Tea at Trianon: Liesl

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

Monday, April 24, 2017

Liesl

Two of Marie-Antoinette's sisters became nuns. To quote from my recent book:

Archduchess Maria Elisabeth, called “Liesl,” was lovely but like Mimi also had a sharp tongue. She was supposed to have gone to France to marry Louis XV but was prevented not only by Louis’ mistress Madame du Barry but by an attack of smallpox, which disfigured her. This was tragic on more than one level. How helpful it would have been for Antoine to have an older sister at Versailles who was already Queen of France! Instead, Antoine had to face the French court practically alone and without her family. Meanwhile, Liesl became fat and crabby; Joseph eventually expelled her from the Imperial court, as he did all his sisters. She went to live with La Marianne and discovered a religious vocation, becoming an Abbess.

Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars: Her Life, Her Times, Her Legacy- Elena Maria Vidal(Read more.)