Thursday, February 2, 2012

Return to the Tuileries


Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte de France, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, returned to  the Tuileries palace in 1814 after a long exile. (From Vive la Reine.) 
 “She is positively haunted by phantoms at the Tuileries,” continued Madame de Boigne.  “Every room holds some troubling memory. Madame weeps and weeps...and yet she ransacks the palace for mementos of her childhood. She sent for the old piano tuner, Monsieur Dubois, to ask what had become of her pianoforte.  He tried in vain to convince her of the superiority of the pianofortes left there by Empress Marie-Louise, but no, Madame wanted her own, which she had played as a girl.” 
~from Madame Royale by Elena Maria Vidal

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1 comment:

Brantigny said...

I understand this completely. Genny comes home quite often, her old room has been converted into my "Mancave". The mementos of her child hood are replete. We have had to save her Stuffed animals, her books and her dressup costumes. these things she remembered from her happy childhood she now is intent on passing down to her daughter. The other day the baby (she is two) was wearing a tshirt that we got for her from my old squadron, carefully preserved.

I feel that Madame royale wanted to return to the joy she felt as a child. I belive she would have been a good mother had she been given the chance.