Tea at Trianon: The Passionate Prince

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

Friday, September 2, 2011

The Passionate Prince

Victoria's Albert.

Prince Albert is, to me, one of the most fascinating and passionate royalties of his era, and one of the most amazingly ‘good’ men who ever lived. In fact, it seems that Queen Victoria’s adulation was pretty accurate and she was one of the most fortunate women to be married to such a man.

In an age where dynastic marriages were often loveless affairs and it was taken for granted that princes and kings had mistresses, it is hardly surprising that Prince Albert’s fidelity was seen as something unusual and, unfortunately, people who do not go along with crowd, are often viewed as odd or uninteresting. Prince Albert’s horror of infidelity could be traced back to his childhood when he witnessed first hand, at only five years old, the departure of his beloved mother who, having been mistreated by his father, embarked on an affair and was banished from the household. At the same time, Albert was a man of such sincerity that dishonesty or deceit were abhorrent to him; and he was a devout man. If he made vows, he honoured them. This did not make him dispassionate – on the contrary, his devotion to his wife and family shows the depths of his passion. (Read entire post.)