Tea at Trianon: Morning Gazettes

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

Monday, October 20, 2008

Morning Gazettes

Louis XVI and his newspapers.

Louis subscribed not only to the daily Gazette de France, but also to the main European newspapers of the day. Some of these included the Morning Chronicle of London and the Gazette de Leyden, a premiere Dutch publication. He would not read them all over breakfast but spent many hours in his library pouring over both books and the news. So if you assumed he was not on the 'in' he was in fact very well informed of events in Europe from point of views outside of France!

The mystery of Lapérouse.

Louis XVI, who personally supervised the planning of the voyage, specifically forbade the mistreatment of any native peoples and stated that he would consider it "one of the highest accomplishments of the expedition that it be completed without costing a single human life."

Barbara Martin said...: Thank you for posting these snippets about life in the French court with Louis XVI.; October 21, 2008 at 1:05:00 AM EDT
lara77 said...: His Most Christian Majesty, King Louis XVI was intelligent, very well read, fascinated by how things work, loved maps and geography. This is certainly not the man the French Republic would have you believe. He was also a good Catholic and a gentle man in heart and spirit. What a great constitutional monarch he would have made; it was the French rabid republicans that destroyed him and the nation.; October 24, 2008 at 1:56:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: You are welcome, Barbara!

Yes, Lara, Louis XVI was a very intelligent and educated monarch who has never been fully appreciated.; October 25, 2008 at 1:08:00 AM EDT