Tea at Trianon: Franz Joseph Washing the Feet of the Poor

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

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Franz Joseph Washing the Feet of the Poor

In accord with the ancient custom.

In 1850, Franz Joseph participated for the first time as emperor in the second of the traditional Habsburg expressions of dynastic piety: the Holy Thursday foot-washing ceremony, part of the four-day court observance of Easter. The master of the staff and the court prelates chose twelve poor elderly men, transported them to the Hofburg, and positioned them in the ceremonial hall on a raised dais. There, before an invited audience observing the scene from tribunes, the emperor served the men a symbolic meal and archdukes cleared the dishes. As a priest read aloud in Latin the words of the New Testament (John 3:15), “And he began to wash the feet of the disciples,” Franz Joseph knelt and, without rising from his knees, washed the feet of the twelve old men in imitation of Christ. Finally, the emperor placed a bag of twenty silver coins around the necks of each before the men were led away and returned to their homes in imperial coaches.(Read more.)

crazylikeknoxes said...: I recently read an eyewitness account of this ceremony reported in a book I am reading, Blessed Charles of Austria by Charles Coulombe, pp. 64-67: “At half-past ten the clergy entered the room, followed by the twelve oldest poor men of Vienna (for whom the service is performed), dressed in old German costume,–black, with white cape collars and knee-breeches. Many of the aged men were quite feeble, and were assisted to their chairs by their relatives, who stood behind them during the service. *** The dishes were all placed upon the table by the Emperor himself, but no sooner had he done this than, with the assistance of his brother and the archdukes, he replaced them upon trays held by the thirteen guards, who removed them. It seemed a little hard on the old men to see the tempting viands so quickly taken away, but we learned later that each one received at his home the food and dishes as well, which were made for this occasion, as it had been found that the dinner was much more enjoyed in this way than before such a grand assemblage. *** It is not uncommon later to find these royal gifts in an antiquarian’s shop,–the original recipients frequently desiring the florins they will bring more than the distinction of possessing the gifts themselves.”; April 6, 2023 at 11:51:00 PM EDT