Tea at Trianon: New Film about Marie-Antoinette

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, October 20, 2010

New Film about Marie-Antoinette

A new film is in the works, based upon the novel Farewell My Queen by Chantal Thomas. Eva Green will star as Marie-Antoinette. Share

6 comments:

Stephanie A. Mann said...: I read that book--bought as a cheap remainder--and thought it a little too evanescent. I also think the narrative method of the Queen's reader remembering the last days of the "Perfect Day" at the golden Court at Versailles would be difficult to convey on the "Silver Screen".; October 20, 2010 at 11:50:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: I totally agree, Stephanie. I am prejudiced, of course, because I think that TRiANON would make a better movie about the King and Queen. It is not as dreamy and has much more action.; October 20, 2010 at 12:54:00 PM EDT
May said...: I also wish that TRIANON (and its sequel) would be made into films.; October 21, 2010 at 10:14:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: If it ever happens, you will know that Divine intervention has occurred.; October 21, 2010 at 10:45:00 PM EDT
May said...: Incidentally, I wonder if Grace Kelly would have made a good Marie-Antoinette. (The Mad Monarchist told me that, after Grace became Princess of Monaco, there was, actually, a plan to have her play Empress Alexandra, but sadly this was not to be.); October 23, 2010 at 12:32:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Grace would have been alright, although she was a little too thin for Antoinette. I always thought that Nicole Kidman would be perfect.; October 23, 2010 at 1:45:00 PM EDT