Shortly after the conclusion of this singular transaction, a murderer had to be executed, and the usual instructions were issued by the Procureur General to Henri Sanson, to have his death dealing apparatus ready on a certain morning in the Place de la Roquette. It then became necessary to explain to the authorities that the fatal machine was practically in the custody of My Uncle. Justice, however, had to be satisfied, and the murderer’s head was duly cut off on the appointed morning; but simultaneously with the signature of the Minister of Justice of a draft for 4,000 francs to release the hypothecated guillotine, there was issued an order dismissing Sanson from his post. And Marie Antoinette? I have drawn her picture as faithfully as I could, not without much toil and more perplexity for the memoirs of the period in which she lived and died absolutely bristle with falsehoods, the inventions now of Royalist and now of Republican writers. Comparatively few are the facts concerning her which have been exactly ascertained and are altogether indisputable; whereas the name of the unfounded assertions, the insinuations, the hypotheses, and the downright lies, is legion. By some this most unhappy woman has been represented as an angel of goodness and purity, a faithful spouse, a fond parent, a kind mistress, and a most pious and charitable princess. By others she has been depicted as a crafty, unscrupulous and vindictive woman, as perfidious as Borgia and profligate as Messalina. This is no place in which to discuss at length a most intricate question, all hedged about by obscurity, uncertainties and mysteries which will, perhaps, never be solved. At all events, the story which I have told of her trial and her last moments is true. For the rest, both Royalists and Republicans agree that Marie Antoinette was born at Vienna, in 1755, and was the daughter of Francis of Lorraine, Emperor of Germany, and of Marie Theresa of Austria. In May, 1770, she married the Dauphin Louis, who was grandson of Louis XV of France, and who, in 1774, ascended the French throne as Louis XVI. It would not seem that Marie Antoinette was absolutely beautiful, as beautiful, say, as Queen Louisa of Prussia, or as the Empress Eugene, still there is a tolerably unanimous consensus of opinion that she was handsome, lively, amiable, and thoroughly kind-hearted. It is possible that she may have been a little thoughtless in her youth; and the ledgers of Madame Eloffe certainly show that, as regards her toilet, Marie Antoinette was a most prodigal Queen. But is it a mortal sin in a young, pretty and sprightly woman to spend a good deal of money on dress? How many hundred dresses did our chaste Queen Elizabeth leave behind her, in her wardrobe, at her death?