Tea at Trianon: A Dream House

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, June 13, 2014

A Dream House

Natalie Cole remembers her family home. To quote:

When I entered our library after school, my mom would be sitting there having her vodka and grapefruit juice. She'd always have the music on—usually singers like Dinah Washington or Nancy Wilson. There was a wall-length bookshelf, and I'd take a book down and curl up on our curved reddish-brown sofa and read. When it was my turn to choose songs on the jukebox, I'd pick rock and roll stuff, like Jackie Wilson or Chubby Checker. The house gave me great comfort and made me feel safe. I think the way I take care of my home today comes from my mom. She had a way of putting things together perfectly and I learned by watching. She did teach me how to set a table, though.

I loved when my dad was home. He liked to sit in the living room and watch boxing and baseball on TV. Or he'd be tinkering around or listening to records by his musician buddies—George Shearing, Oscar Peterson and the Jackie Gleason Orchestra. He also loved to drive. In the early '60s, my mom bought him a steel-gray Jaguar XKE with a black top. He liked driving fast, and I was the only one who would ride with him. Everyone else was afraid. He'd often take me to get ice cream.

Christmas was a big holiday in our house. My dad was always home for the holiday and would have the fireplace going and music playing. We had a huge tree on the front lawn that must have been 40 feet tall. We'd decorate it and the lawn with lights and a Santa Claus that waved, and reindeer that rocked back and forth to simulate running. We were just like our neighbors.

But not everyone liked that. One evening in the 1950s some people showed up and put firecrackers in our rose bushes. Another time a bunch of people put a burning cross on our lawn. My mom and I were the only ones home. My mom was such a little socialite. She rolled up a newspaper, went outside and told them to clear off. There she was in her nightgown with a thick roll of newsprint yelling at the guys. I was flabbergasted. Someone even poisoned our dog, a boxer. My dad was devastated, but we stayed put.

I lived at the house until I graduated from high school and went away to college in Massachusetts. By then, my dad had already died of lung cancer, in 1965, which crushed me. Dad had been everything to me. I returned after college and stayed at the house until the early '70s, when my mom sold it so she could move back east. My sister and I were so upset. It was all we had left of our childhood and our dad. (Read more.)