Tea at Trianon: Potpourri

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

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Potpourri

How to create original blends.

In fact, the garden is a perfect place to start in thinking about fragrances for the house. Potpourri today is largely a failure of the imagination: rose and lavender. ("Vapourri," or sprays, and plug-in air fresheners are also big on things like "pound cake," popular with the diet-weakened.)

But if you have a space to grow, why not begin in the garden, in conceiving original dried blends: meadowsweet, verbena, bergamot, gardenia, tuberose, thyme, honeysuckle, sage and violet. The list goes on. A variety of mint: orange, blackberry, apple, pineapple, chocolate, in addition to peppermint.

Scented geraniums like rose, lime and nutmeg; grasses like gingergrass, lemongrass and vetiver. There are 400 kinds of artemisia, including southernwood and tarragon, all pungent, and ready to plant. And fragrant ingredients to gather too: oak moss, cedar and bamboo. (If Antoine Du Piney de Noroy, writing in an herbal published in 1561, thought stuff like this could cure hair loss, how hard could scenting your home be?) (Read entire article.)