Tea at Trianon: No Victim

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, December 17, 2022

No Victim

From Washington Examiner:

Even people who don't usually follow royal family drama look at Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry with at least a bit of disgust. Meghan, the former Meghan Markle, married into the royal family, existed on the sidelines for a while, and is now making a name for herself as a formerly active member of the family alongside her husband. If it were just that, it would hardly be notable. But Meghan and Harry not only reject the dutiful life of a royal but spend much time of their criticizing their family and continue to parlay their fame into financial deals and even more notoriety. It's all a bit tiresome considering their home base is in the United States.

From an outsider's perspective, Meghan comes across as an opportunistic social climber. She is a former actress whose greatest claim to fame before her courtship and marriage to Harry was her role in USA Network's show Suits. Meghan's self-importance is evident. Since stepping back from royal duties, she and her husband have played the victim card on many occasions. In fact, a new Netflix documentary titled Harry & Meghan appears to focus on just that. The real question is: What did Meghan expect as a member of the royal family? (Read more.)

From The Daily Mail:

According to Buckingham Palace, the first major porkie crops up just 20 seconds into the first episode. During the opening credits, Netflix introduces the documentary as ‘a first-hand account of Harry and Meghan’s story’ and declares that ‘members of the Royal Family declined to comment on the content within this series’. In contrast, a senior palace source said yesterday: ‘Neither Buckingham Palace nor Kensington Palace nor any member of the Royal Family were approached for comment on the content of the series. Nor will we be making any further comment on this nor any other aspect of it.’

A Netflix source later insisted the communications offices for the King and the Prince of Wales were contacted in advance and given the chance to react to Harry and Meghan’s ‘claims within the series’.

But Kensington Palace then responded by saying that they had an email from a third-party production company, not Harry and Meghan’s Archewell foundation or Netflix. The Prince of Wales’ aides then contacted the Sussexes and the streaming giant to verify if it was genuine, but got no reply. (Read more.)

From Express:

The couple claims that Meghan was not given any help when it came to learning the role of a royal, saying she was offered no advice on fashion, walkabouts or royal protocol. Meghan referenced the Disney film The Princess Diaries, which sees a shy, awkward teenager discover she is the heir to the throne of a European country and embarks on ‘Princess lessons’ with her grandmother — the reigning Queen. Unlike the film, Meghan claims she was left to figure out how to be a royal on her own, saying she had no instructions on how to dress, curtsy or adapt to her new life. She said: “Joining this family, I knew that there was a protocol for how things were done, and, do you remember that old movie [The] Princess Diaries with Anne Hathaway? There’s no class and some person who goes: ‘Sit like this, cross your legs like this, use this fork, don’t do this, curtsy then, wear this kind of hat’ — doesn’t happen . . . I never saw pictures or videos of a walkabout, [I was] like, what’s a walkabout?”

Harry added he “could talk her through as much as I knew, but the piece I really didn’t know about was the style, how a woman needed to dress”. He said the lack of support was “ridiculous”.

However, according to Ms Nikkah, a well-placed source claimed that it is “a total lie," adding: “There was prep for everything, walkabouts — even though she was engaged to someone who’d done hundreds of them — clothes, everything. The level of support was intense.”

It has also been revealed that six months before Harry and Meghan’s wedding in May 2018, the Prince’s then-private secretary, Ed Lane Fox, known affectionately as ‘Elf’, gave Meghan a 30-point dossier filled with information and contacts for the role she was taking on. It was “studiously researched” and “covered fashion, the Royal Family and the constitution, the institution’s heads of department, ladies-in-waiting, arts in the UK, the Charity Commission and public life, according to Ms Nikkah. Each section suggested an expert who could help the royal-to-be. (Read more.)

Also from The Daily Mail:

Worst of all, to my mind, is their utter lack of humor. They lack joy, perspective, an iota of self-deprecation. Prick them and they don't just bleed — they gush, they carp, they wail and moan and rend their garments on every media platform that will pay them millions. No one in history has ever been as wounded, as unfairly treated, as Harry and Meghan.
We've now spent six hours one-on-one with the Sussexes, and it's safe to say that neither has any discernible personality. Harry, of course, never needed to develop one — his wealth and fame, his coddled life, all but ensured that.
But Meghan — wow. For someone so sure that she's special, who tells us here she was so great at being an instant royal that the family bullied her out, was such a blinding light she couldn't even wear color for fear of upstaging her female in-laws — there's not one idiosyncratic thing about her. Not one.
She is, as they say, the definition of basic. She's a California girl into yoga, guided meditation, 'taking up space,' and meeting her future in-laws, second-in-line to the throne, wearing ripped jeans and bare feet. She's just that kind of unstudied, casual, madcap gal. (Read more.)