Tea at Trianon: Son Altesse Royale

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

Monday, November 21, 2011

Son Altesse Royale

The Duchesse d'Angoulême in 1815. From Vive la Reine.

    A mystic hush fell upon the vast assembly at the sight of the princess, as if something holy had just come into the Opera house. Then cries of “Long live the King! Long live Madame!” echoed in the heights of the ceiling. The princess glittered from afar.
    “She wears white satin covered with diamonds,” said Dorothée from behind her opera glasses. “High plumes and a gold filigree tiara, covered with gems.”
    “Her necklace and earrings … surely they are Marie-Antoinette’s own diamonds,” said Madame de Boigne, looking through her own glasses. “The tiara is new … it is in the Merovingian style. Well, she is certainly a princess of whom France need not be ashamed before the world.”