Die Dunkelgräfin is indeed a cool moniker, and as it happens turns up in a (very funny and charming) novel I've just read (alas in German, thus can't rec it to you two) where she hires a couple of German writers (Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Achim von Armin and Bettina Brentano, as well as Alexander von Humboldt) to supposedly save the now adult former Dauphin from Napoleon's people getting their hands on him. (Spoiler: it's not the real Louis Charles.) (She's not Marie-Therese, either.) The whole thing is written as a Dumas-style caper with as many quotes from Goethe, Schiller et al. worked into it and I loved it, so if the novel ever gets translated, I'll rec it to you again. ("Das Erlkönig Manöver" by Robert Löhr.)
But yes, I knew the sad story of the children. The moment where Hèbert brings up the sexual molestation/incest charge at MA's trial, twice, is one of the most famous and infamous at the same time, because of how she defies it. The Moniteur as well as other papers reported on the trial in great detail, so we don't have to rely on people's memories. The first time Hèbert raises the charge, she ignores him and replies to the other accusations. Then:
A jury member: »Citizen President, I ask you to point out to the accused that she has not yet replied to the facts Citizen Hèbert mentioned regarding the events between her and her son."
The President asked the relevant question.
Accused: "If I had not replied, it was because nature revolts against such an accusation made to a mother." Here the accused seemed to be upset in the highest degree. "I call on all mothers who are present in this room."
This caused a mighty commotion among female members of the audience. The President hastily proceeded to the next question.
Bear in mind MA was well and truly hated. She was basically blamed for everything that had gone wrong in France for the last century, and Hèbert, who'd made the accusation, had written pornographic calumnies about her in his journal "Père Duchesne" for years; he hadn't been the only one. There wasn't a depravity she hadn't been accused of at this point, and most were believed by the population at large. Those women had come to her trial to gloat at her downfall, not to support her. And yet.
Stefan Zweig in his MA biography from the 1930s which is titled "Story of an avarage character" points out to the great and tragic paradox of her life; that she - who if the revolution had not happened would have simply been an avarage Ancien Regime princess, no more or less extravagant than the lot of them, neither particularly smart nor stupid, in the last few years of it from 1789 onwards turned into displaying extraordinary strength and spirit. The same woman who couldn't go through a briefing from Mercy (the Austrian ambassador) without a yawning and back in Vienna had been bored by language lessons, who didn't take any of Joseph's admonishments in that memo letter he left her after leaving France seriously, learnt a complicated cyphre system so she could correspond with supporters while under increasing close watch; she, not poor Louis her husband, was the one who negotiated, corresponded etc. with everyone. She showed great courage from the moment Versailles was stormed and the people yelled for her to get out on the balcony alone ("no children, no children", because it was assumed she'd bring them to soften everyone's hearts) onwards, and in her final year of life, when she was subjected to non stop verbal abuse and wasn't even allowed to have a cell without two (male) guards present all the time, she didn't crumble once, and even was able to comfort her sister-in-law Elisabeth who'd been locked up with her.
"When will you grow into your own" (the sentence has also been translated as "when will you become yourself?" her exasparated mother MT had once written to her, and one of the many tragedies of MA's life was hat she did not become this final self even the revolutionaries were forced to have grudging respect for until it was too late.
Re: Marie Antoinette's children
But yes, I knew the sad story of the children. The moment where Hèbert brings up the sexual molestation/incest charge at MA's trial, twice, is one of the most famous and infamous at the same time, because of how she defies it. The Moniteur as well as other papers reported on the trial in great detail, so we don't have to rely on people's memories. The first time Hèbert raises the charge, she ignores him and replies to the other accusations. Then:
A jury member: »Citizen President, I ask you to point out to the accused that she has not yet replied to the facts Citizen Hèbert mentioned regarding the events between her and her son."
The President asked the relevant question.
Accused: "If I had not replied, it was because nature revolts against such an accusation made to a mother." Here the accused seemed to be upset in the highest degree. "I call on all mothers who are present in this room."
This caused a mighty commotion among female members of the audience. The President hastily proceeded to the next question.
Bear in mind MA was well and truly hated. She was basically blamed for everything that had gone wrong in France for the last century, and Hèbert, who'd made the accusation, had written pornographic calumnies about her in his journal "Père Duchesne" for years; he hadn't been the only one. There wasn't a depravity she hadn't been accused of at this point, and most were believed by the population at large. Those women had come to her trial to gloat at her downfall, not to support her. And yet.
Stefan Zweig in his MA biography from the 1930s which is titled "Story of an avarage character" points out to the great and tragic paradox of her life; that she - who if the revolution had not happened would have simply been an avarage Ancien Regime princess, no more or less extravagant than the lot of them, neither particularly smart nor stupid, in the last few years of it from 1789 onwards turned into displaying extraordinary strength and spirit. The same woman who couldn't go through a briefing from Mercy (the Austrian ambassador) without a yawning and back in Vienna had been bored by language lessons, who didn't take any of Joseph's admonishments in that memo letter he left her after leaving France seriously, learnt a complicated cyphre system so she could correspond with supporters while under increasing close watch; she, not poor Louis her husband, was the one who negotiated, corresponded etc. with everyone. She showed great courage from the moment Versailles was stormed and the people yelled for her to get out on the balcony alone ("no children, no children", because it was assumed she'd bring them to soften everyone's hearts) onwards, and in her final year of life, when she was subjected to non stop verbal abuse and wasn't even allowed to have a cell without two (male) guards present all the time, she didn't crumble once, and even was able to comfort her sister-in-law Elisabeth who'd been locked up with her.
"When will you grow into your own" (the sentence has also been translated as "when will you become yourself?" her exasparated mother MT had once written to her, and one of the many tragedies of MA's life was hat she did not become this final self even the revolutionaries were forced to have grudging respect for until it was too late.