Tea at Trianon: High Heels Fit for a King

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 25, 2019

High Heels Fit for a King

Style for men under the Stuarts included shoes and boots with high heels. From The Royal Collection Trust:

The high heel originated in the near east where it was worn for centuries as a form of riding footwear. Good horsemanship was essential to the fighting style of Persia (modern day Iran) - when the soldier stood up in his stirrups, the heel helped him to steady his stance so that he could shoot his bow and arrow more effectively. In 1599, Persia's ruler Shah Abbas I, keen to forge links with the courts of Western Europe to help him defeat the Ottoman Empire, sent the first Persian diplomatic mission to Europe, calling at the courts of Russia, Germany and Spain.

Following the Shah's diplomatic mission, there was a wave of interest in Persian culture from Western Europe. Persian style shoes were enthusiastically adopted by aristocrats, who sought to give their appearance a virile, masculine edge associated with the heeled shoes of the Persian cavalry.

In the first half of the 17th century, high heeled shoes for men took the form of heeled riding or Cavalier boots as worn by Charles I. As the wearing of heels filtered into the lower ranks of society, the aristocracy responded by dramatically increasing the height of their shoes. High heels were impractical for undertaking manual labour or walking long distances, and therefore announced the privileged status of the wearer. (Read more.)