Tea at Trianon: Louis XVI and His Family in Glory

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

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Louis XVI and His Family in Glory

A picture made for the orphaned daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette depicting her family in heaven. The little child with the angel is the long-suffering Louis XVII. Marie-Antoinette is holding the first Dauphin Louis-Joseph. Madame Elisabeth is to the left of the King where she is receiving the virgin-martyr's crown. The figure in pink on the lower right is perhaps Madame Sophie, one of the King's Aunts. I am not sure why Baby Madame Sophie is not shown. There are other versions of this picture with more of the family in it. One of the side effects of such artistic efforts was not only the consolation of the bereft Orphan of the Temple but also the indignation of all republicans and revolutionaries. Even today, there are people who are infuriated by the mere suggestion that Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette might be in heaven. Via Baron Théodore Charlet.