Tea at Trianon: One of the Longest Reigns in History

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 19, 2012

One of the Longest Reigns in History

King Michael of Romania, Queen Marie's grandson.

Today is the seventy second anniversary of the accession and coronation on the same day September 6 1940 of the King of Romania following the enforced abdication of his father King Carol II. King Michael is thus within a few months of equalling the length of reign of King Louis XIV, with, of course, the very regrettable caveat that unfortunately for both the King and for Romanian people, he has only been able to exercise his sovereign powers for a few of those years. If his period as King in the years 1927-30, about which I posted in The first accession of King Michael in July is included he has been a monarch longer than the Sun King was. (Read entire post.)