Tea at Trianon: Two Queens

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

Here is an article with information about the friendship between Marie-Antoinette and Queen Charlotte. To quote:

Both queens never met but maintained a life-long pen and paper friendship, they had a lot in common, both were from German speaking countries, ‘removed’ to marry a foreign king, both admired Mozart, Marie Antoinette knew him in Austria before her marriage and Mozart dedicated his Opus Dei to Charlotte who sang an aria with him, and both queens were great philanthropists and patrons of the arts....

With the advent of the Revolution, Charlotte prepared apartments in London for the French Royal Family, only to be left horrified at their execution and repulsed that such a cruelty could happen so close to Britain, this only accumulated to the strain that she was feeling because of George. (Read more.)