Tea at Trianon: Fashion and French Politics

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 4, 2014

Fashion and French Politics

From New Republic:

Centuries before Hollande’s optical mishap, the French public was aware of, and quite concerned about, its leaders’ sartorial proclivities. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, whose book, Fashion Victims: Dress at the Court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, will be published by Yale University Press in the fall, told me that French politicians’ wardrobes have never been exempt from public scrutiny, in part because fashion has historically been such a prominent industry in France. Among the French, she said, there has long been an expectation that leaders should be wearing French-produced goods and a sense that no one in his right mind would even want to wear anything else.

Napoleon himself took great pride in wearing French-produced fabrics, and his great care for his wardrobe has been well-documented. According to The Age of Napoleon: Costume from Revolution to Empire: 1789-1815, the “survival and success” of Lyon’s textile industry, which had produced the rich, embroidered silks of his coronation, “became emblematic of Napoleon’s policy toward French industry.” (The “extraordinary pageantry” of the entire ceremony, fashion included, we are assured, “served Napoleon’s goals well.”)

Louis XVI, too, was well aware of the political significance of his dress. He hosted balls whose dress codes were explicitly modeled after the bright, feathered fashions of the popular reign of Henri IV—“a very calculated propaganda move,” Chrisman-Campbell said. (Read more.)