Tea at Trianon: Visitors to Versailles (1682-1789)

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

Visitors to Versailles (1682-1789)

Louis XVI and Benjamin Franklin

From Apollo:

From the late 17th century until the French Revolution, the court of Versailles received visitors from the rest of France and from abroad, ranging from travellers, princes, and ambassadors, to artists, writers and philosophers. This collaboration between the Palace of Versailles and the Met – the first of its kind – presents evidence of the many different kinds of visitors, their impressions of court, and the receptions they received – in the form of more than 300 examples of portraits and sculptures, costumes and tapestries, and decorative arts. Find out more about the exhibition from the Met’s website. (Read more.)

From WWD:

Chief among the outfits in the newly opened exhibit is the three-piece suit worn by Benjamin Franklin during his visit to Versailles. The new exhibition at the Fifth Avenue museum also explores the various elements of a visit to the royal residence in the 17th and 18th centuries. Nearly 190 works from The Met, the Palace of Versailles and 50 different lenders are on view through July 29 in the Tisch Galleries. As America’s first ambassador, Franklin was received by Louis XVI in 1778 and won the military support of France. Franklin’s three-piece suit from 1778-79 is on loan from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The Met’s new show will also feature a French silk brocade grande robe à la française, 1775-85, which was believed to have been worn by one of the wives of Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf — a well-known textile manufacturer — for her visit with Marie Antoinette, as well as a men’s formal French suit and a women’s riding habit. The exhibition also features furniture, tapestries, carpets, costumes, porcelain, sculpture and more. (Read more.)

From Fashionista:

Although more private portions of the palace itself remained off-limits, Louis XIV made himself and his family widely available to their subjects. Several times a week, the sovereign held a ceremonial "grand couvert" in which the royalty dined before the public, while Louis XIV allowed for visitors to watch him pass through the Hall of Mirrors to attend daily mass. And then there were religious holidays and other special celebrations, which featured fireworks, fountain shows and musical performances that attracted hoards of onlookers. But the "best part of Versailles," wrote traveler Adam Ebert from Frankfurt in 1724, was still "the king himself." (Read more.)