Tea at Trianon: A Letter from Madame Royale

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, January 24, 2014

A Letter from Madame Royale

Here is an intriguing find from Tiny-Librarian:

A letter that is supposed to have been written by Marie Therese Charlotte while in exile in Vienna after being liberated from the Temple Prison. The site says it was written in 1793 with a question mark next to that. That date is indeed impossible, since she didn’t reach Vienna until January of 1796.

…I have received your two letters…with pleasure, but I am no longer able to…if it were possible…despite all my desire to see that my good Aunt Elizabeth [Louis XVI’s youngest sister, Elizabeth Philippine Marie Helen de France]…I have the consolation that [she is with you] and that you say everything is [arranged] for your departure…She has told me privately that…she desires that you…a girl…despite all her sorrows she thinks following the example of her dear Bombelles [?] and me. I love you and think about you and want to see you but then this is impossible, I have the consolation of writing to you and to say to you that I always loved you, in spite of my great youth when I knew you. I had the happiness also to become one who in this country everyone loves and admires, something which doesn’t happen in France. Your poor Mother seemed well when I had seen her. I hope also that Mr. de Bombelles and all your children are well…Goodbye, dear Madam, love me always and regard me as a person whom you love and also whom my Aunt loves and love me the same as you would wish to be loved [?]…
Marie-Therese was imprisoned with her mother, who was executed on October 16, 1793. Elizabeth, the aunt to whom she refers in this letter, was executed the following year on May 10, 1794. Bearing the remnants of the original black-wax seal, the letter remains in very good condition.

The letter is written to Madame de Bombelles, the close friend of Madame Elisabeth and the daughter of Madame de Mackau, under-governess of the Children of France. Share