Tea at Trianon: Letters on the Death of Emperor Francis Stephen

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, September 5, 2016

Letters on the Death of Emperor Francis Stephen

From Geri Walton:

Marie Antoinette’s father, Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, reigned twenty years and died unexpectedly on August 18, 1765, while at Innsbruck from a massive apoplexy attack. His death greatly affected his wife, Maria Theresa of Austria, and, in fact, she never recovered and thereafter wore widow weeds. Replacing the Emperor was his oldest son, Joseph who became Joseph II and who reigned in conjunction with his mother, Maria Theresa.

In response to Francis I’s death, Maria Theresa and Joseph II wrote separate heartfelt letters to the Archduchesses (Maria Theresa’s daughters and Joseph’s sisters). At the time there were seven—Maria Anna, Maria Christina, Maria Elisabeth, Maria Amalia, Maria Josepha, Maria Carolina, and the youngest, Maria Antonia, who was the future Marie Antoinette and nine years old at the time (Read more.)

More on Emperor Francis from Catherine Curzon, HERE. Share