Tea at Trianon: A Hundred Marriages at Notre-Dame de Paris

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, February 25, 2023

A Hundred Marriages at Notre-Dame de Paris

At the birth of her first child in 1778, Marie-Antoinette personally provided for the dowries of a hundred poor girls, enabling them to marry. Encouraging marriage led to a decline of illegitimacy and abandoned children. From Rodama:

Marie-Antoinette refused the celebrations offered to her by the municipality of Paris and asked instead that the money be employed to provide dowries for a hundred deserving poor girls, who would be married en masse on the day of the Royal thanksgiving service in Notre-Dame. Additional allowances were be paid when a first child was born, with a higher rate available for mothers who breastfed. As a further celebration of family life, an elderly couple would be chosen to renew their marriage vows in front of their "children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren".

It is hard to gauge what the municipal corporation might have thought about this charitable effusion of Rousseauist sentiment. No doubt the requirements were both expensive and troublesome to arrange. The brunt of the organisation fell on the church. A 1923 article in the Revue des études historiques, by Gabriel Vauthier, publishes a copy of the rather terse circular, dated 14th January 1779, from Archbishop Christophe de Beaumont to each of the curés of Paris's forty-three parishes:

Monsieur,
It is the Queen's intention to endow with a dowry, one hundred girls to be chosen from the different parishes of Paris. Each one will be furnished with the sum of five-hundred livres, as well as outfits and robes, to be delivered to her on the occasion of her marriage. In addition, Her Majesty wishes to pay ten livres per month for a year during the time that the baby is being nursed. If the mother feeds her own baby, she will be payed fifteen livres a month and given a layette.

You should, Monsieur, without delay, find the means to fulfil the charitable wishes of the Queen and bring about their speedy execution. You must choose from among your parishioners, individuals who are poor and of good moral character, worthy to be recipients of Her Majesty's kindness. You must make your choice within eight to ten days. The marriages will follow the ordinary order of precedence for the parishes of Paris. Kindly come to the Archbishop's palace next Monday at five in the evening. You can inform me of the results of your research so far, and, if there are any difficulties, we will resolve them.
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