Tea at Trianon: Paying the Bills

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, March 27, 2012

Paying the Bills

The Queen had to pay her bills like everyone else. Above is a voucher from the household accounts of Marie-Antoinette. (From Vive la Reine.) To quote:

The manuscript document, in French, is addressed to Marc Antoine Francois Marie Randon de la Tour, Treasurer General at the House of Finances, and demands that he pays her nine Grand Foot valets, who have served during the last quarter of October, November and December, the sum of 270 livres, being 30 livres each, in consideration of their services. The document concludes ‘This letter to you should suffice as a note for a sum of 270 livres to be allowed and allocated as an expense against our account by our dear and beloved treasurer of the King, our honoured Lord and Husband in Paris….’ The document bears a secretarial signature of Marie Antoinette at the conclusion, alongside which she has added her authentic signature.