MARIE ANTOINETTE MAPJENWERDER virtually continued to control affairs; and as some of her measures conflicted with those urged by the king's other advisers, many cross purposes increased the prevailing uncertainty
- uid IM MI fusion. She was unable, and the king
was too lethargic, to secure the cooperation of < impotent statesmen in building up a constitu- tional monarchy, which might perhaps have savnl the throne. Despairing at last, she ob- taim-d Mirabeau's consent, shortly before his drat h, to the flight of the royal family, which i/ndod so ignominiously (1791). During the insurrection of June 20, 1702, Madame Elisa- K'th, the devoted sister of the king, was mis- taken for Marie Antoinette by the mob, who shouted A las V AutricJiienne. The people had long been made by her adversaries to be- lieve that she was surrounded by a so-called Austrian cabinet, which was planning the ruin of France ; and the mourning at the court over the death of Marie Antoinette's brother, the emperor Leopold, which began March 13, 1792, was jeered at and turned into public rejoicing. During the attack upon the Tuileries, June 20, she overawed the co'arse women who came to insult her by her firm and noble attitude, which she also displayed on Aug. 10, when the palace was sacked, and she and her family took refuge in the national assembly, though she long declined to leave the Tuileries, imploring the king rather to nail her to the walls of the palace. On Aug. 13 the royal family was re- moved to the Temple prison, where she was separated from her friends, including Mme. de Lamballe, who soon fell a victim to the Septem- ber massacre, and whose bleeding head was paraded before the queen's windows. She was also speedily separated from her husband, and did not see him again till Jan. 20, 1793, the eve of his execution. In the night of Aug. 1-2, when she was removed to the Conciergerie, she took leave of Madame Elisabeth and of her daughter; and having long prepared herself for her inevitable fate, she bore all her agonies with stoical fortitude. Before the revolutionary tribunal (Oct. 14), she showed the same calm- ness and resignation. Instead of vindicating herself, as her husband had attempted to do, she hardly condescended to reply, excepting in the most laconic manner, to the questions put to her ; and she demonstrated by her attitude that she regarded the trial as a farce and her death sentence as a foregone conclusion. Only when she was accused by Hebert (Pere Du- chesne), the principal witness against her, of having debauched her own boy, who had slept in tin- same bed with her and Madame Elisa- l>-th. her indignant denial of that accusation. and appeal to all the mothers present, struck 'mirtion into the minds of the most obdu- Eren Fouquier-Tinville, the public pros- ut..r, and the most infuriate^ women seemed to sympathize for once with the unfortunate' 'l'i--n. Tin- trial la-t.-d tv<> davs. She insist- i-d that n. .thin^ W as proved against her, and that she had only done her duty as a wife in obeying her husband. She was found guilty of having conspired against France abroad and at home, and sentenced to death at 4 A. M., Oct. 16. She was then taken to a cell of con- demned prisoners at the Conciergerie, where she immediately wrote a touching and spirited letter to Madame Elisabeth, which has been preserved. Girard, the metropolitan vicar, having been sent to her by the authorities to attend her last moments, he besought her to dedicate her life to God in expiation of her crimes; to which she replied that he should speak of her mistakes, but never of her crimes. Dressed in plain white, and having cut off her beautiful blonde hair with her own hands, she was conveyed to the guillotine like other vic- tims, only that more than 30,000 soldiers were stationed in the streets, and that the cries 'of Vive la repullique ! A las la tyrannic ! were incessant. She showed neither haughtiness nor humility in her bearing, stepped with firmness upon the scaffold, and her head fell at 12.15 P. M. Her remains were interred in the ceme- tery of the Madeleine, by the side of those of Louis XVI. In 1815 they were removed to the vaults of St. Denis. The most faithful likeness of Marie Antoinette is the portrait by the Swe- dish painter Rossline. - It was also drawn by Mme. Vig6e-Lebrun, who published souvenirs of the queen. See also Memoires sur la me pritee de Marie- Antoinette, by Mme. Campan (Paris, 1826) ; Histoire de Marie- Antoinette, by Ed- mond and Jules de Goncourt (1859) ; Maria Theresa und Marie Antoinette : Ihr Brief wech- sel wdhrend derJahre 1770-'80 (Vienna, 1865), and Marie Antoinette, Joseph II. und Leopold II. : Ihr Briefwechsel (Vienna, 1866), both by Alfred von Arneth. Arneth's Correspondance de Marie- Therese (3 vols., Paris, 1874) shows that Marie Antoinette was constantly watched by her mother, through secret agents, with a view of protecting her. MARIENBAD, a watering place in Bohemia, 20 m. S. S. W of Carlsbad, and 76 m. W. by S. of Prague ; pop. about 1,000. It contains a number of mineral springs, beneficial for dis- eases of the chest, bowels, and skin, as well as for rheumatic complaints, and is annually vis- ited by thousands of persons. The waters of some of the springs, particularly of the Kreuz- brunnen, are largely exported to foreign coun- tries. The watering place is of comparatively recent origin, and was opened out of the forest which covered its site in 1810. MARIENBURG, a town of Prussia, in the province of West Prussia, on the Nogat, 28 m. S. E. of Dantzic ; pop. in 1871, 8,235. It has a gymnasium, a normal school, and an institu- tion for the deaf and dumb. The castle, which was formerly the seat of the grand master of the Teutonic order, was restored in 18l7-'24. The town remained with the Teutonic order till^ 1457, when Poland* took possession. In 1772 it was united with Prussia. MARIE1VWERDER, a town of Prussia, capital of an administrative district in the province of
