Tea at Trianon: Jane Austen's Inspirations

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, June 7, 2017

Jane Austen's Inspirations

From Radio Times:

Billie Piper starred in the 2007 ITV film of Mansfield Park as Fanny Price. In Austen’s story, Fanny, a poor relation, gets adopted by her wealthy aunt and uncle, and goes to live with them in their grand but unwelcoming mansion. One of Austen’s brothers was likewise adopted by rich relations, which catapulted him out of the family of a country clergyman, and into the landed gentry far above. Austen would often go to stay with her brother Edward in his new home, the magnificent Godmersham Park in Kent. She paid visits throughout her life, and they remained close.

Austen particularly liked her niece, Edward’s oldest daughter, another Fanny. But there are hints that she felt out of place at Godmersham Park. A travelling hairdresser who came to the house, for example, would charge Austen only half-price for a cut, because of her “poverty”. In return, members of the Godmersham family described Austen as “very much below par as to good society & its ways”, and the house itself, like Mansfield Park, is built in the Palladian style of architecture: restrained, beautiful, but cold. Today Godmersham is a training college for opticians. (Read more.)