Tea at Trianon: Poldy

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

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Poldy

Marie-Antoinette's second brother.

Leopold II, called “Poldy,” is often overlooked because his reign lasted only two years. Nevertheless, he had the most children of any of his siblings—sixteen, just like his parents—with the exception of Maria Carolina, who had eighteen. He stood in as proxy bridegroom at some of his sisters’ weddings. Although his demeanour is described as being cold and intellectual, he was by far the handsomest of his surviving brothers and quite the ladies’ man. His parents had intended for him to become a priest but as he approached manhood it became clear that he did not have a vocation. He eventually married Maria Luisa of Spain, the sweet pious mother of his sixteen children, the oldest of whom, Francis II, was to be the last Holy Roman Emperor. While Leopold displayed concern in his letters to Antoinette for her safety and that of her family, as the violence of the French Revolution escalated, he was not displeased to see the French monarchy destabilized. His son and heir would be much less concerned. It was only when the revolutionary government showed itself to be belligerent that Francis II realized that a Pandora’s Box had been opened and the Habsburg Empire was threatened. Leopold’s sudden and unexpected death in 1792 at age 45 stirred up rumours of poison. Antoinette felt his loss greatly.

Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars: Her Life, Her Times, Her Legacy- Elena Maria Vidal