Tea at Trianon: The Bourbon Jewels

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

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

The Bourbon Jewels

Ring with hair from the father of Louis XVI

Badge of the Saint Esprit belonging to Louis XVI's nephew and son-in-law, Louis Antoine, Duc d'Angoulême

Daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, the Duchesse d'Angoulême. All of the jewels in question passed through her hands.

Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre

I am keep discovering more about the Bourbon-Parma collection. So many of the items are connected with people who have been in my novels, such as some medals commemorating the marriage of Berry and Caroline. The Sotheby's website has a great deal of information, as well as some good photos of collection, some of which belonged to the French royal family. The hair rings are particularly interesting and belonged to "Queen Marie Antoinette and were given by her daughter, Madame la Duchesse d’Angoulême, Comtesse de Marnes, to her niece and adoptive daughter Louise de France, Duchesse de Parme, who then gave them to her son Robert I Duc de Parme." And there are several other pieces that would be interesting to those who have read my novel Madame Royale. According to Sotheby's:

In 1792, the Royal family was arrested and imprisoned in the Temple Tower. King Louis XVI was executed by guillotine in January 1793, followed by his Queen, Marie Antoinette in October 1793. Their 10-year-old son, Louis XVII, died in captivity and their only surviving child, Marie-Thérèse de France (1778-1851),“Madame Royale”, was released in December 1795, after three years of solitary confinement. Marie-Thérèse was sent to Austria after learning of the deaths of her mother and brother. After her arrival in Vienna in 1796, she was given her mother’s jewels by her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II. Marie-Thérèse married her first cousin Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, in 1799, who was the eldest son of the future King Charles X, her father’s younger brother. Marie-Thérèse, the Duchess of Angoulême, became the Dauphine of France, wife of heir to the throne of France Louis Antoine, when her father-in-law ascended the throne of France as King Charles X in 1824. She remained in France until August 2, 1830, when King Charles X abdicated the throne and the Chamber of Deputies appointed his cousin Louis Philippe as the King of France. Marie-Thérèse again went into exile in the UK with Charles X, her husband Louis Antoine, her young nephew Duc de Bordeaux, his mother, the Duchesse de Berry, and his sister Louise Marie Thérèse d’Artois, where they remained until 1833. Later they moved to Prague and finally to Austria, where they lived until their final days.

Having borne no children of her own, Marie-Thérèse de France bequeathed part of her jewelry collection to her niece and adopted daughter, Louise of France (1819–1864), Duchess of Parma and grand-daughter of Charles X, King of France (1757-1836), who in turn left them to her son, Robert I (1848-1907), the last ruling Duke of Parma. (Read more.)