Tea at Trianon: A Legendary Jewel

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

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

A Legendary Jewel

The Hope Diamond. (Via Platonic Shift) Share

2 comments:

Seamus said...: I hope that, if the French government demands its return, the Smithsonian says it will give the diamond back to its rightful owner: the Duke of Anjou, the heir of Louis XVI.; November 20, 2008 at 12:37:00 PM EST
lara77 said...: I sincerely doubt the French Government would demand a return to objects connected with royalty. They recently wanted no part of Queen Marie Antoinette's purse from the Conciergerie Prison. I am puzzled why a Spanish noble whom even His Most Catholic Majesty of Spain has nothing to do with should be rewarded with a jewel? Most French monarchists as well as the French Government acknowledge the primacy of His Royal Highness the Comte de Paris as the head of the REAL French Royal Family, not some opportunistic Spaniard.; November 23, 2008 at 6:51:00 PM EST