She had been a good mother to the children, who were born, as she believed, to rule the destinies of France.
She had clung to a falling cause, with a sense of duty which was as admirable as her courage, and at last she died with the devoted heroism which so well became her mother's daughter.

But what we now look on as virtues, were vices in the eyes of the republicans, who were her judges.
Her constancy was stubbornness, and her courage was insolence.

Her innocent mirth was called licentiousness, and the royal splendour which she had been taught to maintain, was looked upon as iniquitous extravagance.

Nor was this, even in those bloody days, enough to condemn her.

Lies of the basest kind were, with care and difficulty, contrived to debase her character--lies which have now been proved to be so, but which were then not only credible, but sure to receive credit from those who already believed that all royal blood was, from its nature, capable of every abomination.
When Lebas so confidently predicated the sentence which posterity would pass on the fall of Marie Antoinette, none of his auditors doubted the correctness of his prophecy.