Tea at Trianon: A New Biography of One of the First Feminists

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, January 28, 2021

A New Biography of One of the First Feminists

It is always intriguing to read what contemporaries of the French Revolution thought about it. Mary Wollstonecraft, called the "Mother of Feminism," saw the Revolution as the dawn of a glorious new era, as she describes in an excerpt from her book An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution; and the Effect it Has Produced in Europe. When the book was published in 1795, thousands of people had already been killed; the genocide in the Vendée, including the torture, rape and murder of women and children, was at its height. From Tatler:

It is often all too easy to forget that significant historical figures - those at the forefront of new ways of thinking, whether that be Marxism or feminism - were individuals with likes, loves and lives of their own. Such is the case for the so-called 'mother of feminism', Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), who history often mischaracterises as an overly serious moralist. It is this misconception that the Countess of St Andrews, Sylvana Tomaselli's new book brilliantly debunks, instead showing the pioneering womens' rights activist to have been a warm mother-of-two with a love of life.

Wollstonecraft: Philosophy, Passion and Politics reveals more of her inner life away from her politics, from her love of the theatre, to her enjoyment of nature, in particular her walks by the Thames or in Henley. It also delves deep into her personal history, from the effect that witnessing the dethroned King Louis XVI of France en route to his execution via the guillotine had on her, to her lover Gilbert Imlay abandoning her and their daughter Fanny, which led to a suicide attempt. Her deep love for her daughter is also explored, leaving no doubt that she would have been an excellent mother, had she lived longer. It was after the birth of her second daughter, the future novelist Mary Shelley, that Wollstonecraft tragically died aged just 38, having achieved so much but with so much more left to achieve, too, as Tomaselli argues. (Read more.)

Other blog posts about Mary and her daughter Mary, HERE, HERE, and HERE.