Tea at Trianon: The History of the Handkerchief

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, February 28, 2022

The History of the Handkerchief

From The Guardian:

Thus at the very beginning the handkerchief became a distinguishing mark of good society, and smart young Greeks had to decide whether to wipe their brow with their handkerchief or merely with their draperies. As they carried two – one in the hand and one at the girdle, – it was probably the former which ministered to the Classic brow. The Romans, who were inclined to overdo things Greek, carried, not two, but, several handkerchiefs, for each of which they had a different name, thus adding to the difficulties of Latin primers from a very early date.

The handkerchief then bounds across the dark ages to sixteenth-century Italy, brought there perhaps earlier by the indefatigable Marco Polo, and becoming fashionable suddenly and arbitrarily with such zest as to make it the object of sumptuary laws. The “fazzoletto” was an important item in the Italian bridal chest, and the bride was known by the richness and extravagance of her handkerchiefs. Thence it spread to France, and last of all to England, where it was regarded as a wicked extravagance by the older generation. There was even an Irish question in pocket handkerchiefs. (Read more.)