Tea at Trianon: Boscobel

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

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Boscobel

A fine old Maryland house, down the road from where we lived. For my friend Virginia, it was her family home. To quote:

All my life I’ve heard stories of Boscobel, the beloved Italianate home of my great-grandparents. The beauty of every room, the stories of balls held there, my grandparents’ romance, and my mother’s charmed childhood.

The property is now part of the National Park Service, with the structures where my mother grew up serving as offices for the Monocacy Battlefield park. But my interest in the place has nothing to do with Civil War history, and everything to do with my own.

So today, Katherine and I went to Boscobel .

Approaching the house from the stone mill house at the base of the driveway. The mill house is where my grandparents lived, and where my mother was born. (Read more.)

Boscobel aka Edgewood is currently part of the Monocacy Battlefield Park on Urbana Pike outside of Frederick, MD.

julygirl said...: So fortunate for us in this time that it is so well preserved and will continue to be. It was awe inspiring in its own age and is doubly so in this age. So glad you were able to get inside and share the beautiful interior details with us.; August 15, 2015 at 10:58:00 AM EDT