Tea at Trianon: High Moral Standards of Marie-Antoinette

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, July 19, 2007

High Moral Standards of Marie-Antoinette

It is known that Queen Marie-Antoinette recoiled from impurity of any kind, as biographer Vincent Cronin makes clear in Louis and Antoinette. She did not permit uncouth or off-color remarks in her presence, and would not allow the name of Empress Catherine of Russia to be mentioned since she thought the Empress to be morally depraved. She exercised a special vigilance over anyone in her care, especially the young ladies of her household. As Madame Campan relates in her Memoirs:

All who were acquainted with the Queen’s private qualities knew that she equally deserved attachment and esteem. Kind and patient to excess in her relations with her household, she indulgently considered all around her, and interested herself in their fortunes and in their pleasures. She had, among her women, young girls from the Maison de St. Cyr, all well born; the Queen forbade them the play when the performances were not suitable; sometimes, when old plays were to be represented, if she found she could not with certainty trust to her memory, she would take the trouble to read them in the morning, to enable her to decide whether the girls should or should not go to see them,–rightly considering herself bound to watch over their morals and conduct.

Anonymous said...: The Queen, so maligned and covered with calumny that she is even today written about in the same manner by people who project their own misdeeds upon her. I pray that one day she be raised to the honours of the altar.
Vive La Reine!

de Brantigny; July 19, 2007 at 1:53:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, she continues to be grossly maligned, in spite of the fact that testimonies such as this are readily available, and have been for many years. Yes, people project their own misdeeds upon her.; July 19, 2007 at 2:03:00 PM EDT