Tea at Trianon: Recapturing Character

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, May 14, 2022

Recapturing Character

From Victoria:

The homeowner’s passion for anything with a story to tell is shared by her elder daughter, Kate, who runs an antiques business. Ann rarely goes shopping with specific items in mind. She would rather spend hours browsing until she finds something that really appeals to her, whether it’s a miniature poetry book with a tiny inscription inside the cover, a piece of tapestry, or a plump eiderdown cushion. Ann says she is happy to mix old with new and is not a purist—she just buys what she likes. “I get a lot of pleasure out of discovering things that have provenance and history—objects that have been handled and treasured by someone who perhaps lived more than a hundred years ago,” she says. “In a way, it brings life full circle.” (Read more.)