Tea at Trianon: Paris in 1901

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, July 23, 2019

Paris in 1901

From Vanessa Couchman:

This district of Paris, on the Rive Droite of the River Seine, was a favourite destination for migrants from Aveyron and the Auvergne in the late 19th century. They established a number of restaurants here, often combined with a coal merchant’s business.

On moving from Aveyron, Marie-Thérèse’s destination is la rue Daval, in the 11tharrondissement, not far from La Bastille. The street is the location of the Bistrot Mazars, an Aveyronnais Restaurant run by Marie-Thérèse’s Aunt Berthe and Uncle Henri. They have moved to Paris from Aveyron in search of a more profitable occupation. The Bistrot Mazars is an invention, and there was never a restaurant by that name in the rue Daval. But it seems a plausible location.

Like many of these neighbourhood restaurants, the Bistrot Mazars has its regular clientele, mostly people who worked or lived nearby. But Aunt Berthe has ambitions to expand both the restaurant’s capacity and its reputation.

Now a trendy and lively part of Paris, the 11th arrondissement is bordered by Père Lachaise cemetery. Le boulevard Richard-Lenoir, the home of Simenon’s fictional Commissaire Maigret, is also located in the 11th. (Read more.)