Tea at Trianon: Marie-Antoinette and the Theater

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

Friday, November 20, 2009

Marie-Antoinette and the Theater

Toronto artist Gabriela Delworth is having a fête in honor of Marie-Antoinette. One of the first installments in the series is a post about the Queen's love of theater.

(Photo: Marie-Antoinette's papier-mâché theater at Trianon) Share

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: You've received the Kreativ Blogger Award! Pick it up at http:elaineathome.blogspot.com; November 20, 2009 at 10:14:00 AM EST
May said...: What a beautiful theater. The Queen was such a poetic soul!; November 20, 2009 at 10:56:00 AM EST
elena maria vidal said...: Thank you, Elaine!

Yes, she was, Matterhorn. And the her theater was quite whimsical, made of paste and paper, quite small.; November 20, 2009 at 11:05:00 AM EST
Julygirl said...: I love the shade of blue they used.; November 20, 2009 at 11:21:00 PM EST
Leslie Carroll said...: Utterly charming!; October 1, 2010 at 5:59:00 PM EDT