| James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902. | | | | October 16 | | Execution of Marie Antoinette | | By William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) |
| | | | From “The Chronicle of the Drum” |
| Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI., was executed on Oct. 16, 1793, after an imprisonment of over a year. |
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“WE had taken the head of King Capet, | |
| We called for the blood of his wife; | |
| Undaunted she came to the scaffold, | |
| And bared her fair neck to the knife. | |
| As she felt the foul fingers that touch’d her, | 5 |
| She shrank, but she deigned not to speak: | |
| She look’d with a royal disdain, | |
| And died with a blush on her check! | | | |
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