Tea at Trianon: The Queen's Pin

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, June 23, 2012

The Queen's Pin

A hairpin that may have belonged to Catherine de Medici has recently been found.

According to the June 13, 2012 edition of the French newspaper La République, excavations in the Henri IV courtyard of the château de Fontainebleau unearthed a hairpin possibly belonging to queen Catherine de Medici.

The Henri IV courtyard, also known as the Cour des Offices, was built between 1606 and 1609 to house domestic and administrative services. Historians thought the area unimportant before construction of the buildings that enclosed it. However, two meters below the surface, archeologists discovered a former latrine that has yielded all sorts of discarded objects: bones, coins, crockery, a small gold cross. The most significant find has been a hairpin that probably belonged to the queen. Vincent Droguet, curator of the château, explains that the pin features two interlaced C's, the arms of Catherine de Medici. "It's a stunning find," he says, "as jewels belonging to Catherine de Medici are very rare." (Photo at the original article.) (Read entire post.)