Tea at Trianon: "Through Henriette’s Eyes"

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, May 2, 2022

"Through Henriette’s Eyes"

From Mark Spencer at The Historical Novel Society:

Charles Stuart, then Prince of Wales, first set eyes on Henriette in 1623. She was dancing at the Louvre, and he was passing through Paris on his way to Spain seeking, unsuccessfully, the hand of a Spanish Habsburg princess. My Queen, My Love tells their story primarily through Henriette’s eyes (captured hauntingly on the cover image, her portrait painted by Van Dyck). Through Henriette’s first encounters with Charles, their marriage, and earliest years as a royal couple, Vidal’s historically informed account captures their nuanced relationship, fraught with the difficulties posed by Henriette’s deep-seated Catholicism playing out in Protestant England.

Other themes—like the period’s reverence for astrology—remind us of how foreign the seventeenth century can seem to modern manners. Vidal may be at her best, though, when recreating specific historical events or when weaving her narrative with its myriad of historical actors—a “List of Characters” helps readers tally more than eighty of them. Take George Villiers, the strikingly handsome and always scheming, Duke of Buckingham. Charles’ lifelong best friend, “Steenie” is a merciless thorn in Henriette’s side. Still, some will hope Vidal’s Henriette and Charles are more richly developed in coming volumes. The action is sure to peak as the English Civil War threatens. For those interested in learning more about the period’s people and events, Vidal’s useful bibliography—spanning nonfiction and fiction—provides leads to the works of several prominent historians. (Read more.)