Francoise-Thérèse de
Choiseul-Stainville
Francoise-Thérèse, the Princesse de Monaco, was born a Frenchwoman in
1767.
She had the misfortune of being in the country during the Reign of
Terror of the French Revolution, and was arrested and promptly condemned
to death in 1794.
While awaiting execution she falsely
declared herself to be pregnant in order to secure a short reprieve.
During this time she cut her own hair and sent the locks along with a
letter to her two young daughters. She then announced to her jailers
that she was in fact not with child, but had lied in order to arrange
for the only legacy she had left for her children (her hair) to be
untouched by the executioner.
She was beheaded the
following day along with forty-six others on
9 Thermidor, which was the
day before Robespierre's Tribunal was overthrown. She was among the last
group of people to be sent to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror.
