guillotine

If there is such a thing as a Parisian Via Dolorosa then it can only be the short lifetime that was
the procession of the tumbril from prison to scaffold during the worst days of the French
Revolution. Most of the victims were aristocrats but as time went on there were many old
scores settled by denouncements and as the different factions struggled for supremacy there
were some surprising and surprised personnages who were also caught up the maelstrom.
Camille Desmoulins who once exhorted the mob from an alcove in the Palais Royale, a few
years later went to the scaffold, horrified at the excesses taking place; his wife Lucile followed
him just a short time later; Madame Roland, ambitious and snobbish, embraced the very ideals
she denounced, while Danton was proscribed by Robespierre who himself was guillotined even
as he lay stricken by a bullet wound. There were many prisons for "enemies of the state" in
those days but for most their final journey began at the Conciergerie.

The Conciergerie was a 12th Century fortress on the Ile de la
Cite. The distinct towers are called bonbec towers. The Horloge
can just be seen on the corner. The Conciergerie is a unique
example of medieval, gothic architecture but the prisoners had
but one desire during the Terror and that was to leave it. Most
prisoners were thrown together in huge dungeons but some such
as Marie Antoinette had their own cells. The Cour des Femmes
was immediately outside the cell of Marie Antoinette and is
virtually unchanged from the days when Madame du Barry,
Charlotte Corday, Madame Roland and a company of aristocratic
ladies bathed at the fountain in the centre. The Conciergerie is
adjacent to the Palais de Justice and one by one through a maze
of corridors the prisoners were brought before the Revolutionary
Tribunal--very few were reprieved from the courtroom
nicknamed La Salle des Pas Perdus.

No matter what Marie Antoinette may have or may
have been accused of in the past, she brought
tears to the eyes of all in that courtroom in
October 1793 and even the most ardent of
Republican must have realized that the calumnies
and slanders laid down by Hebert the Prosecutor
were so outlandish and defamatory that they could
not possibly be true - the worst being the
accusation of incest with her own children. Over
the years, Marie Antoinette was subjected to the
vilest propaganda in the form of leaflets and word
of mouth. Anything she said or did was twisted
and used against her and she was demonised to
serve the ends of the Revolution. Even in these
enlightened times her name is synonymous with
licence and excess but the truth is that she was a
loving mother and wife. She called upon the
mothers in the gallery that day " Ce crime est-il
possible?"and if you sit in the same auditorium
today her shade still lingers.

The trials were for the most part finished within minutes---there were very few who escaped the
death penalty by Fouqier-Tinville, The Public Prosecutor; pregnant women were reprieved until
the birth of their baby but appeals of any other nature fell upon deaf ears. Down the steps of the
Palais de Justice the tumbrils waited and a daily procession went across the Pont au Change.

After crossing the bridge, on the right was the Place Chatelet.
The statue in the foreground was erected to commemorate
Napoleon's Egyptian adventures and was therefore not in place
at that time. but the ancient Tour St Jacques { in background,
to the left } would have been visible.

The Tower itself had not been untouched by the Revolution,
being all that remained after the adjoining church had been
destroyed. The statue of St. Jacques which had stood atop the
Tower had been pulled down.

The Grands Boulevards did not exist at that time but the Rue
St. Honore, apart from the traffic, is virtually unchanged. The
tumbrils would have then turned left and entered onto this
main road.

Once on the Rue St. Honore the prisoners were on the high road to their deaths. All about them
were reminders of the Revolution - there were in fact very few places in Paris which escaped the
attentions of the sans-culottes. The entrance to the Palais Royale came up on the right --this was a
hot-bed of Revolutionary fervour and a gathering place for all manner of dissidents. From here
Camille Desmoulins harangued the crowd which brought down the Bastille, Charlotte Corday
bought the knife with which she killed Marat and Napoleon lost his virginity to a prostitute.

A little further and the Place Vendome could just be glimpsed in passing. This again had not been
left alone - the central column { which has been re-erected } was being reduced stone by stone. The
statue of Louis the Fourteenth, which had stood on the column since 1699, was pulled down, broken
into small pieces and melted down. The left foot survived and is in the Louvre.

The tumbrils are nearing the end of
the Rue St. Honore and this
contemporary print shows the
entrance to the Jacobin Club at
bottom right. Further right at the
very bottom of the picture the
tumbril can be seen, escorted by
soldiers of the National Guard. The
buildings have not changed at all and
the inhabitants became used to
looking down upon the sad
procession which went by daily. One
of the most interested was
Maximilien Robespierre who lived at
No. 400 Rue St Honore

Just a few hundred yards further on and Church of St.
Roch appears. This is the place where Napoleon Bonaparte
first came to the attention of the Republicans quelling a
Parisian mob which threatened the Convention in 1795.
While the crowd threatened from one end of the street
Bonaparte brought up his artillery from the other end and
gave them his infamous " whiff of grapeshot". The result
was an overwhelming victory for the Republicans and the
beginning of Bonaparte's career. The officer who fetched
the artillery pieces was a youthful Joachim Murat.

Robespierre was at one time omnipotent during the
Revolution. An idealist ex-lawyer, Robespierre fully
accepted the bloodshed needed to accomplish his
Revolutionary ideals. He rented an apartment over a
courtyard { see right} at the house of the Duplay
family where he became engaged to Eleonore Duplay
and a well-liked member of the family.

Nevertheless, his role as beloved family man did not prevent him from
attempting to achieve his aims for a Utopian state of his own imagination
and night after night L'Incorruptible sat with his acolyte Louis de St Just,
The Angel of Death, drawing up the lists of the accused for the next day.

The Duplay house is now a restaurant which is reached by walking through the old courtyard. You
can sit in the alcove where Robespierre and St. Just sat and draw up your own list if you like --

" any more messing fro that milkman - and my boss has been pushing it a bit lately-----" If you are
really good and the manager is in a good mood she will ask the present incumbent if you can see
Robespierre's apartment.

The Rue St. Honore has now come to the junction
where it turns into the Rue Royale. The church of
the Madeleine receded into the background as the
tumbrils neared the vast auditorium of the then
Place de La Revolution. The Madeleine had been
inaugarated in the 1760's but work had stopped
during the Revolution and it would be circa 1840
until the edifice was completed. Legend has it that
there are still marks where the German long
range guns struck the side during the First World
War. The Duc de Richelieu lived in the house that
would become Maxims during the Belle Epoque and
Madame de Stael who lived over the road wrote it
all down in her diary. The mansions at the very end
of the Rue Royale are now the Ministry for the
Marine and the Hotel Crillon.

And it was in this manner that the great and the good and the downright unlucky met their maker at
the hands of Sanson the executioner. Some cried for mercy, some made speeches and some
fainted away. Marie Antoinette inadvertently stepped on the headsman's foot and her final words
were " Pardonnez-Moi Monsieur, I did not do it on purpose" and she passed into history showing
more humanity and sensitivity in one sentence than her persecutors did in their lifetimes.

Place de La Revolution with the Rue
Royale to the rear and the entrance
to the Tuileries gardens on the left
hand side.

The vast square was always full of
sightseers, sans-culottes and the
ubiquitous tricoteuses.