Tea at Trianon: Hugh Capet

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

Saturday, November 3, 2018

Hugh Capet

The first Capetian monarch of France. From Nobility:

He was the second son of Hugh the Great, Count of Paris, and Hedwig, sister of Otto I, German Emperor, and was about ten years old when he inherited from his father the Countship of Paris and the Duchy of France. About 970 he married Adelaide of Aquitaine, and as early as 985 the famous Gerbert wrote “The Carlovingian Lothair governs France only in name. The king of France is Hugh.” When Louis V died, 21 May, 987, the assistance of Adalberon, Archbishop of Reims, and of Gerbert, brought about the election of Hugh. The electoral assembly of Senlis listened to a discourse of Adalberon: “Crown the Duke”, he said. “He is most illustrious by his exploits, his nobility, his forces. The throne is not acquired by hereditary right; no one should be raised to it unless distinguished not only for nobility of birth, but for the goodness of his soul”. A unanimous vote ratified this discourse, and Hugh Capet was crowned at Noyon, 3 July, 987. Thus his accession, as M. Luchaire says, was above all “an ecclesiastical achievement”....

His domestic policy was very favourable to the development of monastic life and the autonomy of the monasteries. He defended their property against lay tyranny; he sought to remove them from episcopal jurisdiction while upholding the royal right to confirm abbatial elections; he supported all the liberties of the monks in the exercise of their electoral rights; he renounced the custom of distributing abbeys as benefices to laymen. Because of its political importance he wished to retain effective direction over the Abbey of St. Martin of Tours, and even under the reign of the Plantagenet Henry II the Capetians preserved considerable influence at Tours and along the Middle Loire. Apropos of Hugh Capet it is worthy of note that because the Dukes of France had in their possession the famous cope (cappa) of St. Martin, certain authors give to Hugh the Great and to his son Hugh the surname of Capet, which in history is reserved exclusively for the subject of this article. Hugh Capet in his religious policy applied and favoured the ideas of reform upheld by the monks of Cluny. (Read more.)