This image demonstrates the necessity of nationalizing church property. It shows a peasant cutting the fingers off a priest’s hands; a nobleman cannot bear to watch, but has no qualms about putting on the gloves the clergyman will no longer need.…
This composition of the scene, in which a helpless Louis seems to be looking upward to heaven with his confessor, communicates humility. The executioners are relatively passive, leaving the King and confessor center stage. This reveals that in mortal…
Not shown in this or other scenes here is the fact that between the King’s two visits he ate a last meal. At this time he was denied, as was custom, a knife to avoid suicide. Louis was angered that his jailers thought he was so sinful as to take his…
This event, which may be entirely apocryphal, and is shown in an image that surely dates from much after the Revolution, relates to the vision of the weakness of Louis and the strength of Marie Antoinette.
Many scholars would argue that Louis XVI’s finest moment came from his bravery at his execution. Even when he was forbidden from saying a last few words to those gathered to see him executed, he remained unflinching, retaining his composure. Here one…
This image shows much the same scene on the platform as the preceding one, but the surroundings are much more in evidence. Visible here are the troops. Eight to nine thousand were mobilized to avoid any efforts at rescue. This is clearly the last…
This postcard in English and French does show the broader scene at the execution of the Queen. Before the guillotine stands Marie Antoinette with Sanson, the same executioner who had dispatched her husband ten months before. Surrounded by soldiers,…
An image produced well after the Revolution shows a Queen, assaulted by the gaze of the people, controlled by the soldier, and tentative in her stance and appearance.
