Tea at Trianon: Etiquette According to Catherine II

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, May 21, 2012

Etiquette According to Catherine II

From All Things Ruffnerian (via Gio):

The following rules of etiquette were posted by Catherine the Great at her Hermitage and are reprinted from the 2000 exhibition catalog of Treasures of Catherine the Great:

1. All ranks shall be left outside the doors,

similarly hats, and particularly swords.

2. Orders of precedence and haughtiness,

and anything of such like which might result from them,

shall be left at the doors.

3. Be merry, but neither spoil nor break anything,

nor indeed gnaw at anything.

4. Be seated, stand or walk as it best pleases you,

regardless of others.

5. Speak with moderation and not too loudly,

so that others present have not an earache or headache.

6. Argue without anger or passion.

7. Do not sigh or yawn, neither bore nor fatigue others.

(Read entire post.)