Tea at Trianon: Holding Court

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

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Holding Court

Here are pictures of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette holding court. They were almost always surrounded by crowds of people, even though both made an attempt to have hours of solitude and privacy. Above is a posthumous painting of the Queen receiving petitioners while walking in the gardens of Versailles.

Above is the ceremony of June, 13 1775 by Gabriel François Dean (1726-1806). King Louis XVI receives the homage of the Knights of the Holy Spirit, as the great master of the order. The King's brothers stand behind him, talking to each other, as usual. The Queen and her ladies watch from a gallery opposite the King. Below is the Order of the Holy Spirit.

Above is an allegory in honor of Louis XVI by Gabriel Jacques De Saint-Aubin. The young Queen is staring adoringly at her husband. The mythological or Biblical figures which are typical in allegorical drawings show the expectations that the young monarchs were bringing forth an apocalyptic age. Share