Tea at Trianon: The Desolation of 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, May 16, 2014

The Desolation of Madame Royale

Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France alone in prison. She was haunted by the fate of her Aunt Elisabeth, saying:

I remained in great desolation when I felt myself parted from my aunt; I did not know what had become of her, and no one would tell me. I passed a very cruel night: and yet, though I was very uneasy about her fate, I was far from thinking I should lose her in a few hours. Sometimes I persuaded myself that they would send her out of France; then, when I recalled the manner in which they had taken her away, my fears revived.

Linda jam said...: Just started to take an interest in the french revolution & the murder of the king, queen & young Dauphin since it was barely mentioned in school..What the jacobists did was a precursor to the murder of the Russian royal houses, and the beginning of the end of our Western civilization. Yes, people it all started with the so called French revolution. The horrors thst the princess endured were absolutely horrific. I'm reading her autobiography now. Absolutely devastating. Tears for her & her family.; May 7, 2024 at 7:29:00 AM EDT