Tea at Trianon: The Queen's Jewel Cabinet

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

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

The Queen's Jewel Cabinet

From Geri Walton:

Marie Antoinette had several jewel receptacles she used for her trinkets. The ones that were modest in form and size were “covered in leather and lined with satin.” Others that were “monumental [in] proportions,” such as the armoire à bijoux (jewel cabinet)...were opulent and extraordinary in appearance.

The monumental armoire à bijoux was 8 feet 9 inches high by 6 feet 9 inches wide and 2 feet 2 inches deep. Yet, for its overall size it was probably too small to hold all the Queen’s jewels. The armoire was created in 1787, after the city of Paris commissioned a German cabinetmaker named Jean-Ferdinand-Joseph Schwerdfeger to create it at Marie Antoinette’s request. (Read more.)