Tea at Trianon: A Unique Book

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, August 11, 2014

A Unique Book

A fairy tale book in German belonging to the Grand Duchess Olga. It is interesting how the daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra were introduced to German from earliest childhood, contrary to what some have said. To quote:

A children’s book given to Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna by her parents - Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Tsar Nicholas II, as a birthday gift in 1903.
"Mein Eestes Marchenbuch,"(text in German) is a book of fairy tales with colorful illustrations published in Stuttgart, Germany.

The fly-leaf is inscribed by Empress Alexandra in pencil in English and Russian:

“For darling Olga from Papa and Mama. 3rd of November 1903 Skernovitzi”

Grand Duchess Olga, the first child of Nicholas and Alexandra was born on November 3, 1895. She was turning 8 in 1903. (Read more.)