Tea at Trianon: The Girl with the Seven-Pointed Star

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, October 24, 2018

The Girl with the Seven-Pointed Star

From author Francine Mathews:

May I present Miss Jeanette Jerome, barely twenty years old, living in Paris and newly-engaged to Lord Randolph Churchill, the younger of the Duke of Marlborough's two sons? She's American. Privileged. Staring down her future with deadly purpose. It's a beautiful face, certainly, but grave and also haunting. In her black hair she has clipped a seven-pointed diamond star lent to her by her mother--probably in celebration of the engagement, and Jennie's transition from girl to woman. I'm guessing the pearls were a gift from her father, because pearls were suitable for debutantes and Leonard Jerome always knew what his girls liked. Jennie assumes she'll have lots of jewels to wear in future. She thinks a life of glamor and adventure lies ahead. She's right; but her husband's funds are never enough to bankroll her style, and the seven-pointed star remains her one flashing ornament. Until her mother takes it back, to give to Jennie's little sister, when Leonie in turn is betrothed. The star was probably fashioned by Louis-Francois Cartier, founder of Cartier jewelers. But that's my guess. Nobody really knows. Louis-Francois worked in an atelier next door to Charles Frederick Worth's fashion salon in Paris, where Jennie's trousseau was made. When wealthy clients demanded it, Worth's craftswomen embroidered gems in elaborate designs on their silk gowns--and Cartier supplied the stones. Eventually his clientele was broad and deep and wealthy enough that he opened a store of his own. (Read more.)

More HERE. Share