Tea at Trianon: The Cultivation of Home and Garden

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, May 8, 2017

The Cultivation of Home and Garden

From Victoria:

The property, which was cultivated over a period of thirty-four years, has everything from fowl strutting in a dovecote to faux-bois furniture tucked into the woodland bed surrounding a pond. Visitors may experience outdoor spaces that feel like furnished rooms, parterres spilling with flowers and bulbs, a greenhouse where rarities dwell, and paths that wind leisurely from space to space. Bunny also opens her remodeled barn to tour attendees, with the doors of its conservatory ajar to beckon spring breezes. Here, visitors often find her answering questions, fielding compliments, and pointing out destinations outdoors. Explaining how the idea for the tour originated, the globetrotter responds with her own stylish secret: “How do you learn about gardening? You visit other gardens!” (Read more.)