Tea at Trianon: Madame de Genlis and Napoleon

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, February 8, 2017

Madame de Genlis and Napoleon

From Shannon Selin:

In 1802, Napoleon provided Madame de Genlis with an apartment in the Arsenal Library. After becoming Emperor in 1804, he granted her a pension of 6,000 francs a year. In return, Napoleon required that Madame de Genlis write him regular letters. Some thought this was a pretext for her to act as Napoleon’s spy among partisans of the ancien régime. French Foreign Minister Talleyrand (not always a reliable source) recounted how, on the evening of the Battle of Austerlitz, he read to Napoleon the “report” of Madame de Genlis.

It was long, and written entirely in her own hand. She spoke of the spirit of Paris, and quoted a few offensive conversations held, she said, in those houses which were then called Faubourg Saint-Germain; she named five or six families, which, never, she added, would rally to the government of the emperor. Some rather biting expressions which Mme. de Genlis reported set Napoleon in an inconceivable state of fury; he swore and stormed against the Faubourg Saint-Germain. (3)
However, according to Napoleon’s private secretary Baron Méneval, the letters were simply intended to make Madame de Genlis feel that she was not living on imperial charity. (Read more.)