bed, and fell into a profound slumber.

An hour or two passed away, when the kind daughter of the jailer came,
with weeping eyes and a throbbing heart, into the cell to dress the
queen for the guillotine. It was the 14th of October, 1793. Maria
Antoinette arose with alacrity, and, laying aside her prison-worn
garments of mourning, put on her only remaining dress, a white robe,
emblematic of the joy with which she bade adieu to earth. A white
handkerchief was spread over her shoulders, and a white cap, bound to
her head by a black ribbon, covered her hair. It was a cold and foggy
morning, and the moaning wind drove clouds of mist through the streets.
But the day had hardly dawned before crowds of people thronged the
prison, and all Paris seemed in motion to enjoy the spectacle of the
sufferings of their queen. At eleven o'clock the executioners entered
her cell, bound her hands behind her, and led her out from the prison.
The queen had nerved her heart to die in the spirit of defiance to her
foes. She thought, perhaps, too much of man, too little of God. Queenly
pride rather than Christian resignation inspired her soul. Expecting to
be conducted to the scaffold, as the king had been, in a close carriage,
she, for a moment, recoiled with horror when she was led to the
ignominious car of the condemned, and was commanded to enter it. This
car was much like a common hay cart, entirely open, and guarded by a
rude but strong railing. The female furies who surrounded her shouted
with laughter, and cried out incessantly, "Down with the Austrian!"
"Down with the Austrian!" The queen was alone in the cart. Her hands
were tied behind her. She could not sit down. She could not support
herself against the jolting of the cart upon the rough pavement. The car
started. The queen was thrown from her equilibrium. She fell this way
and that way. Her bonnet was crowded over her eyes. Her gray locks
floated in the damp morning air. Her coarse dress, disarranged, excited
derision. As she was violently pitched to and fro, notwithstanding her
desperate endeavors to retain the dignity of her appearance, the
wretches shouted, "These are not your cushions of Trianon." It was a
long ride, through the infuriated mob, to the scaffold, which was reared
directly in front of the garden of the Tuileries. As the car arrived at
the entrance of the gardens of the palace where Maria had passed through
so many vicissitudes of joy and woe, it stopped for a mom