Tea at Trianon: The Language of Gloves

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, April 30, 2019

The Language of Gloves

From Geri Walton:

Women first began to wear gloves as a fashion accessory in the 13th century, despite many people viewing them as a display of vanity. These gloves were made from linen and silk and reached to the elbow. Sometime in the 1600s, gloves known as “chicken-skin gloves” became popular and were worn by both sexes. They were made of “thin, strong leather … dressed with almonds and spermaceti [a white waxy substance produced by sperm whales], and … the softening, balmy nature [of them] soften[ed], clear[ed], smooth[ed], and [made] white the hands and arms.”[5] Some people liked these chicken gloves so much they occasionally slept in them to ‘bleach the[ir] hands’ properly.”[6] Because of their name you might think the gloves were made from chicken skin, but German women gave them the name because of “their innocent, effectual quality,”[7] and if the gloves were made from chicken skin at all, it didn’t last long as they were quickly superseded by other materials, such as the skin of unborn calves. (Read more.)