Tea at Trianon: Merrywood

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

Monday, April 16, 2018

Merrywood

Merrywood was the northern Virginia estate of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy's stepfather, Hugh D. Auchincloss, who was truly like a second father to her and her sister Lee. From Decor to Adore:

This brick and limestone Georgian gem was originally built in 1919. The estate is located just northwest of Washington D.C. and just a few miles away from George Washington’s “Mount Vernon”. The home is 23,000 square feet and includes 9 bedrooms, 11 full bathrooms and both an indoor and outdoor pool. The original estate, with it’s 46 acres, was purchased in the mid 1930’s by Hugh D. Auchincloss II, heir of Standard Oil, and the step-father of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. (Read more.)

I am so enjoying J. Randy Taraborrelli's book Jackie, Janet and Lee.

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