“My heart is too full of it for me to speak to you of anything but the arrival of my friend, the Baron d’Auerweck. He left France two days ago, and is now here, after having run every imaginable risk, and lost everything that could be lost.... We have the Paris news from him up to the 23rd; the Queen was still safe then. The Baron does not think she will be sacrificed. Danton and the Cordeliers are for her, Robespierre and the Jacobins against. Her fate will depend upon which of the two parties triumphs. The Queen is being closely guarded--the King, hardly at all. The Queen maintains a supernatural strength and dignity.”[50] It was in London itself, at the Royal Hotel, that Lady Atkyns received these lines. She had hastened there so as to be better able to make inquiries. But the Decree issued by the Convention, on October 3, ordering the indictment of the “Widow Capet,” give a curious contradiction to the assurances given by d’Auerweck. After all, though, who could dare to forecast the future, and the intentions of those who were now in power? The ultra-jacobin politicians knew less than any one else whither Destiny was to lead them. Had there not been some talk, a few weeks earlier, of getting the Queen to enter into the plan of a negotiation with Austria? So it was not surprising that illusions with regard to her reigned in Paris as well as among the _émigrés_ in London. Eleven days later Marie-Antoinette underwent a preliminary examination at the bar of the Revolutionary Tribunal. The suit was heard quickly, and there were no delays. Of the seven witnesses called, the last, Hébert, dared to bring the most infamous accusations against her, to which the accused replied only by a disdainful silence. Then came the official speeches of Chaveau-Lagarde and of Tronson-Ducoudray--a mere matter of form, for the “Austrian woman” was irrevocably doomed. On the third day, October 16, at 4.30 a.m., in the smoky hall of the Tribunal, by the vague light of dawn, the jury gave their verdict, “Guilty”; and sentence of death was immediately pronounced. Just on eleven o’clock the cart entered the courtyard of the Conciergerie Prison, the Queen ascended, and, after the oft-described journey, reached the Place de la Revolution. At a quarter past twelve the knife fell upon her neck. All was over this time--all the wondrous hopes, the last, long-cherished illusions of Lady Atkyns. The poor lady heard of the terrible ending from Peltier. Her friend’s letter was one cry of rage and despair, more piercing even than that of January 21.