Trial of Marie Antoinette of Austria

Some months after the execution of her husband, Marie Antoinette found herself in the dock of the public prosecutor, Antoine Quentin Fouquier–Tinville. The intervention of the radical journalist Jacques–René Hébert had pushed her case to the top, and she was accused most notably of immorality and treason. She defended herself bravely and calmly, as the above image suggests. But the judgment was never in doubt, as the revolutionaries had always doubted her. And acquittal in these conditions was difficult at best. After a two–day trial, she was convicted and executed the next day, 16 October 1793.