Tea at Trianon: Reasons to Visit Paris in 2018

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

Friday, January 5, 2018

Reasons to Visit Paris in 2018

From Blasting News:

The Père Lachaise Cemetery is planted in the 20th arrondissement, and it's the largest in the city, stretching 110 acres. Named after King Louis XIV’s confessor, it holds over 70,000 burial plots. You might find it strange, an article suggesting you visit a place full of dead people on your lovely, romantic holiday. But it’s worth it, trust me. The walls around it stretch on for ages, but just keep walking until you find an ornate looking door. That’s the entrance - or one of them at least. Here you’ll find, as morbid as it sounds, the most incredible tombstones and graves. Oscar Wilde, Jean-François Champollion, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, and Jean de La Fontaine are a few of the well-known men and women who are buried there.

Here are a few fun facts for you:
• The first person to be buried there was a five-year-old girl named Adélaïde Paillard de Villeneuve.
• During its first year of opening, the cemetery only had 13 graves.
• Due to the lack of bones in there, the administrators transferred the dead from other local cemeteries.
• Père Lachaise still accepts new burials today, but there are strict acceptance rules.
• Some multi graves - those who house families - have shelving underground to accommodate them all (Read more.)