Tea at Trianon: Playful Mood

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

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Playful Mood

A selection of restaurants and bars with colored interiors from G&G Magazine:

With its large windows the restaurant is on three floors, strongly characterized by a design that puts the ground floor and the first floor in close connection: the white of the walls and objects is interrupted and tied by the insertion of a blue wallpaper framed by American walnut profiles. Furniture concur to create a warm and relaxing atmosphere: the custom‐designed lights made from chromed cylindrical profiles, the tables, made with different colored laminates and the Alivar chairs in Alcantara, evoke the elegant design of the 70's. Particular attention has been paid to the fabrics of the sofas and chairs. The sea‐blue velvet, the green of the dry herringbone cotton and the hazelnut‐colored alcantara cover the seats of the three levels and, alternating, they warm up the atmosphere of the room. (Read more.)