Tea at Trianon: Murder of the Duchesse de Choiseul-Praslin

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 13, 2016

Murder of the Duchesse de Choiseul-Praslin

From Geri Walton:

Authorities interrogated those present and searched the house for clues. They soon determined that “no robbery had been committed, or even attempted. The garden was examined with the most minute care…and found in such a state that it was evident that no one had penetrated into it either to enter or leave the hotel; and nowhere could any traces of breaking it or of breaking out be found.” Because of that and a variety of other reasons, authorities quickly focused on a single suspect: the Duchess’s own husband, the Duke Choiseul-Praslin.

First, the police learned that the Duchess was madly in love with her husband and that she had recorded as much in her writings. They also discovered the couple had a rather volatile relationship and that numerous violent confrontations between the two had been witnessed by the household staff. Moreover, a recent confrontation had occurred. It involved the children’s governess, a woman named Henriette Deluzy-Desportes (or Henriette de Lucy, Luzy, or Luzzi, although one paper reported her real name was Laure Desportes and another Luzy Desportes).

The Duchess believed her husband was having an affair with Henriette, and the Duchess also believed the two were planning to elope. Moreover, the Duchess thought her husband had hired Henriette to estrange her from her children. Because of this, the Duchess repeatedly threatened to leave her husband, which would have ruined him socially, and the Duchess became upset enough about Henriette she fired her a few weeks earlier, although Henriette had just recently left. (Read more.)

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