The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1929-05-16

1HANKS be to the books Of hun
dreds of chroniclers and to at
- least one historic painting, every
well-informed school child knows
something of the last anguished hours
of Marie Antoinette-how before be-
ing led forth for death she protested
against the shame of having her hands
dashed behind her as though she were
a common criminal, and pointed out
that her husband had been left I'M
pinioned in his ride to the place of
execution; how her enemies disre-
garded her plea and so tightly corded
her wrists that the kindly priest who
accompanied her on the dreadful jour-
ney repeatedly pressed against the
knotted rope in an effort to ease the
pain in her bruised flesh; how in a
crude cart she jolted over the cobbled
streets of Paris, her head held erect
and her face barred to the taunts and
jeers of the populace; how when pass
ing the palace where she had spent
her happiest hours the widowed queen
fell into a faint; how, reviving both
her will and her spirit, she did not
vince at sight of the guillotine, but
with dignity climbed its wooden steps
and even begged the pardon of one
of the eXecutioners upon whose toe
she accidentally trod in mounting the
platform; how she suffered herself to
be strapped to the board and how
quietly she lay there while they were
adjusting the mechanism of the great
blade which moment later sheared
through her slender neck. In years
she was still young-only thirty-seven
but eye-witnesses recorded that she
looked that morning like an old wOm-
an, worn and haggard. Her hair in
less than three months had turned al
most white.
Thanks also to many veracious &C.
counts, we know of the proud courage
of so many of Marie Antoinette's fell
low-prisOners, doomed as she was, to
be sacrificed to the fury of the pop
ulace acting through the caprices of a
tribunal which gave to each of them
the mockery of a trial and the GER
tainty, in most cases, of conviction.
Aristocratic ladies locked in foul pris-
ons almost gayly cropped their heads
in anticipation of the fall of the knife.
County, gentlemen, mobiles of the old
regime, rehearsed them in the eti-
uuette suitable for those condemned
in order that no one might be con-
came; they practiced binding each
other. The women discussed the ques-
tion of appropriate dressing of the
neck. A whole code of manners was
evolved by these gallant souls that
awaited legalized slaughter.
Simple Fare for the Nobility.
The vivacious Madame Roland, who,
by the narrowest of margins, escaped
the fate of so many of her compatri-
OTIS, was one who lived to record the
heroisms and the miseries which the
gentry class underwent. The place of
her confinement was Saint-P elagie, a
noisome hole. With irony and a trace
even of humor, she told of her debut
as q guest of the state:
"Whilst my name was being reg
istered as q newcomer, an evil-look1ng
fellow opens my bundle, fingers it in
quisitively; 1 notice it at the moment
when he Is placing on the concierge's
desk some printed matter which was
in it lit was some newspapers) sur
prised and offended by proceeding
which ought only to take place in the
instances Of persons secretly impris-
oned, / remark that at any rate 1t
ought not to be left to man to exam
inc with such indecency woman's
night-clothes he is ordered to leave
1t alone; but he is the turnkey of the
corridor in which | am to live and I
am doomed to see his ugly face twice
day.
81 am asked if l want room with
one or with two beds.
"I am alone and don't want a COM
panion.'
"But the room will be too SMALL
"1 don't care
"They look and find there is no
single-bedded room vacant; go into
the double-bedded one; it is feet long
by feet broad, so that with the two
small tables and the two chairs there
is hardly any room left. | hear l
must pay in advance the rent for the
first month.
"But there is no Watering or other
conveniences.'
"'You must buy Them observes the
ugly fellow, extremely eager to offer
services the selfish aim of which is