Tea at Trianon: Dead from Smallpox

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

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Dead from Smallpox

Charles Joseph of Lorraine-Austria

From Tiny-Librarian:

Smallpox was a major endemic disease in 18th century Europe, and was a leading cause of death. Four of Maria Theresa and Francis I’s children died of smallpox before they reached adulthood:

Maria Carolina (Smallpox suspected but not conclusively proven) - Born January 12th, 1740 and died January 25th, 1741 (1 year old)
Charles Joseph - Born February 1st, 1745 and died January 18th, 1761 (15 years old)
Maria Johanna Gabriela - Born February 4th, 1750 and died December 23rd, 1762 (12 years old)
Maria Josepha - Born March 19th, 1751 and died October 15th, 1767 (16 years old)