Tea at Trianon: The Return of the Tiara

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

Monday, March 3, 2014

The Return of the Tiara

From Jewels du Jour:

Downton Abbey’s sumptuous Season 4 Finale was a dazzling display of the much-celebrated “London Season” of decades past. Centering on Rose’s debutante presentation to King George V, the Crawley’s find themselves in London at Grantham House with all the pomp and circumstance that go with the “social event of the season.”

Throughout the episode, I couldn’t help but notice the superfluous sparkle at each evening soirée. All of Britain’s 'fictional' landed gentry decided to display the vestiges of their wealth by wearing their finest diamond jewels throughout the final episode, most notably tiaras and head ornaments. No diamonds were spared during the lavish and visually opulent grand finale, which left me thinking about the dear old tiara. (Read more.)