Tea at Trianon: A Moment for Duck-Egg Blue

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

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

A Moment for Duck-Egg Blue

From House and Garden:

In the restored fishing lodge of Jeanetta Rowan-Hamilton, the bathroom is painted a soft duck egg blue. 'Half La Seine' from Zoffany is a similar shade. It's a colour that suits bathrooms particularly well, as it can be an incredibly soothing colour....Elsewhere in the house, the scheme of a formal sitting room features a combination of soft, sugary tones with walls lined in a de Gournay silk in a delicate duck egg blue, and sofas upholstered in a Pierre Frey yellow linen and a pale blue Lelièvre velvet. The coral on the lampshades is a colour that pairs particularly well with duck egg blue. (Read more.)