Tea at Trianon: Toulouse

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, September 29, 2010

Toulouse

La vie en rose.

"Pink at dawn, red at midday, mauve at twilight" — so goes an old saying describing Toulouse, an architectural marvel of rose — pink brick on the banks of the Garonne River. Just five hours from Paris by TGV high-speed train, France's vibrant Ville Rose is a sunny Southern belle of a city, famous for its gaiety, gastronomy and cosmopolitan charm.

Unknown said...: Beautiful Toulouse, but I find it impossible to think about Toulouse without thinking about the Cathars and the brutal repression of their heresy.; September 29, 2010 at 10:05:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, it is a beautiful city, and always was. It lays a key role in my novel about the Cathars.; September 29, 2010 at 10:31:00 PM EDT