Tea at Trianon: The Wedding Scene

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, April 6, 2015

The Wedding Scene

From Reading Treasure:

The wedding gown for Marie Antoinettte in the film was so sumptuous that it prompted famous fashion columnist and editor Diana Vreeland to say: "Hollywood has the most expensive couture in the world. The details, the workmanship, are second to none."

The wedding gown is the heaviest costume in the film, weighing an estimated 108 lbs. The wedding gown was made with more than 500 yards of satin; thousands of seed pearls were hand sewn into the dress, along with hand-embroidered flowers, ribbons and other designs. The dress's long train was also hand-embroidered. Marie Antoinette wears a tiara with dripping pearls, a necklace with alternating pearls and diamond and pearl earrings with the costume. (Read more.)