Tea at Trianon: Linen for the Wash

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

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Linen for the Wash

From Gio:

If the family washing be done at home, the duty will either fall upon the maid, or she will have to assist the washerwoman who may be engaged for the purpose. In some families, everything is washed at home; in others, only the coarse things, such as sheets, towels, &c., are washed at home, and the rest are sent out to the laundress; and in others, again, everything is sent to the laundress.

In either of these cases, the maid will probably have to collect and sort all the dirty clothes, and to make out a list, or lists, of the different articles for the wash, and to see that everything is right, in state and number, when the washing and ironing are over. In some families, the mistress, or one of her daughters, likes to make out the list, or lists, as .the maid calls the things over. (Read more.)