Tea at Trianon: The Mysterious Quality of the Eighteenth Century

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, February 8, 2016

The Mysterious Quality of the Eighteenth Century

From The Paris Apartment:

There’s always been a mysterious quality to the 1700s, at least for me. How did these women come up with what is still considered the essence of chic right out of thin air? Of course it was not only women but I’m sure they were directing the men in terms of shapes, color and proportion of everything from fashion to furniture....There was a sort of whimsy, a playful frivolity and innocence that no other time before or since has captured. (Read more.)

julygirl said...: Women were not necessarily directing men, there were men who were designers and decorators who were quite adept at what they did.; February 8, 2016 at 8:29:00 AM EST
elena maria vidal said...: True but I think she means women like Marie-Antoinette who gave specific directions to her craftsmen for what she wanted.; February 8, 2016 at 8:35:00 AM EST