Tea at Trianon: A Stranger in the Garden

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

Sunday, September 16, 2007

A Stranger in the Garden

It is recorded in biographies of Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France that the daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette was at times was approached by men claiming to be her brother Louis XVII. The little king had allegedly died in prison in great misery at the age of ten in June of 1795. His sister the Duchesse d'Angoulême was haunted by the rumors that he had somehow survived, as is described in the novel Madame Royale. One such incident occurred in 1816 when the princess was walking in the gardens of Versailles with her brother-in-law the Duc de Berry. The following excerpt re-creates the encounter.

At that moment, footsteps crunched on the gravel behind them. Thérèse assumed it was a member of one of their retinues coming to assure their safety. She turned and beheld a gentleman in his thirties with fair hair. His suit was so worn, it almost could be described as ragged; the innate dignity of the wearer put to flight the notion that he might be a beggar. He was a stranger, yet vaguely familiar. Of medium height, he had a full mouth, with pouting lower lip; large, deep-set blue eyes, an aquiline nose, arched eyebrows, and a high forehead. Rooted to the ground, she felt her hair stand on end. Was he another phantom of her mind? He held out his hand to her.

"Sister, my sister!" he pleaded gently.

Thérèse was surrounded by memory as by a whirlwind. She saw the distant moment when a little blond boy with blood-shot eyes had held out his hand to her, saying "Sister" in the council room of the Temple tower, surrounded by drunken guards and leering officials, where minutes before she had heard him accuse his mother of incest. The pity, horror, confusion, rage and disgust she had known in that hour of darkness returned in a flash, as if the hour were one and the same.

"Go away!" she shouted convulsively to the stranger. "Go away! It is you...you who are the cause of the misfortunes of my family!"

Berry's eyes widened in consternation and horror as his hand flew to his sword, but the stranger had already run into the wood. He soon vanished among the rows of trees. Berry put his arm around Thérèse, who was bent over as if from nausea, and they hurriedly departed from the gardens of Versailles.

~ from Madame Royale by Elena Maria Vidal, Chapter 18 "The Stranger"

Copyright 2000 by Elena Maria Vidal