Tea at Trianon: Farm Servants and the Hiring Fairs

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

Thursday, February 24, 2022

Farm Servants and the Hiring Fairs

From History Scotland:

Many of us have ancestors who were farm servants, ploughmen, and dairymaids and although it may be difficult to find out about the individuals themselves, we can discover more about how they were hired at the feeing or hiring markets. In October 18621, for instance, an autumn feeing market at a village twelve miles from Edinburgh – “an old weather worn place that has seen better days” featured sweetie stands, itinerant theatres and peep shows, but basically it was a place where farm servants - men and women - came into the streets to sell themselves to the highest bidders. Such a curious and sad sight was reminiscent of the American slave markets, although the servants here presented themselves with smiling faces and a general air of bravado in order to be employed. (Read more.)