On the night of October 15–16, 1793, Marie Antoinette could not sleep. Once the daughter of the Holy Roman Empress, married at fifteen to the future king of France, she now sat alone in a cold cell in the Conciergerie. Her husband Louis XVI had been executed months earlier. Her young son had been taken from her. She was separated from her daughter. And beside them, imprisoned in the Tower of the Temple, was her sister-in-law Élisabeth of France — the woman she loved most in the world. At 4:30 AM