Marie Antoinette
Joseph Ducreux, Portrait of Marie Antoinette
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres,
Drawn as he watched her roll by in a chart
By Miguel Herrera
Straighten your back,
don´t you ever forget
you´ll always be the Queen.
They killed your husband, some months ago,
just a couple of days after he had been dethroned.
You knew this was bound to happen to you.
Keep your back straight
don´t show any emotion
a queen does not cry
no tears are allowed
keep your lips tightly closed
and your chin up,
you´ll always be the Queen.
It is a long voyage from the prison
to the square, the Place of the Revolution.
The road- stone-paved, the cart,
an open cart to bring animals to the slaughter,
jumps at any stone on the road.
Only one horse to carry me
seated in a narrow stool,
my hands bounded in my back,
as a common criminal,
and a queer bonnet to keep my hair,
what is left after it was cropped,
as to not interfere with the blade
at the time of the execution.
They dressed me in a dirty grey sackcloth
as a mendicant or a poor country monk.
It is cold. Middle of October.
The road is long,
the screams of the crowd, deafening.
The shouting, the insults, the mockeries.
It is a grey autumn afternoon in Paris
the sky is cloudy, dark, sad, obsessive.
I can see over the crowd
the shape of the guillotine
awaiting my arrival.
Somebody is helping me to descend from the cart,
my hands are still bound to my back.
Their court decided I was guilty of high treason
and that I should be guillotined in the public square.
Why? Even now I cannot understand.
Guilty of high treason?
I was set in a palace, far away from Paris,
far away from the real world.
Everything was offered to me,
dresses, jewelry, perfumes,
the best of the best for a Queen.
My head turns and turns like a whirling wheel.
I can still hear the music, the laughter,
I can see the lights, the thousand mirrors, the fountains,
the gardens, the labyrinth.
Dancing all night long, without any worries,
without tomorrow.
Maybe Versailles was just a dream
from where I cannot wake up.
Sanson, his real name, the Royal Executioner
helps me to climb the three steps
and place my head on the wooden stocks
while he keeps reassuring me,
-the only one that treats me like a lady-
¨This will be swift, my Lady.
You will not feel a thing,
just close your eyes,
firmly…¨
