Beheading and Marie Antoinette

Decapitation or beheading, is the removal of the head from a living body, inevitably causing death. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, such as a means of murderor execution. It may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, or knife, or by means of a guillotine. Beheading has been used as the standard method of capital punishment in manycultures around the world throughout history. For some, it was considered the honorable way to die, and reserved for the nobility; for others, the mutilation of the body was considered disrespectful and was used as a most severe punishment. As humankind has progressed, gaining a greater awareness of the value of life and respect for the human rights of all, beheading has become less common—numerous countries have abolished the death penalty while those retaining it seek to impose it by more humane methods, such as hanging, gas chamber, or lethal injection. Ultimately, indeed, intentional beheading has no place in a peaceful, harmonious world.
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On the morning of October 16, 1793, a guard arrived to cut her hair and bind her hands behind her back. She was forced into a tumbrel and paraded through the streets of Paris for over an hour before reaching the Place de la Révolution where the guillotine stood. She stepped down from the cart and stared up at the guillotine. The priest who had accompanied her whispered, "This is the moment, Madame, to arm yourself with courage." Marie Antoinette turned to look at him and smiled, "Courage? The moment when my troubles are going to end is not the moment when my courage is going to fail me."

At 12:15, Marie Antoinette was executed. The bodies of Marie, Louis XVI and Madame Elisabeth (Louis' sister) were buried in a mass grave near the location of today's La Madeleine church. Following the restoration of the Bourbons, a search was conducted for the bodies. On January 21, 1815, more than twenty years after her death, her corpse was exhumed—a lady's garter helped with identification—and Marie Antoinette was buried at the side of her spouse in the crypt of St. Denis Basilica just outside of Paris, the traditional final resting place of French monarchs.

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