The profanation of the Last Supper during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games did shock me. But what shocked me more was something else: the spectacle of Marie Antoinette, decapitated, holding her own severed head. That grotesque image of a woman’s execution was offered to the world as a proud national story, as if murder were glory. Today, October 16th, marks the anniversary of her execution in 1793. Two hundred and thirty-three years have passed since the French Republic sent a 37-year-old woman to the guillotine. Her husband had already been executed. Her children were taken from her. She was humiliated, imprisoned, and dragged before a court whose verdict was never truly in doubt. Her accusers even stooped to the grotesque allegation of incest with her own son, an accusation of extraordinary cruelty meant to destroy not only a queen but a mother. Marie Antoinette was not a saint, but that changes nothing essential: **she did not deserve to die.** She was a human being, a wife, a mother, and ultimately a defenceless prisoner. What makes this especially horrifying is that those who killed her believed themselves righteous. They spoke the language of liberty and humanity while committing cruelty. And she was one among thousands. Aristocrats, priests, ordinary people, opponents, and eventually revolutionaries themselves were consumed by political violence presented as virtue. Yet what disturbs me almost as much as the crime itself is how easily modern France can fold that violence into celebration. This is a country of immense cultural and intellectual achievement. But brilliance is not the same as moral maturity. A civilization must be able to say plainly: **what was done to this human being was wrong**, without hiding behind myths of progress. If it cannot, something essential is missing from its claim to greatness. On this anniversary, I feel sorrow for Marie Antoinette, horror at the cruelty inflicted on her, and deep disappointment that a nation capable of so much still struggles to confront that suffering with the seriousness it deserves.