Tea at Trianon: Napoleon and Family

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

Friday, November 15, 2013

Napoleon and Family

Marie-Louise of Austria receives flowers from her husband and son. (Via Tiny-Librarian.) It always amuses me how the man who saw himself as the embodiment of the Revolution was not at peace until he had married a Habsburg and had a Habsburg child. Share

6 comments:

julygirl said...: ....and crowned himself; November 15, 2013 at 8:55:00 AM EST
May said...: Recently my mother was looking into this, and it seemed that both of Napoleon's marriages were invalid or at least dubious by the standards of the Church. It's a complicated story, but it seems odd that the Habsburgs let their daughter marry under these weird conditions.; November 15, 2013 at 1:39:00 PM EST
elena maria vidal said...: Napoleon and Josephine were not married in the Church until immediately before their coronation. The Pope never recognized the marriage as invalid. When Napoleon married Marie-Louise, he was still considered to be married to Josephine as far as the Pope was concerned. Emperor Francis handed his daughter over to Bonaparte as a purely political measure. She was the virgin sacrifice.; November 15, 2013 at 4:51:00 PM EST
lara77 said...: So the man who supposedly was the end result of the French Revolution makes himself Emperor and marries into one of Europe's oldest and greatest of families. The little Corsican opportunist was simply amazing in his sheer hutzpah.; November 15, 2013 at 8:02:00 PM EST
May said...: Some of those other Habsburgs- Joseph II, Francis, etc. were really not very appealing characters… very different from M-A who was genuinely devout and ultimately heroic in her dedication to her faith.; November 15, 2013 at 8:03:00 PM EST
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, Lara, Buonaparte certainly had no self-esteem problem. May, that is quite true. Joseph II closed down many contemplative monasteries in the Empire. It was terrible. He was very much under Masonic influence.; November 15, 2013 at 9:07:00 PM EST