Tea at Trianon: What Marie-Antoinette Thought of Bastille Day

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

Sunday, July 14, 2024

What Marie-Antoinette Thought of Bastille Day

Marie-Antoinette by an unknown artist

Listen to my talk on Tea at Trianon Radio, HERE.

The French Revolution was not a good thing. It must also be pointed out that Louis XVI had made many reforms and the situation was improving. From The Daily Signal:

As revolutionaries concluded that their maximalist aims at leveling society could not be achieved through the slow process of deliberation, compromise, and genuine tolerance, they began destroying art, statues, and property—both public and private—in the iconoclastic desire to repudiate the social mores of their country’s past. The radicals did this as they turned to outright killing of their enemies of the present. Mass purges of art and symbols of religion turned to mass executions of the enemies of the revolution.

Tens of thousands were killed and executed throughout France as the revolution consumed itself. Even Maximilien Robespierre, dubbed “the incorruptible,” who led the Reign of Terror, saw its conclusion when he and a group of his Jacobin supporters went to the guillotine. Jefferson and many other American observers who initially supported the revolution eventually turned away in disgust.

As with most of history’s revolutions, the French version simply went full circle. One tyrannical regime was replaced by another one, one in many ways more ruthless and absolutist than the last. From the maelstrom of this anarchy and ruthless self-destruction came forth a dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte restored order in France, but brought the revolution to a close after tearing a violent swath across Europe, then meeting utter defeat at the hands of the Russian winter and final defeat at Waterloo.

Then, to cap it off, the hated monarchy was restored, barely a generation after the fateful storming of the Bastille. It’s noteworthy that the Constitution of the United States went into effect in 1789, the same year as the storming of the Bastille and launch of the French Revolution. (Read more.)