There is something so poignant about the seemingly insignificant personal items that survive a death.
Take, for example, a cotton stocking with lace detail worn by Marie Antoinette.
from
Suicide Blonde.
Or this drawing of Marie-Antoinette's delicate, high-heeled worn during her flight from an angry mob that chanted "Down with the tyrants!
Death! Death!" During her quick escape, the Queen lost
this shoe.
Via
Shoe Blog.
A tear-stained last letter, written hours before her execution on October 16, 1793
to her sister-in-law Madame Elisabeth. Elisabeth never received it.
I beg pardon of all whom I know, and
especially of you, my sister, for all the vexations which, without
intending it, I may have caused you. I pardon all my enemies the evils
that they have done me. I bid farewell to my aunts and to all my
brothers and sisters. I had friends. The idea of being forever
separated from them and from all their troubles is one of the greatest
sorrows that I suffer in dying. Let them at least know that to my
latest moment I thought of them.
Farewell, my good and tender
sister. May this letter reach you. Think always of me; I embrace you
with all my heart, as I do my poor dear children. My God, how
heart-rending it is to leave them forever! Farewell! farewell! Read the full translation at
Tea at Trianon.
It makes me wonder what, if anything, will survive after I am dead and gone. I sincerely hope it's not my
Mom Jeans. If you could choose, what items would you want to leave behind for posterity?
