Tea at Trianon: Madame Récamier: Some Interesting Facts

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, July 1, 2020

Madame Récamier: Some Interesting Facts

From Geri Walton:

Socialite Madame Récamier became inextricably intertwined with François-René de Chateaubriand, a French writer and historian who founded Romanticism in French literature. She fell in love with him soon after her best friend, Madame de Staël, died. Juliette relationship with Chateaubriand seemed unusual as he was reported to have been a demanding, difficult, and self-centered windbag whereas most people thought of Juliette as being as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. Chateaubriand, who called her Leonie, became smitten and once mentioned how he thought of her:

Leonie is tall, her figure is charming. Leonie is beautiful. What makes her face so rarely beautiful is the oval line which one sees in Raphael’s women alone. It expresses the sweetness, the delicacy and the kindness. The soul and character of Leonie are noticeable for the same qualities of beauty. But the special feature about her personality is a piquant spirit and a romantic imagination, in contrast with her natural tranquil manner. At times her words are impassioned, while her face is timid and naïve. One finds there a mixture of the virgin and the muse. One falls with love at her feet, and she holds you there, filled with respect.
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