During a recent visit to Paris, I made a point of walking past the spot on the junction of the Rue du Roi de Sicile and Rue Pavée where the entrance to La Force prison would have been in the 1790s. It was here that on the 3rd of September 1792, Marie Antoinette’s friend and Superintendent of her Household, the Princesse de Lamballe was delivered by a kangaroo court set up in the prison hall to a gang of murderers and self designated ‘executioners’ that waited outside. The unfortunate Princess had been packed off to the grim La Force prison on the 19th August 1792 along with Madame de Tourzel and her young daughter, Pauline after they had been separated from the royal family at the Temple, whence they had all gone together after the fall of the Tuileries on the 10th of August. The Princesse de Lamballe, Anton Josef Hickel, 1788. Madame de Tourzel wrote at length in her memoirs about their life in La Force. During their time at the Temple, she and her daughter had become accustomed to keep an eye on the always nervous Princesse, who had long been prey to fainting spells and fits, which … Continue reading The death of the Princesse de Lamballe