Tea at Trianon: Eleanor and Uncle Raymond

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

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Eleanor and Uncle Raymond

From Elizabeth Chadwick:

A Hospitaler knight called Gerard Jebarre was sent to England to fetch Raymond to his new calling. The journey from England to Antioch was difficult because the politics of the Mediterranean and the Middle East meant that there were those who had no wish to see Raymond take up the reins. The young man had to travel in secrecy, disguising himself as a pilgrim and as a merchant’s servant, but he was fortunate and managed to slip through the blockade, arriving in Antioch in April 1136.

His arrival could not be hidden from the Princess Alice, Constance’s mother who was still a young and fertile woman, and expected to become Raymond’s bride. However, the politics of the moment were geared toward uniting her daughter with Raymond. Young Constance had the blood of Count Bohemond in her veins and Alice did not. Also Constance was a lot more malleable than her mother. While Alice waited expectantly in her palace to receive her future new husband,nine year old Constance was kidnapped and married to Raymond in haste by the patriarch of Antioch. Thwarted, unable to fight for her position and rights, Alice retired to fulminate on her dower estates in Lattakieh.

Raymond took up governing his new principality. He is described by contemporaries as handsome, tall and elegant. He possessed immense physical strength – he was supposed to be able to bend an iron bar with his bare hands and was nicknamed ‘Hercules’. He was skilled in the use of arms and militarily experienced. Although not literate himself, he fostered those who were and enjoyed culture. He liked gambling and was known to be impetuous and hot-tempered, but he also had a high reputation for gallantry and purity of conduct (words in bold for a reason). He attended church regularly and from what can be gathered, was a faithful husband to Constance who in the fullness of time bore him a son Bohemond, and daughters Maria and Philippa. (Read more.)