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| Francesco Bartolozzi after painted miniature by Pierre-Noël Violet Her Majesty, Marie Antoinette, Queen of France 1790 stipple-engraving Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| John Raphael Smith Marie Antoinette d'Autriche, Queen of France 1776 mezzotint British Museum |
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| Anonymous German printmaker Marie Antoinette, Königin von Frankreich ca. 1774-1800 hand-colored etching Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Louis Gautier-Dagoty Marie Antoinette, Reine de France ca. 1776 hand-colored mezzotint and etching Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Anonymous English printmaker Maria Antonietta, Queen of France 1777 etching (illustration for London Magazine) British Museum |
from My Arizona Class
"The young girl who had spoken of the past as not necessary to us, was so bright and clever that she was worth making explanation to. I asked her why she considered queens (as such) cruel, and she gave fluently Catherine of Medici, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and "Bloody" Mary (poor, unhappy Mary!) and Catherine of Russia, and – Marie Antoinette – quite as though they did not differ. . . . On this, I told them of Marie Antoinette in her own home, as Wraxall's and Mozart's memoirs and other such dispassionate early sources shew her; a wholesome, frolicksome young girl, submissive even to childishness to an unusually firm-natured mother who trained her and her sisters in womanly and simple habits; for royal Austrian life always, to-day as in the day of Maria Theresa, is extraordinarily domestic and sensible. At fifteen this young girl was married, or rather given in exchange to France. She was merely the seal on a contract, and no more care taken of her feelings then nor for seven years after she reached Paris than if she had been just the wax of a State seal. . . . We who look back can see, close to this, the last scene in that life. Once more the French have taken from her everything that was hers; friends, husband, children: even her clothing. And we see the beautiful woman, "the daughter of the Caesars," borrowing a black gown of woollen from the jailer's wife, and making a bit of muslin into the widow's cap with which to cover her hair – still thick and young, but gray from agony; the Queen of France, the daughter of the Empress of Austria, sewing and making ready through the night to go decently covered in the morning to have her head cut off. The hands Mozart had guided on the piano, in her happy girl-home, were tied behind her back, and no way left her to steady herself as she was jolted in a springless cart over the cobble stones of old Paris to the guillotine."
– Jessie Benton Fremont, published in The Young People's New Pictorial Library of Poetry and Prose (1888)
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| J. Curtis Marie Antoinette d'Autriche, Reine de France ca. 1780-1800 stipple-engraving and etching printed à la poupée Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Léopold Flameng after I.F. Wartell Marie-Antoinette 1859 etching British Museum |
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| Anonymous German printmaker Maria-Antonette, Königin von Frankreich ca. 1790 etching and engraving (book frontispiece) British Museum |
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| Robert Sayer (publisher) after Joseph Boze Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre 1793 mezzotint British Museum |
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| Jean-François Tourcaty after Pieter Joseph Sauvage Marie Antoinette 1793 stipple-engraving and etching British Museum |
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| Villeneuve La Panthère Autrichienne 1792 aquatint British Museum |
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| John Murphy after Anne-Flore Millet, marquise de Bréhan Marie Antoinette in prison 1795 mezzotint British Museum |
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| Charles Verlat Marie Antoinette au Temple ca. 1882 etching British Museum |
from Marie Antoinette's Lamentation, in her Prison of the Temple
When left forlorn, dejected, and alone,
Imperfect sounds my pensive Soul annoy;
I hear in every distant mingling tone
The merry BELLS – the boist'rous SONGS OF JOY!
Ah! then I contemplate my loathsome Cell,
Where meagre GRIEF and scowling HORROR dwell!
The City's din – the TOCSIN'S fateful sound –
The CANNON thund'ring through the vaulted Sky –
The curling smoke, in columns rising round,
Which from my Iron Lattice I descry,
Rouse my Lethargic Mind! I shriek in vain,
My TYRANT JAILOR only mocks my pain!
Yet bear thy woes, my SOUL, with proud disdain,
Meet the keen lance of DEATH with steadfast eye;
Think on the glorious tide that fills each Vein,
And throbbing bids THEE, tremble not, TO DIE!
Yet shall I from my friendless children part?
Oh! all the MOTHER rushes to my heart!
– Mary Robinson, as printed in The Oracle, 8 March 1793
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| François-Louis Prieur after Alexander Kucharsky La Reine à la Conciergerie ca. 1800-1820 hand-colored stipple-engraving and etching British Museum |
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| Anonymous French printmaker Bravo! Bravo! la Reine se penetre de la Patrie 1791 hand-colored etching (illustration from unidentified book) British Museum |
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| Robert Sayer (publisher) The Death of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre 1794 hand-colored mezzotint British Museum |
Anarchy : a Sonnet
Furies! Why sleep amid the carnage? – Rise!
Bring up my wolves of war, my pointed spears,
Daggers yet reeking, banners fill'd with sighs,
And paint your cheeks with gore, and lave your locks in tears.
On yon white bosom see that happy child!
Seize it, deface its infant charms! and say,
Anarchy view'd its mangled limbs, and smil'd!
Strike the young mother to the earth! – Away!
This is my era! O'er the dead I go!
From my hot nostrils minute murders fall!
Behind my burning car lurks feeble woe!
Fill'd with my dragon's ire, my slaves for kingdoms call!
Hear them not, father of the ensanguin'd race! –
World! give my monsters way! – Death! keep thy steady chase!
– Ann Yearsley, as printed in the Universal Magazine, May 1796