Tea at Trianon: Correspondence of Cardinal Boncompagni Ludovisi

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, May 4, 2019

Correspondence of Cardinal Boncompagni Ludovisi

From the Archive Digitale Boncompagni Ludovisi:

One of the most spectacular finds that the Villa Aurora yielded in summer 2010 was a long series of letters by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of France. There are 25 in all, written from Versailles over the period 1775-1787. Thirteen are by Louis XVI, and twelve by Marie Antoinette. Each of these newly discovered letters is addressed to Cardinal Ignazio Boncompagni Ludovisi (1743-1790), who after 1777 governed Bologna (then in the Papal States) as Cardinal Legate of Pope Pius VI. Boncompagni Ludovisi eventually rose to the position of Secretary of State for the Vatican in 1785, but resigned after just four years, because of poor health.

The Archivio Segreto Vaticano possesses just one letter from Louis XVI (also to Cardinal Ignazio) and none from Marie Antoinette in its Fond Boncompagni Ludovisi. So this fresh discovery marks a particularly significant contribution to the study of the relationship of European rulers to the Boncompagni Ludovisi family.

One valuable attribute of this set of letters is that all the items impressively preserve the original folds, seals, and other anti-tampering devices. Each of the letters to Cardinal Ignazio from the court at Versailles is addressed “a mon cousin”—the customary form of address between legitimate sovereign princes. (The Ludovisi and then the Boncompagni Ludovisi were sovereigns of the Principate of Piombino since 1634.) (Read more.)