Tea at Trianon: Airelles Château de Versailles, Le Grand Contrôle

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, June 20, 2021

Airelles Château de Versailles, Le Grand Contrôle

From Afar:

The luxury hotel project is a long time coming, with reports of a planned hotel at Versailles dating as far back as 2011. In 2015, the Château de Versailles put out a call for bids to take on the renovation of three 17th- and 18th-century buildings adjacent to the palace, as well as several other structures on the grounds, and convert them into a luxury hotel. Airelles ultimately won that bid.

Versailles is considered by many to be one of France’s crowning achievements of art, design, and architecture. The 680,000-square-foot palace located on the outskirts of Paris consists of 2,300 rooms and houses many important collections of paintings and sculptures. Its most famous room is the Hall of Mirrors, a gilded gallery that documents France’s 17th-century political victories through 30 paintings on the vaulted ceiling. The massive and immaculate palace gardens are as much a draw as Versailles’s over-the-top interiors. (Read more.)