How Close Was the Vote That Sent Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette to the Guillotine?

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[History] How Close Was the Vote That Sent Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette to the Guillotine?

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It was by the razor-thin margin of just one vote—361 to 360—that King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette met their fate at the guillotine.

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and wife of King Louis XVI, was the youngest daughter of Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. She became queen in 1774 through a political marriage aimed at strengthening ties between France and Austria. Despite the dire state of France’s finances, she lived extravagantly in the Palace of Versailles. Her beauty, vanity, and reckless behavior earned her a poor reputation—most famously illustrated in the "Diamond Necklace Affair."

She also interfered in politics, expelling A. Turgot, who was attempting reforms to preserve absolute monarchy. After the French Revolution began in 1789, she was imprisoned in the Tuileries Palace in Paris and remained staunchly counter-revolutionary. She conspired with figures like C. Mirabeau and even attempted to flee the country with her lover, Swedish nobleman Count Axel von Fersen, but failed. Despite her attempts to overthrow the revolution with help from her brother, Emperor Leopold II of Austria, she was ultimately imprisoned in the Temple Tower after the uprising on August 10, 1792, and later executed alongside her husband.

What Was the Diamond Necklace Affair?

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In 1785, Countess de la Motte committed a fraud by impersonating Queen Marie Antoinette in a scandal that would deeply tarnish the monarchy’s reputation. The main culprit, Countess de la Motte, a descendant of the Valois royal line, was impoverished and cunning. The victim was Cardinal de Rohan, who wished to regain the queen’s favor.

Exploiting this, the Countess orchestrated a deceitful meeting in the gardens of Versailles where, under cover of darkness, the Cardinal was introduced to a woman disguised as the Queen. Gaining his trust, she convinced him to purchase an extravagant diamond necklace worth 1.6 million livres, supposedly as a gift to the Queen.

However, the Countess embezzled the necklace for her own gain. In August 1785, when the jewelers demanded payment, the fraud was exposed. The Queen sued Cardinal de Rohan in the Parliament of Paris, which only further damaged her reputation when he was declared innocent. Although she had no part in the crime, the scandal amplified public resentment against her and played a key role in leading the royal couple to the guillotine.

The Power of a Single Vote

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- In 1824, the U.S. presidential race between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams ended in a deadlock. Adams was elected president thanks to a single decisive vote by General Stephen Linsley.

- One vote decided the annexation of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho into the United States. On May 2, 1843, a vote on the matter stood at 51 to 51, until a single vote cast by Mathieu tipped the scale, passing the measure 52 to 50.

- On June 10, 1645, England’s Parliament appointed Oliver Cromwell as Commander-in-Chief by a one-vote margin—91 to 90.

- King Charles I of England faced a tribunal of 135 judges, and 68 of them voted for his execution. That one extra vote sealed the king’s fate.