Wednesday, October 18, 2017

The Fate of a Queen

Attired in a plain white dress.......white being the color always worn by widowed queens of France, and with her newly turned white hair shorn as a form of disrespect. And also so that her long locks would not impair the sharp steel blade of the guillotine from doing its deadly work. The former queen of France had her hands painfully bound behind her back  with coarse farm rope.She then was pushed and prodded so that a leather leash could be attached to the restraints that bound her thin and pale wrists. And unlike her husband, who had been taken to his execution in a plush carriage, she had to sit for over an hour in an open hay cart as it made its slow progress from the Conciergerie along the rue Saint-Honore' to the guillotine that awaited her in the Place de la R'evolution. And all the while she kept her composure as the insults and jeers were thrown at her as she rode to her most rude end. A priest was assigned to hear her final confession.......should she be so inclined to report it to his open ears. But it was said that she ignored this member of the ministry all the way to the scaffold. And sat quietly and pensively in that open cart as if she were on her way to a formal shopping excursion. It has also been noted that her last words on this earth were to the executioner on whose foot she had accidentally stepped while stumbling towards her final reward. "Pardon me, sir, I meant not to do it." Then seconds later her lifeless body was thrown unceremoniously into an unmarked grave in the Madeleine cemetery located close by in rue d'Anjou. Oh what a curious thought comes to my mind while thinking of how it came to pass that this queen of France ended up loosing her head because of personal greed and immorality. Does America have a "queen" who might suffer the same type of fate that befell Marie-Antoinette? 
Lord Howard Hurts

No comments:

Post a Comment