Tea at Trianon: The Royal Dairy at Rambouillet

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

Monday, August 2, 2021

The Royal Dairy at Rambouillet

Like Marie-Antoinette's farm at Trianon, experiments in agriculture were a big part of the project. From Apollo:

The temporary return of porcelain and furniture to the dairy is the centrepiece of an exhibition (until 9 August) that has also inspired an essay collection edited by Gabriel Wick and Renaud Serrette. Vivre à l’antique is a series of sumptuously illustrated short essays by leading scholars that provide different contexts for understanding the laiterie de la reine. These range from the intellectual and ideological to the technical and the economic: Comte d’Angiviller, prime mover behind transforming the site, was determined to modernise the production of Sèvres and was deeply influenced by the Physiocrats’ teaching that agriculture was the foundation of public prosperity and happiness. Beyond its dairy, the estate at Rambouillet was a laboratory of experimental agronomy, with flocks of merino sheep, and botanical specimens sourced from around the globe thanks to the travels of André Michaux. (Read more.)