Tea at Trianon: Font of Splendor

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, June 12, 2021

Font of Splendor

From Victoria:

Described by Napoleon Bonaparte as “the true residence of kings,” Château de Fontainebleau was occupied and shaped by esteemed magnates for nearly eight centuries. In its earliest form, the property was a hunting estate, a haven where rulers would retreat to enjoy the forest’s abundant wildlife. As early as 1137, Louis VII and his successors took reprieve here, establishing their own additions to the grounds.
What some would call the palace’s “second birth” came at the hands of Francis I, who commissioned a near total transformation of the medieval fortress into a Renaissance-style palace, leaving only the foundation and a single tower from its previous iteration. Subsequent rulers made notable expansions, designing great new wings, courtyards, and gardens to both house and entertain their courts. The castle’s rooms, of which there are 1,500, were masterfully refurnished in the ornate fashion coveted by occupants such as Catherine de Medici and Marie Antoinette, while walls and ceilings were adorned with the frescoes and stucco that helped form an important period in France’s art history. (Read more.)