Tea at Trianon: Désirée Clary as Crown Princess of Sweden

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, October 8, 2020

Désirée Clary as Crown Princess of Sweden

A rare miniature of Madame Bernadotte, the silk merchant's daughter who became Queen of Sweden. To quote:

Our brief research brought unexpected result - painted, as we are sure, in 1810 (the sitter stayed in Sweden only in this year, and came again only in 1823; besides that dress and hair-style also speak for this date) it is a very rare and extremely important miniature portrait of Désirée Clary (1777-1860), one-time fiancée of Napoleon Bonaparte, who instead of him married in 1798 his general, Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte (1763-1844). The latter was elected in 1810 heir to the throne of Sweden; Désirée arrived to Stockholm shortly thereafter, but in a few months returned to France where she spent next thirteen years.... CLICK HERE FOR HER EXTENSIVE BIOGRAPHY.

The princess makes a brief appearance in the novel Madame Royale. Share