Tea at Trianon: Lakeside Splendor

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

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Lakeside Splendor

From Southern Lady:

When the Anderson family stumbled upon this 1970s cottage on North Carolina’s scenic Lake Norman, about an hour from their Wilkesboro home, there was an instant connection. “The view is absolutely priceless,” homeowner and designer Erin Anderson says. The Andersons went years without changing a thing, but eventually decided on a remodel to gain space to entertain. They doubled the footprint of the kitchen and converted a screened porch into a bunkroom for their three daughters, freeing up bedrooms for visitors. Since it was a vacation home, Erin chose bright, whimsical patterns and fresh colors that blend with with chinoiserie accents as well as distinctive artwork—all by Southern female artists. “Filling our spaces with art we love is always a priority,” she says. (Read more.)