Tea at Trianon: The Glass Room

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

Saturday, March 4, 2017

The Glass Room

A visit to Clifton-on-the-Monocacy. From Chartreuse and Company:

Some live in vintage homes. Others live in modern ones. We live in both.

At the same time.

You see, our house has a long architectural history, added to (quite dramatically, I might add) by my grandfather in 1968. The story of The Glass Room is one of family and architecture and dubious compromises.

In 1968, my grandparents, then in the their 50s, found themselves in the classic tweener generation. With their sons grown, with children of their own, my grandparents recognized that my grandfather’s parents were in need of assistance. My great-grandfather, George Leicester Thomas, Sr. was ailing, and my great-grandmother could no longer take care of him herself. So it was decided they should move in with my grandparents, here at Clifton (our farm’s name is Clifton on the Monocacy). As great-granddaddy was in a wheelchair, the house, which sits a half-story above ground level, needed to be made accessible. And additional bathrooms (the house had only one and a half baths) were needed. I don’t know all the details of the search for the architect, or any of the discussions involved, but somehow the addition you see here was conceived. (Read more.)