Could Marie Antoinette win in trial ?

The official reason why Marie Antoinette was beheaded is incest and pedophilia over her son (which is, to say the least, highly unlikely) but it's clear that it was not the point. The point was that she was the former Queen of France and that they needed to kill at least the nuclear family of Louis XVI as a symbol.

But, could she prove herself not guilty and win some time ? Would it have consequences ? And would she be able to die after the Revolution, either in Austria with her family or under the restaured Bourbons in France.

As elements that would help, she used to be very popular, and the people of France were far from being all against her. And his son was highly mistreated before making his testimony against her, that would not be hard to prove.

EDIT : Apparently I made a mistake while trying to remember. She was judged for treason and the pedophilia stuff was just in order to make her look more guilty
 
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Yes, probably, but there are many great communicators on both sides, she's one of them, she has a sense of formula that could have saved her. One of her famous quotes is "I call every mother !" when she was asked some proof of her innocence. She's very good in communication, so if she win it will be a feelings-driven show-like trial, as you said
 
Some of the people in the courtroom DID sympathize with her AFAIK. Unfortunately, they weren't sitting on the jury bench. I regard Antoinette's death in the same light as Anne Boleyn or Mary, Queen of Scots' - that she needed to die because it was in the interests of the government/ruler.

I feel that as in Anne's case, the verdict was decided long before Antoinette even set foot in the courtroom
 
The problem is that while she was most probably innocent of the incest charges that were thrown up in the lot to prevent some popular sympathizing (it's to be noted, that the charges of incests were so ridiculous that it is not, contrary to what the OP claim, the reason for her condemnation to death.), she did was guilty of treason and she did gave political/strategical information to her family then openly enemies of the kingdom.
Any trial that would convict her on these grounds would be in its rights : IOTL they went for this and her tentative of evasion on which she was judged as part of the organizing members. Without the incest charges, it's possible she would get more sympathy from the public (altough the public didn't entierly bought these IOTL) and be simply exiled, but a death sentence is still possible.
 
The problem is that while she was most probably innocent of the incest charges that were thrown up in the lot to prevent some popular sympathizing (it's to be noted, that the charges of incests were so ridiculous that it is not, contrary to what the OP claim, the reason for her condemnation to death.), she did was guilty of treason and she did gave political/strategical information to her family then openly enemies of the kingdom.
Any trial that would convict her on these grounds would be in its rights : IOTL they went for this and her tentative of evasion on which she was judged as part of the organizing members. Without the incest charges, it's possible she would get more sympathy from the public (altough the public didn't entierly bought these IOTL) and be simply exiled, but a death sentence is still possible.


Ow, from my understanding of the trial, she was judged for incest because they had a testimony while they couldn't prove anything about the other charges that became the center of the case during the trial. I apparently messed up with my memories.

But if she was judged about the evasion, she can play the mother card at it's higher level, advocating that her first son died during the General Estates and that she didn't want her second son to risk the same fate, that a true mother would never let an occasion of saving her son slip from her hands, that her instincts misguided her into accepting this plan of evasion, even though she didn't know anything about it, that she acted, not like an Archiduchess or a former Queen but like a mother because it's what left of her titles, the most noble of them and blablabla


She would probably be exiled anyway, and if she does, with her children, but that's hell of an improvement for their situation
 
Really, really unlikely, Marie Antoinette was hated, really hated by the frenchman , and the republicans sought any pretext to execute her.

Even without the insuanation of incest and pedophilia she would still be charged :

- to have exhausted the national treasure

- to have maintained intelligences and correspondences with the enemy

- to have plotted conspiracies against the internal and external security of the State.

And these charges were supported by " many evidence' at least for the french in this period.

By the way, she wasn't sentenced for pedophilia or incest, but for high treason.
 
She would probably be exiled anyway, and if she does, with her children, but that's hell of an improvement for their situation
Even if she gets exiled, I don't think Louis would be allowed to leave : he was too much of a possible unifying device, and republicans simply couldn't allow that. It's possible that he would be better treated (his death is more the result of a tragic neglect with post-Conventional red taping than something really planned), but he would not leave France.
 
