The Conciergerie on the Ile de La Cité is the last place Marie Antoinette ever stayed before she was beheaded on October 16th 1793. Built in the early fourteenth century as a Royal Palace, it is ironic that after becoming a prison in 1391, the Conciergerie saw the final days of the condemned Queen of France centuries later.
The Conciergerie cast a shadow over the citizens of Paris during “The Terror” of the French Revolution. In the space of just one year, Over 3000 prisoners were taken there in captivity before being transferred to the Guillotine. Its most famous prisoner was Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.
The very name Marie Antoinette is synonymous with luxury, splendour, extravagance and of course, her death at the hands of Madame Guillotine. Rumours about the Queen abounded, fuelled by her unpopularity and the suspicion in which she was regarded as an Austrian and an outsider. For instance, it was never proved that she said “Let them eat cake”, nor that she had an improper relationship with a cardinal in exchange for a diamond necklace. Rumours were easier to believe than they were to disprove.
However, few can disagree that France’s Queen and daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, saw a sad and tawdry end. The Conciergerie was a building synonymous with torture and death. Once there, a prisoner would rarely leave with their freedom. An open topped wagon would leave the yard of the Conciergerie every day with prisoners crammed in like cattle before heading for the Guillotine on the infamous Place de la Concorde.
It was in this very building that visitors today can see the cell where Marie Antoinette spent the last days of her life. Her original cell has been turned into a chapel and a recreation of her prison cell is now elsewhere in the building. It would have been a spartan room with iron bars at the window, perhaps a chair, and little else.
Separated from her children, stripped of all riches and luxuries except for the simplest of clothes, and totally alone, the former Queen had many days of solitude to contemplate her fate.
Today the building is quiet and even majestic on the banks of the Seine. Its soaring vaults and forbidding turrets make for an arresting sight and a silent monument to the thousands who died in “The Terror”, least of all, a 37 year old Queen and mother of four.
Combine your visit with a joint ticket to the adjacent Sainte Chapelle, a breathtaking combination of history and stained glass.
