Tea at Trianon: A Skeleton City

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, April 5, 2017

A Skeleton City

From Shannon Selin:

The United States Congress authorized the creation of a federal capital in 1790. President George Washington selected the location, which was formed from land donated by Maryland and Virginia. The area included two existing settlements: Georgetown and Alexandria. In 1791, French engineer Pierre Charles L’Enfant drew up a plan for a city east of Georgetown, on the north bank of the Potomac River. The plan was amended by American surveyor Andrew Ellicott. The cornerstone of the President’s house (later known as the White House) was laid in 1792. Construction finished in 1800. That same year the Senate wing of the Capitol building was completed, followed by the House of Representatives wing in 1811. During the War of 1812, British forces raided Washington DC, setting fire to the President’s house, the Capitol and other public buildings on August 24, 1814. By 1820, these had been rebuilt, but the city as a whole still looked unfinished. (Read more.)