Vidal Arzoni

When talking about Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, what immediately comes to mind are lace, tall wigs, flamboyant clothes and colours, Versailles, or… the guillotine. Here, between these two extremes, exists a middle ground, a period of time seldom explored: the few months when the last king and queen of France were imprisoned, with their two young children, in a black castle on the outskirts of Paris, awaiting their executions. A brief and condensed period where, amidst violence and harassment, all masks fell off: those of two royals, as public and private figures; that of the old regime; that of a History that finally turned the page; and that of God who, from then on, was eclipsed by the shadows, leaving man entirely alone.