Even if she gets exiled, I don't think Louis would be allowed to leave : he was too much of a possible unifying device, and republicans simply couldn't allow that. It's possible that he would be better treated (his death is more the result of a tragic neglect with post-Conventional red taping than something really planned), but he would not leave France.

True. They might even play it cleverly and make sure that the child survives to keep a hostage
 
Really, really unlikely, Marie Antoinette was hated, really hated by the frenchman , and the republicans sought any pretext to execute her.

Even without the insuanation of incest and pedophilia she would still be charged :

- to have exhausted the national treasure

- to have maintained intelligences and correspondences with the enemy

- to have plotted conspiracies against the internal and external security of the State.

And these charges were supported by " many evidence' at least for the french in this period.

By the way, she wasn't sentenced for pedophilia or incest, but for high treason.

The frenchman ? If you mean the leaders of the Terror yes, if you mean the people, not really. First the Revolution was Paris's choice, not France's choice, Britanny, Vendée, Marseille and Lyon, all uprised, so you can be sure that the former royal couple had supporters. And even Republicans can see that killing MA is a stupid move, it's the best way to receive a total war from Austria and piss even more the peasants who were not this extreme, not the things you need during a civil war. But yeah, MA making her case and winning the trial is very unlikely, totally agreed, but it's still possible, if she plays the right move at the right time.

And yeah, I made a mistake because I didn't doublechecked my memories, this has already been said, I'm going to edit the first post.
 
The frenchman ? If you mean the leaders of the Terror yes, if you mean the people, not really. First the Revolution was Paris's choice, not France's choice, Britanny, Vendée, Marseille and Lyon, all uprised, so you can be sure that the former royal couple had supporters. And even Republicans can see that killing MA is a stupid move, it's the best way to receive a total war from Austria and piss even more the peasants who were not this extreme, not the things you need during a civil war. But yeah, MA making her case and winning the trial is very unlikely, totally agreed, but it's still possible, if she plays the right move at the right time.

You seems to underestimate how deeply unpopular Marie Antoinette was, not all the people were against the queen and she has still loyal supporter especially in the royalist zones but still the majority of the french hated here and called the queen,the austrian, the foreigner (it's a fact recognized by the majority of historians), also as you say the trial was put in place by the leader of the terror and the juror were republicans, the result was known in advance.

Now let's talk about Danton, it was a great orator that managed during his trial to covince the majority of the people that he was innocent, he was still executed. In the revolutionary mind, Marie-Antoinette was a threat and a thorn if they exile her, she will come back with the austrian army, if they let her in prison she will escape and come back with an austrian army.
 
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The frenchman ? If you mean the leaders of the Terror yes, if you mean the people, not really.
Convention had as well some strong political support in provinces, although for different (if convergent) reasons than in Paris, less ideologically-based than politically-based (you could argue that it was both in Paris with clubs and the revolutionary Commune of 1792), as well a different in social support. Paris conventionalists and their supporters were rather a mix of middle-classes (upper and lower) and popular elements, while provincial conventionalism was definitely more rooted iniddle-class with a stress on the upper parts.
The idea that only Paris acted is not only ahistorical (you can just see as how the "Great Fear" was happening semi-sponteanously) but quite ideological (to be blunt, it's supported by non-sensical reactionaries as Lorant Deutsch who I wouldn't trust to tell me what happened ten minutes ago.) a bit like the idea of the so-called Vendean genocide. But I digress.
 
From what I know, she was, or used to be after the Queen's necklace affair, not popular by not totally hated either. When they arrived in Paris at the beginnig, the royal family was welcomed (at least from the testimonies of Marie Therese Charlotte).

And saying that nobody acted apart from Paris is wrong, but I'm saying that others had very few influence on what was going on. And about the Vendean Genocide, the word genocide is not appropriate because it was not as well organized as the Night and Mist or the Armenian genocide. But Vendée was devastated voluntarily after the uprising, so it's not a genocide, but it was not pretty at all to say the least.


It's hard to have a precise idea anyway, between forgeries from after the Revolution, faked trials and propaganda from both sides.
 
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