Élisabeth of France (1764–1794) to the spirit of equality proclaimed by the Republic [...] representing to the General Council of the Commune the absurdity of keeping three persons in the Temple Tower, who caused extra service and excessive expense", and Hébert insisted on her execution. Although Robespierre himself wished to avoid such a "useless cruelty", the political climate was such that he "hid his thought of reprieve under words of insult. He dared not claim that innocent woman from the ferocious impatience of Hebert without insulting the victim he desired to save. He called her the 'despicable sister of Capet'." On 9 May 1794,
History of the Catholic Church in France to lead the king of France on another crusade when she had secured him in the peaceful possession of his own country. France's national heroine was thus heralded by the fancy of her contemporaries, by Christine de Pisan, and by that Venetian merchant whose letters have been preserved for us in the Morosini Chronicle, as a heroine whose aims were as wide as Christianity itself. The 15th century, during which France was growing in national spirit, and while men's minds were still conscious of the claims of Christendom on their country, was also the century during which, on the morrow