Tea at Trianon: King with the Pearl Earring

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, December 2, 2021

King with the Pearl Earring

Charles I

Charles, Prince of Wales

From Atlas Obscura:

The showy and sizable jewel contrasted with his shy personality, but Charles refused to part with it. The earring became such a staple of his fashion that he wore it to his execution in 1649, after Oliver Cromwell put him on trial for treason. Though some claim that the jewel inspired a mob—“as soon as his head had fallen, the witnesses of the dreadful scene rushed forward, ready to imbue their hands in his blood in order to secure the royal jewel”—this was almost certainly not the case. The earring remained intact until his body was prepared for burial, when it was removed and sent to his daughter Mary. (Read more.)