Tea at Trianon: About the Palace of 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

Monday, May 27, 2019

About the Palace of Versailles

From Vogue:

As early as 1661, Louis XIV entrusted Andre le Notre with the design and development of the famous Versailles gardens, which would later be known as a model of exceptional landscaping across the world. With the help of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a member of the King’s cabinet, and later the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, tasked with the Orangery, Le Notre got to work. He was entrusted to design the layout of the gardens, to draw the numerous statues and fountains, and with the huge burden of leveling, planting, and routing of trees from several provinces in France. The project took 40 years in all to complete, and the gardens require replanting every hundred years or so in order to maintain their integrity and beauty. During a storm in December of 1999, some 10,000 to 20,000 trees were split or uprooted, including 80% of the rarest species, and two Virginia tulip trees planted by Marie-Antoinette herself. (Read more.)