Marie Antoinette

On October 16, 1793, Marie Antoinette was guillotined in the center of what is now the Place de la Concorde in Paris. She was 37. During the previous four years in prison her hair had turned white. The charges that led to her death were high treason and illicit sexual practices, but most of the resentment was over how much she spent on jewelry. Marie Antoinette appears twice in A Book of Ages.

Hoist By His Own Petard

Maxmilien Robespierre was executed by guillotine on this day in 1794. He was 36. It was Robespierre who "popularized" this new form of public decapitation, turning it into a form of popular theater attended by thousands. The mob enjoyed it because the individuals losing their heads were all aristocrats. But eventually other revolutionaries began losing their heads, then people who disagreed with the ruling clique, people Robespierre suspected of plotting against the Revolution or against him. This was the period of the French Revolution that became known as The Terror. Robespierre appears only once in A Book of Ages, at age 36.