Tea at Trianon: Defending the Wittelsbachs

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

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Defending the Wittelsbachs

They had their weaknesses; they also had their strengths. According to The Cross of Laeken:

The Wittelsbachs also produced an array of admirable ladies, such as the sisters of Empress Elisabeth, Maria Sofia (above), the last Queen of Naples, and Sophie Charlotte, Duchesse d'Alençon (below). Maria Sofia is famed for her fearlessness in trying to defend the falling Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from Garibaldi's forces; her valor and devotion won her the respect even of her political foes. Even more moving is the tale of Sophie Charlotte, who died heroically in a terrible fire. Her self-sacrifice is poignantly related in a worshipful biography of her niece, Queen Elisabeth, who was only 21 at the time of the tragedy.