Tea at Trianon: The Daughters of Eleanor of Aquitaine

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

Thursday, October 18, 2018

The Daughters of Eleanor of Aquitaine

From Princess Palace:

Many contemporary historians, bloggers and royal watchers enjoy reading and writing about the daughters and granddaughters of Queen Victoria, who is the most recent royal matriarch and is an ancestor of nearly every contemporary European monarch. However, Victoria has a deep ancestress whose political influence on the lives of her daughters and granddaughters is perhaps even greater: Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Eleanor was a great leader in the 12th century with an indomitable personality. She became the Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right when she was a young teen. Soon thereafter, she married King Louis VII of France. A greater royal mismatch has hardly ever existed. Nevertheless the spiritual king and his spirited queen managed to have two daughters. After which, Eleanor convinced him that God did not approve of the match. They received an annulment and she immediately eloped with the much-younger soon-to-be King Henry II of England, by whom she had not only five sons but three more daughters. Henry controlled the French territories of Anjou and Normandy. Together, the new couple was a powerful counterbalance to her ex-husband. (Read more.)