Tea at Trianon: Jelgava Palace

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

Saturday, January 16, 2021

Jelgava Palace

Marie-Thérèse de France

From Atlas Obscura:

Constructed on the site of a medieval Livonian fortification, the property was acquired by the Duchy of Courland after the disbandment of the crusading order. Anna Ivanovna, of the ruling Romanov dynasty in Russia, lived in the old castle during her tenure as the Regent of Courland. This lasted until her accession to the Imperial Russian throne in 1730.

It was Duke Ernst Johann von Biron who commissioned the new palace in Jelgava to be built in place of the old castle. It was completed in two stages, reflecting the rise and fall in his fortunes. In the late 18th-century, the duchy was annexed by the Russian Empire and the palace in Jelgava came into the possession of its tsars.

Fleeing from the terror and bloodshed unleashed during the French Revolution, the future Louis XVIII, was given sanctuary at the palace at Jelgava. Here, he set up a court in exile, following as closely as possible the courtly rituals of Versailles. It was in this palace that Marie Therese, the only surviving offspring of the hapless Louis XVI and his consort Marie Antoinette, celebrated her nuptials. (Read more.)