Tea at Trianon: Places of the Revolution

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

Friday, August 5, 2016

Places of the Revolution

From Geri Walton:

Located between the Palais des Tuileries and the Champs Élysées was the Place Louis XV (later called the Place de la Concorde). The square, which was originally a spot where market-gardeners grew cabbage and lettuce, was established and named in honor of King Louis XV. Ange-Jacques Gabriel designed the square and laid it out in 1755. The center piece was a statue commissioned by the city of Paris in 1748, sculpted by Edmé Bouchardon, and completed by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle after Bouchardon’s death. It was an equestrian statue of King Louis XV: “The king, crowned with laurels and arrayed in Roman costume, sat a top a prancing charger of bronze.”

After its creation, Place Louis XV was the site of many events, but in May of 1770, a haunting event occurred when the Dauphin (the future Louis XVI) married 14-year-old Marie Antoinette. In celebration of their marriage a fireworks celebration was erected in the square, and because of a variety of issues, there was only one way out thereby making the event dangerous for the spectators who thronged the square. During the celebration one of the firework displays tipped and set fire to other nearby displays. Because the spectators were so densely packed into the area and because there was only one way out, the celebratory event quickly became horrific: Many people were maimed, injured, or killed because they could not escape. (Read more.)