Tea at Trianon: Duking It Out

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, April 13, 2021

Duking It Out

From Steyn Online:

At Buck House that night, we discussed the European Union. And all I can say, without betraying confidences, is that the events of the last year would not have dismayed those of us around the table that evening. Initially, I was unsure of how forcefully to disagree with His Highness, but The Hon Sir Angus Ogilvy, sitting next to me, kept goading me sotto voce: "Go on... He enjoys it."

He did. As Diana Mosley said to me many years ago of the Duchess of Windsor, he "always returned the ball". As a Canadian, I was somewhat distracted by the referendum Down Under, which I kept trying to slip into the conversation. But the Duke was inscrutable on that front - or perhaps, as I now think of it, quietly confident about victory. The Romanovs, the Habsburgs, the Hohenzollerns and his family's own throne in Greece were long gone, but the House of Windsor endures, thanks in part to his sharp stewardship. The young Queen was shy and unconfident; he was shrewd, witty, widely read, and stoic about the accumulated frustrations of a manly man stuck as permanent second banana.

Toward the end of that night, as he walked us to the door before my carriage turned back into a pumpkin, I made an offhand remark contrasting the 1901 Aussie constitution with the 1867 Canadian one, and the subject evidently engaged him, because he launched into a remarkably well informed disquisition on the differences between the two: The Australian states are sovereign entities in a way the Canadian provinces are not, etc.

There were a half-dozen or so of us at dinner that night - an earl, a viscount, a baron, a knight, plus a plain old mister (me). All are now gone: Sir Angus (Alexandra's hubby), Viscount Younger (former Defence Secretary), the Earl of Carnarvon (known to viewers of The Crown as "Porchy", the Queen's racing manager), Lord Blake (the great historian of the Tory Party), to whom I was presented by the Duke with the minimalist introduction: "Mr Steyn writes. Do you read?" Lord Blake averred that he did.

I'd assumed upon acceptance of my invitation that we guests would be there as unpaid jesters to amuse our Royal hosts. But, in fact, HRH was a quickwitted chap; we were hard put to keep up with him, and I would have to say he had the best lines of the night. (Read more.)