Tea at Trianon: Hotel De Crillon and “Les Grands Appartements” by Karl Lagerfeld

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, January 10, 2021

Hotel De Crillon and “Les Grands Appartements” by Karl Lagerfeld

From Forbes:

Commissioned by Louis XV in 1758 and built by his favorite architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel, the property was occupied -around 1820- by the family of Duc de Crillon. In 1909, it became a hotel. For 250 years, the Hotel de Crillon has been the witness of the tumultuous and rich history from the French Revolution and the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to the coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte and the scenes of final war combats for the Liberation of Paris in 1944. Hotel de Crillon has always owned a strong reputation for its exquisite hospitality and its great success with royal families, heads of states and celebrities. So many artists have written their names in the hotel’s guestbook. (Read more.)