Tea at Trianon: Madame Tussaud in India

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

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Madame Tussaud in India

From Scroll.in:

After her apprenticeship under Curtis, Grosholtz entered the royal court as the tutor to king Louis XVI’s sister. She taught the art of votive making to the king’s sister and lived at the heart of the royal court of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, for almost nine years. However, outside the gates of the royal halls, France was gearing up for the revolution of 1789 and Grosholtz’s ties to the royal family made her a target. She was imprisoned, and her head was shaved in preparation for execution by guillotine. A last-minute reprieve saved her life, but Grosholtz was made to prove her allegiance to the revolution, by retrieving the heads of those executed and making their wax death masks – including those of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. These wax masks can still be seen at the original Madame Tussauds in London. (Read more.)