Tea at Trianon: The Shade Garden

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, August 20, 2011

The Shade Garden

The place to be in late summer. Southern Living visits a spectacular North Carolina garden. Share

3 comments:

tubbs said...: PRETTY, and here in southern Florida, always look for oak hammocks - groves of souther oak that provide a shade canopy and always seem to feel 15* cooler.; August 20, 2011 at 10:37:00 AM EDT
Julygirl said...: When I was young and A/C was not prevalent we spent lots of time sitting outside in the shade of a Climbing Rose arbor. Sometimes little green grass snakes would drop down on our heads and we would run away screaming, but they were harmless. Those were lovely times.; August 20, 2011 at 8:12:00 PM EDT
May said...: Beautiful!; August 21, 2011 at 12:01:00 AM EDT