Tea at Trianon: Louis-Antoine in Art

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, March 11, 2010

Louis-Antoine in Art

An exhibit in San Francisco is displaying a portrait of the ten year old Louis-Antoine, Duc d'Angoulême, nephew of Louis XVI and the future frustrating husband of Madame Royale. According to one description:

In the Legion’s European Gallery 7, look at the boy in Joseph Boze’s 1785 portrait of Louis-Antoine de Bourbon, the Duke of Angoulême, who eventually became the king of France — for less than half an hour.
He was 10 when he posed for the painting; King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were his godparents. Two years later, they decided he should marry his cousin, their daughter, Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte de France, who was 9 at the time.

With the French Revolution came the execution of the king and queen, but the wedding finally did take place in 1799, making the boy in the painting the last crown prince of France.

In 1830, Charles X, Louis-Antoine’s father, was forced to abdicate, which he did, crying copiously. At that moment, Louis-Antoine automatically became King Louis XIX — for 20 minutes. That’s how long it took his wife — afraid of her mother’s fate befalling on her — to talk Louis-Antoine into giving up the throne. As a consequence, he retains the title of “shortest-ever reigning king” to this day.

Here is another article about Louis-Antoine and Madame Royale, with pictures of the hapless Duc throughout his life.