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An attempt to save Marie-Antoinette.
Three Kerrymen, a Kerry woman and her Cork-born husband intended to rescue Marie Antoinette from Revolutionary Paris in 1791-'92 with the view of bringing Marie-Antoinette to Nantes. From there, she would have been transferred to Dingle, County Kerry in a wine-merchant's ship. Upon arriving in Dingle, Marie Antoinette was to seek refuge in a suite of rooms, prepared for her in Rice House, a building still standing today on the corner of Upper Main Street and Green Street. From thence, it was intended to convey her to London and thereafter to Brussels and Vienna. Dr. Downey's lecture described how, on the night of the rescue, the queen refused to leave her husband and family and thus the attempt ended.
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8 comments:
What a lovely, unusual portrait of the Queen. I do wish she and her family could have been rescued, but, in the end, I'm sure they went to a better place.
Fascinating! I never read or heard an account of this.
i was going to say, i've never seen this portrait before. do you know the artist?
I confess, Philippe, I do not know. Someone (I don't remember who) had it up on Facebook without the name of the artist. It looks like it might be from a miniature.....
it's a great find. the artist certainly got the queen's aquiline, habsburg nose! i think you're right on it being a miniature, if anything for it's shape.
Indeed, Philippe, the artist captured the Queen's likeness better than many more famous portraits!
The Queen refusing to leave the King and her children at such a perilous time reminds me of WWII when they pleaded with Queen Elizabeth to leave London during the Blitz and she refused." The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave." History was kinder to the House of Windsor than it ever was to the family of King Louis XVI.
They were less controversial, being 'proper' English folk. Now Elizabeth's children have changed all that.
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