Tea at Trianon: St. John the Baptist and the Durieux Sisters

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, November 1, 2017

St. John the Baptist and the Durieux Sisters

Here is a holy card of St. John the Baptist, one of Marie-Antoinette's patron saints, which she gave to her main femme de chambre, Thérèse Durieux and her sister Barbe Durieux. The sisters were members of the Archduchess Antoine's entourage, who are mentioned in the letters of the Empress Maria Theresa to the Marquise d’Hennezel. She was to leave the sisters behind in Austria. The card was given to them on the occasion of Antoine's marriage-by-proxy in April 1770 in Vienna in which she became the Dauphine of France. Her words to her maids are, in Latin and French:

Auspice Deo / Soyez persuadée chere Durieu que je penserai toujours a vous et que ne n’oubliere jamais les peines que vous avez eu avec moi c’est dont vous assure / votre tres fidele / Antoine Archiduchesse

Auspice Deo literally translates "Under the auspices of God" which means not only having faith in God but to place oneself trustingly inside God's plan. A rough translation of the rest of the message reads: "Be persuaded, dear Durieu, that I will think always of you and the pains you have taken with me, may this assure you. Your very faithful, Archduchess Antoine." One can only imagine the trouble the handmaid went through with her turbulent adolescent charge while preparing Antoine to leave her home forever and become a future Queen of France.

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