ABSTRACT
Waiting in the wings’ is an expression taken from the theatre and it is indeed in theatres and other places of public entertainment that overcrowding and inadequate egress are most commonly encountered. Advance publicity had suggested presents and prizes for all, and well over 2,000 expectant children turned up. In the spring of 1770 Marie Antoinette married the Dauphin of France, the future Louis XVI, and among the festivities held in Paris to celebrate this union was a great public spectacle in what is the Place de la Concorde. The accident is the more poignant because the children were being protected in the quiet of a convent from the possible excesses of a public spectacle. The public hanging of criminals continued on a misguided interpretation of the principle that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done.
