Tea at Trianon: Gros-Madame

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

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Gros-Madame

Some portraits of Louis XVI's sister Clotilde de France who became Queen of Sardinia and a Venerable of the Church. To quote:

She was overweight and nicknamed “Gros-Madame” when she was younger, which caused worry that she would have difficulty bearing children and gave rise to jokes that her future husband was being given two brides instead of one. Apparently though, her husband was not bothered by this and is said to have remarked he was “Given more to worship”. The couple became very devoted to one another, but ultimately had no children.

During the French Revolution, one of her brothers (The future Charles X) along with her Aunts Madame Adélaïde and Madame Victoire, stayed with her and her husband’s family after escaping France.

In 1796, her husband ascended to the throne as Charles Emmanuel IV and she became Queen. Only two years later, the First French Republic declared war or Sardinia and her husband was forced to abdicate his territories and withdrawn to the Island of Sardinia. Marie Clotilde died four years later in Naples, and her husband was so affected by her death that he abdicated in favour of his younger brother. (Read entire post.)