Tea at Trianon: Marriage Etiquette in France in the Late 1800s

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

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Marriage Etiquette in France in the Late 1800s

From Geri Walton:

Marriage etiquette in France involved many rules. For instance, when a Frenchman decided he wanted to marry, he did not go directly to the parents and ask for their daughter’s hand in marriage. That would have been a major faux pas. Instead his best friend was charged with the delicate task of asking the parents, and if they agreed, the prospective bridegroom then arranged a meeting with them. This first meeting was all business and involved “the dowry, and the almost equally important one of the young man’s fortune, expectations, etc.”[1]

If everything was determined to be favorable for the young man, then a second interview was scheduled between the parents and the prospective bridegroom with “the day and hour rigorously settled before hand.”[2] On the appointed day, at the appointed time, the prospective bridegroom presented himself for a second time. He was “carefully but not too carefully dressed – that point [was] essential. His betrothed, in elegant but simple attire, await[ed] his coming, surrounded by parents and relatives.”[3] After this meeting, the prospective bridegroom was then entitled to be received as a pretendu. However, to gain that status, he had to request it in writing. (Read more.)