Tea at Trianon: A First Lady

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, April 9, 2016

A First Lady

An interview with Mississippi First Lady Deborah Bryant from Southern Lady Magazine:

SL: Tell us a little bit about your early life in Jackson.

DB: I grew up in West Jackson, and we still have ties there. The area that I grew up in was actually a neighborhood that my grandfather developed. He was a doctor and he lived behind the church that we went to my whole life. He donated the land for that church, and my mom still goes to that church. There are a lot of memories there … we were all christened in the Methodist church; Phil and I were married in that church; Phil was baptized in that church. We still go for communion on Christmas Eve to this day.

SL: What are the most dramatic changes in Jackson that you have seen over the years? How would you characterize the city today?

DB: We have got a lot of interest in Jackson right now. We have the Jackson Zoo, and we have the Greater Jackson Chamber Partnership—business leaders in the area that really work hard to make improvements to Jackson. We recently had a downtown restoration. It’s coming back slowly but surely. We’ve got the Fondren area, which is a great place for young people, and we have some restaurants around here that are really good. Jackson’s coming back too in that apartments are being built in some of the older buildings—a lot of the people that work downtown are moving into these apartments. (Read more.)