Tea at Trianon: Louis-Philippe at Versailles

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

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Louis-Philippe at Versailles

From the Versailles website:

On 6 October 1789, when Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and the royal family were forced to leave Versailles, the Palace was left empty, never to be used as a royal residence again. Heir to the Orléans family, Louis Philippe I had little in common with the Versailles of the Ancien Régime, but he showed an interest in the Palace from the moment he ascended to the throne in 1830. The new King of the French became intent on transforming this monarchist building into a national monument dedicated “to all the glories of France”. He imagined it as a museum open to all with an educational purpose, where paintings could be consulted like a picture book. His aim, truly political, was to reconcile the deeply divided French people but more especially to ensure that his reign left its mark in the country’s history. The exhibition will retrace Louis Philippe's tastes and the king’s direct involvement in the work culminating in the inauguration of the Historic Galleries on 10 juin 1837. (Read more.)