Marie Antoinette's closest confidante met a grisly end

France declared war on Austria in April 1792 because of concern that Austrian forces would invade in an effort to reinstate the absolute monarchy of Louis XVI. The revolutionaries, however, were bolstered by their victory at the battle of Valmy in September over a coalition force commanded by Prussia, totally overthrowing the monarchy.

The king and queen, together with a few of their confidantes, were already in prison at this point. One of them was the Princesse de Lamballe, a personal companion of Marie Antoinette, who was imprisoned in the infamous La Force facility. On September 3, 1792, Lamballe was carried out onto the street where she was attacked by a mob and beheaded for refusing to recite an oath against the royal family. Then, as Marie Antoinette was being kept in the Temple jail, her head was marched there and displayed outside the queen's window on a pole.