Tea at Trianon: Boodle's

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

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Boodle's

From Geri Walton:

Boodle’s was a gentlemen’s club founded in London in 1762 by the future Marquess of Lansdowne and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, William Petty, the Earl of Shelburne. It was established for like-minded men to meet, exchange, and discuss political issues and ideas. However, Boodle’s took its name from its head waiter, Edward Boodle, who also began to manage it shortly after it was opened. William Wilberforce belonged to Boodle’s, as well as four other clubs, and he claimed, “nothing could be more luxurious than the style of these clubs … you chatted, played at cards, or gambled as you pleased.”

The club opened at 49-51 Pall Mall, and, in 1782, it moved into 28 St. James’s Street, a spot occupied by the Savoir Vivre club. The building was designed by architect John Cruden in 1765 and soon cited as “the most interesting architectural object [on] St. James’s Street.” Between 1821-1824 alterations to Boodle’s ground floor were made by architect John Buonarotti Papworth and included a comfortable reading room. (Read more.)