Tea at Trianon: Waddesdon Manor

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 30, 2018

Waddesdon Manor

From Homes and Antiques:

It’s impossible not to be amazed by Waddesdon Manor. Leaving behind the picturesque Buckinghamshire village that shares its name, you travel along a drive that crosses parkland and spirals up a densely wooded hill. Then suddenly, there it is, in all its extravagantly pinnacled and turreted glory: a French Renaissance-style chateau, improbably perched on a Home Counties hill.

The surprise visitors feel at Waddesdon’s sudden emergence is exactly what its creator Ferdinand de Rothschild intended. ‘It’s all an amazing piece of theatre,’ explains Rachel Jacobs, curator at Waddesdon. ‘The house was never built to be lived in, just for weekend house parties during the summer months. If you were a guest here, you would experience the collection, visit the Renaissance Museum, then the novelties in the grounds, such as the Glasshouses, Aviary and the German-themed Dairy, where you might try your hand at milking cows that had Meissen name tags.’ With the help of French architect Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur, it took Ferdinand six years to transform the featureless estate he had bought from the Duke of Marlborough into an extravagantly landscaped French-themed fantasy. (Read more.)