Tea at Trianon: House and Princely Family of Liechtenstein

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

Thursday, May 9, 2013

House and Princely Family of Liechtenstein - Pre-World War II

From Luxarazzi:

The House of Liechtenstein is one of the most ancient noble families in the whole of Europe. Their (known) history begins around 1136 when a person by the name of Hugo von Liechtenstein was firstly documented. He had taken the name of the fortress of Liechtenstein located south of Vienna. At the time, the family mainly owned land north of the Danube.

Twice the Liechtenstein family split into different branches. In the 13th century the family was divided into the Liechtenstein, the Rohrauer and the Petroneller lines; the two latter ones died out in male line within the next generation; their property went to female heiresses who had married into other families and was thus lost. In the 16th century the family split into the Stezregger, the Feldsberger and the Nikolsburger lines. The Stezregger and the Nikolsburger lines died out after a few generations but this time around the family had been smarter as it had been agreed beforehand that the property of extinct branches would go to surviving lines of the family. (Read entire post.)