Tea at Trianon: Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg

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, June 30, 2014

Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg

The Cross of Laeken honors the beautiful morganatic wife of Franz Ferdinand, who died with her husband. To quote:

Yesterday was a sorrowful centennial, marking a hundred years since the murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by Serbian nationalists in Sarajevo. As is known all too well, the killing triggered the First World War. Above is a lovely pastel painting of the assassin's less well-known victim, the Archduke's beloved, morganatic wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg. Below is a photograph of the couple with their three surviving children. Sophie died along with her husband, just a few days before their fourteenth wedding anniversary. Here is an article on their tender courtship, loving marriage, and tragic deaths. Here is an interview with a great-granddaughter of the couple. (Read more.)

May said...: Thank you for the link!; June 30, 2014 at 12:47:00 PM EDT
Unknown said...: The obsession of the Hapsburg dynasty to preserve their family's power (might) meant many cases of canon law "lapses" re proper conjugal "rights" within the seventh degree IMHO as this formerly Czech now Austrian great nephew of the Duchess, actor Friedrich von Thun und Hohingen in a 1992 series from ORF:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=522g5YGJ_mE&index=1&list=PLNyrEcdPKPGDiAnz0JykLsDPa_VIs66ND
Puts the Synod on the Family into sharper focus: please Episcopal powers learn from the mistakes of your brothers in times past, only right makes might!; June 30, 2014 at 11:49:00 PM EDT
Unknown said...: FYI the reason the couple were even together in Sarajevo was because it was one of the few rare occasions that they were legally permitted to! Because of the court protocol re rank she had to sit lower or follow behind anyone of higher rank at court including of course her husband the Archduke)

And FYI-II as morganatic offspring her children were not permitted to attend their own parents' funeral!

IMHO a godless moralism that deserved to be swept away!; July 1, 2014 at 12:01:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, canon law was bent many times. Franz Joseph married his own first cousin, in a long Habsburg tradition of consanguinity. Of course, that was not as bad as all the uncle-niece marriages of the past centuries. And you know that if FF had made Sophie his mistress no one would have minded. But they were both devout Catholics. I am so glad Pope Leo XIII supported them.; July 1, 2014 at 12:08:00 AM EDT