The King And Queen Were Beheaded During The Revolution
The King and Queen were beheaded is the next interesting fact about the French Revolution. The public, which had already turned against King Louis XVI because of his planned departure to Austria, now saw him as a traitor who desired foreign intervention to restore the monarchy. Marie-Antoinette, his wife, was likewise unpopular with the populace. When Parisians came to Versailles to plead for bread, it was said that she replied, "If they can't have bread, let them have cake." The Queen never said anything about this, despite the fact that it demonstrated complete contempt for the common people. A throng of Parisians besieged the Tuileries, Louis XVI's official residence, on June 20, 1792. The Legislative Assembly put the King and Queen under house arrest to prevent additional unrest. On August 10, King Louis XVI was accused of treason and convicted.
Marie-Antoinette was imprisoned in Paris for the rest of her life. Along with the queen, the princess de Lamballe, who stayed faithful to her throughout the Revolution, was arrested. Lamballe refused to swear an oath against the monarchy, and on September 3, 1792, she was handed over to a crowd in Paris, who chopped off her head and paraded it outside Marie-windows Antoinette's on a pike. The National Convention ordered Louis XVI's execution in January 1793, and the queen was placed in solitary imprisonment in the Conciergerie in August. On October 14, 1793, she was hauled before the Revolutionary tribunal and guillotined two days later.
