Tea at Trianon: The Coronation of James II

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

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

The Coronation of James II

From author Margaret Porter:

By five o’clock that day James and his consort Mary Beatrice had been crowned, and they processed out of the Abbey beneath their separate canopies. Wearing their purple velvet robes, carrying their regalia, accompanied by trumpeters, and hailed by the cheering populace, they returned to Westminster Hall for the grand feast.

Within the vast and ancient hall the tables had been arranged and were already covered by all the banquet dishes that didn’t contain hot food—99 of them on the King and Queen’s table. These consisted of cold meat (flesh and fish) “excellently well Dressed and Ordered all manner of ways. In three very great Chargers and 14 large Basins, Dryed sweet-meats, and Plates of all sorts of Jellyes, Bla-mange etc., with Sallads of all kinds . . . Void places were left for the Hot Meat.” Sandford’s book shows each table and the placement of each dish—numbered, with a corresponding numbered list to indicate what was served and where. (Read more.)