Tea at Trianon: Catherine de Medici: Her Life and Patronage

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

Thursday, September 15, 2022

Catherine de Medici: Her Life and Patronage

Portrait of a young Catherine de Medici by Claude Corneille de Lyon, c. 1536

Catherine de Medici with the Head of Coligny by Joseph Hornung, early 19th century, via Victoria & Albert Museum, London

From The Collector:

Henry II died in a tragic jousting accident in 1559. His untimely death thrust Catherine directly into the political spotlight, a position she had previously been denied by her late husband. Scheming was surely in Catherine de Medici’s genes. The marriage between her parents, and that between her and Francis, were part of the wider plot by the Medici family to extend their control beyond Florence. It would not take Catherine long to continue this legacy.
Indeed, she is now known for defining the reigns of her children, pulling strings from the sidelines. Her eldest son, Francis II, inherited the throne immediately after Henry II’s death. During the reign of Francis II, Catherine acted as a moderate foil to her daughter-in-law’s family, the Guises, who wanted to establish themselves as a political force. The Guises were viciously anti-Protestant, a fire which was further stoked by the failed plot by the Huguenots to gain power through abducting the king. Catherine tried to appease both sides through clemency towards the Protestants. This kind of lenience was destined not to last. (Read more.)

My review of Gortner's novel The Confessions of Catherine de Medici, HERE.