Tea at Trianon: A Bonaparte Wedding

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

Friday, November 1, 2019

A Bonaparte Wedding

Countess Olympia von und zu Arco-Zinnerberg with her father, Count Riprand von und zu Arco-Zinneberg

Princess Béatrice de Bourbon Siciles with her son, the groom, Jean-Christophe Napoleon Bonaparte

On October 19, an heir of the Bonaparte family was married to a descendant of the last Austrian Emperor at Les Invalides in Paris, with plenty of Habsburgs and Bourbons in attendance. In fact, the groom's mother is a Bourbon princess. From The Daily Mail:

The former Imperial House of France and the House of Hapsburg have united once again as Napoleon Bonaparte's heir has married the great-great-great niece of the French Emperor's wife today. London-based private equity manager Jean-Christophe Napoleon Bonaparte, 33, is the great-great-great nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte I, Emperor of France. He has wed Countess Olympia von und zu Arco-Zinnerberg, 31, the great-granddaughter of Karl I, in a lavish ceremony in Paris attended by Princess Beatrice and her fiancé property tycoon Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi. The newlyweds are distantly related as Countess Olympia is the great-great-great niece of Napoleon's wife, Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria. Napoleon's marriage to Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria in 1810, which was designed to secure an ally in his war against Britain and Russia and bring conflict between the two countries to a halt. However, today's pair have previously said that their wedding is a love match, and not designed to further any political ambitions. (Read more.)