Tea at Trianon: The American Revolution and the Habsburg Monarchy

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, April 18, 2022

The American Revolution and the Habsburg Monarchy

From Current:

Jonathan Singerton is Lecturer of Global and Comparative Histories of Central Europe at the University of Innsbruck. This interview is based on his new book, The American Revolution and the Habsburg Monarchy (University of Virginia Press, 2022).

JF: What led you to write The American Revolution and the Habsburg Monarchy?

JS: The past is often most interesting when viewed differently or from an unfamiliar perspective. How did the American Revolution appear to contemporaries living under one of Europe’s oldest dynasties? This question became an obsession as I lived in Vienna many years ago and wandered its famous streets and perused its various coffee houses. The quest to find out prompted me to write a history of the American founding from a central European perspective and happily led me down a meandering path filled with characters more unforgettable than any of Vienna’s charming cobbled streets. (Read more.)