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Who was the beautiful girl who went to the guillotine?


The woman who holds Charles" hand in the cart (tumbrille?) on the way to the guillotine seems to be uncredited. The IMDB has a few uncredited actresses in the listing but I can't figure which one. Her appearance always reminded me of my wife so I was always curious where she went from this movie onwards . . .

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Marie Versini. Her details are on IMDB.

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In the film, the young lady was Marie Gabelle, daughter of M. Gabelle who had been manservant to the despised Marquis St. Evremonde. It was Gabelle and Marie whom Charles Darnay had travelled back to France to try and save, but Gabelle had already been executed and Marie condemned - no-one ever said that Dickens was short of complications or indeed coincidences!

So the girl in the tumbril is indeed credited, and as someone has replied, she is Marie Versini in real life.

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She isn't holding Charles' hand, she's holding Sydney's hand because Sydney is the one who goes to guillotine.

In the book, the woman wasn't Gabelle's daughter. She was a seamstress accused of conspiring (the intent was to show that the revolution quickly started executing the poor too). She had met Charles in prison and recognized him in the cart (although at that point it was Sydney). Sydney was kind to her on the trip.

Also, in the book, Charles saves Gabelle by returning to France.

Charles Dickens can't be blamed for these coincidences because they were a departure from the book. I think that these changes seem minor, but hurt the story. One of the main points of the story is that something well-intentioned (the French Revolution) can spin totally out of control and become something horrible and ugly do to people's mob mentality. It is a lesson that still resonates today. By replacing the seamstress with a noble woman, that point is diminshed.

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Marie Gabelle isn't a noble woman. She is the daughter of a servant, also a servant herself.

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In the book Gabelle was a petty noble who was the caretaker of the Marquis' estates. He did serve the Marquis (and then Charles) but he wasn't the status of a servant.

Also, in the book Gabelle is saved and the woman riding in the cart with Sydney to the guillatine is of no relation to Gabelle - she is a random seamstress. I think that this is important because it showed how far the Revolution had already strayed from its ideals and that it was already beginning to prey on itself.

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I recently viewed this movie, but missed a few parts, and then saw the end where the
cart approaches the guillotine, and I wondered this exact question - 'who was the beautiful girl in the cart with Bogarde', and when trying to find out, someone had asked exactly the same question here.
so - Marie Versini, very beautiful, and a memorable scene indeed.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat..."

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Hi. That beautiful actress was Marie Versini. I think she's French and was quite popular in the 60s and 70s.

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