.

Cor Speksnijder

A page-turner. .. The level of detail is in many ways admirable.

Early Modern Women

For Marie Antoinette's Head:
...most intriguing and immaculately researched

France Today

For Marie Antoinette's Head:
Compelling....Bashor weaves history, politics, French court customs, into a movie-worthy tale of ambition, luck, romance, and tragedy...

Santa Fe New Mexican

A fascinating book that brings eighteenth-century France to vivid life. Mixing memory and archives with great skill and rich writing, Will Bashor pulls the reader into the dark cell where the queen of France, Marie Antoinette, spent her last days. Nothing escapes the acute vision of this historian-novelist: the prices of meals, the barking of the dogs, the tiny notes written by the queen a year before, the weather on the fatal day—October 16, 1793—and, of course, the scaffold in front of the Tuileries. No better proof that ‘Grande Histoire’ can be understood with ‘Petite Histoire.’ Un régal!

Jean-Clément Martin

A brilliant and ambitioustour de force.Will Bashor is the first historian to focus on this most dramatic period of the queen’s life. Impressively documented and researched, his intriguing book will be a must-read for all who are passionate about the most pivotal epoch in French history.

Yolande Aline Helm

2016-11-24
This scholarly work thoroughly documents Marie Antoinette's imprisonment, trial, and execution. Bashor (Marie Antoinette's Head, 2013, etc.), a professor of global issues at Franklin University, tells the story of Marie Antoinette's last 10 weeks by drawing on contemporary sources as well as modern scholarship. The king was executed in January 1793; on Aug. 2, 1793, when this book begins, Marie Antoinette was taken to the Conciergerie prison in Paris. Her trial began on Oct. 14, and two days later she was found guilty and sent to the guillotine. Bashor describes the damp, filthy prison's privations; attempts to help or rescue the queen; the revolutionary tribunal and the monarch's trial with its prosecutor, indictment, jury, witnesses, testimony, and sentencing; and Marie Antoinette's final moments. In all this, the author provides novelistic and empathetic attention to detail and personalities, as when he notes that Marie Antoinette recorded the heights of her children on the prison wall or how she kept busy by converting toothpicks into tapestry needles. He marshals a wide array of evidence, carefully distinguishing likely and trustworthy accounts from less believable ones and sorting out confusing episodes such as the Carnation Plot. In his readable book, Bashor shows that the Vienna-born Marie Antoinette, as a foreigner (and, probably, as a woman), became a scapegoat for the mob's rage and that her trial was a sham. But while conceding that Marie Antoinette was "well known for her lavish expenditures and frivolous lifestyle," he seems as puzzlingly reluctant as the queen to connect all the dots between that frivolity and the scapegoating. And while Marie Antoinette suffered in the Conciergerie, so did all his majesty's prisoners before her, some no less innocent than herself. That the queen loved her children and went to her death with noble poise has captured much admiration—certainly Bashor's—but this ought surely to be seen in the context of aristocratic France's overwhelming human tragedies, which can never be told in so much detail. Extensive notes, a selected bibliography, and index are included. Impressive, well-researched, useful, and accessible, though some readers may feel that the book's sympathies for the doomed queen remain misplaced.

Kirkus Reviews