Tea at Trianon: Young Louis XIV Meets His Aunt, Queen Henrietta Maria

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

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Young Louis XIV Meets His Aunt, Queen Henrietta Maria

A painting by the Belgian artist Henri Decaisne (1799–1852) depicting the meeting of the exiled Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, with her nephews Louis XIV and Philippe in 1644. From Wikipedia:

Gaston de France, Duke of Orléans presents his sister...Queen Henrietta Maria of England to Anne of Austria, regent of France for Louis XIV. The infant Louis XIV in peach stands in front of his mother and next to his brother Philippe de France, Duke of Anjou. Queen Henrietta Maria stands between Gaston and his daughter la Grand Mademoiselle. Cardinal Mazarin is behind Queen Anne.

Henrietta Maria had to seek exile in France since Parliament impeached her and was trying to take her prisoner. Plus she was pregnant and, after giving birth in Exeter in June 1644, she had to escape to France, leaving her husband and five children behind. She planned to raise more money and arms but was never able to return. Her husband Charles I and her daughter the Princess Elizabeth she never saw again.