Tea at Trianon: Cecilie Of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Crown Princess of Prussia

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, October 3, 2022

Cecilie Of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Crown Princess of Prussia

From Esoteric Curiosa:

Duchess Cecilie Of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was born September 20, 1886, the youngest daughter and child of Grand Duke Friederich Francis III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and of his wife Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia. Although born at the family Schloss of Schwerin, Duchess Cecilie spent little of her youth at her home on the Baltic Sea. Her father, being a confirmed invalid was obliged to live in the south. Taking up abode at Cannes on the French Riviera, where he built the famous Villa Wenden. Cecilie's grand ducal parents were an ill suited couple at best and stormy scenes between the two were frequent. Grand Duchess Anastasia, born a Russian Grand Duchess, having inherited many of her despotic and eccentricies of her Romanov ancestors, was quite a bit for her husband to handle and dominated his softer nature.
In 1897 even the most hardened habitues of the Riviera were shocked by the tragic and sudden death of Cecilie's father, who in a moment of despondency supposedly threw himself off the wall from Villa Wenden. At the time of her engagement to Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany, Cecilie was described "as a vivacious little blonde, with Dresden China figure, brown eyed and of healthy complexion, with a sunny disposition; she was an excellent liguist and fond of sport. but not the least horsy!" Duchess Cecilie married William on 6 June 1905 in Berlin. Once she was married she was styled Her Imperial and Royal Highness The German Crown Princess and was also Crown Princess of Prussia. Her husband died in 1951, making her Dowager Princess. Cecilie died on 6 May 1954 of a stroke and had been ill for some time leading up to this. She and her husband are buried in the grounds of Hohenzollern Castle. (Read more.)