Tea at Trianon: The Real-Life Restoration of Villa Windsor

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, December 1, 2022

The Real-Life Restoration of Villa Windsor

The sitting room of Villa Windsor in the famous "Wallis blue"

I saw some of latest season of The Crown. It was okay but too unnerving to see people whose lives I have followed fictionalized in such a manner. But parts of it were interesting, especially the episode on the Al-Fayed family. From Architectural Digest:

The royal turmoil gets set aside for episode three’s depiction of Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed’s (Salim Daw) humble beginnings, before the father of Diana’s future boyfriend, Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), bought and renovated the Ritz Hotel in Paris (in 1979) and Harrods department store in London (in 1985). In the show’s telling, Al-Fayed sought entrée to British society—and the queen’s orbit in particular. He hired the Duke of Windsor’s former valet, Sydney Johnson (Connie M'Gadzah), for guidance and later renovated the Windsors’ mansion in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne.
The series suggests it was Al-Fayed’s idea to restore the once stately three-story limestone residence at 4 rue du Champ d’Entraînement after the former Duchess of Windsor Wallis Simpson died in 1986. (The ex-king died in 1972.) But it was Paris’s then mayor, Jacques Chirac, who suggested the businessman assume a tenancy with a nominal lease, similar to the Windsors’—in exchange for rehabbing the dilapidated 19th-century villa. Al-Fayed was not only receptive to the idea, but he also proposed keeping and refurbishing the furnishings and art objects—including a disintegrating banner from Edward VIII’s brief reign, the Chippendale mahogany table at which he signed his abdication letter, his ceremonial sword, and his polo trophies—which were all set to be auctioned off. (The 18th-century French furniture, bibelots, and china the couple bequeathed upon their deaths to French museums, including Versailles, were not included.)
Three years and $14.4 million later, Al-Fayed brought the mansion and surrounding two acres of gardens, originally conceived as a summer residence for the famed French urban planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann, back to their former glory. He called the private residence “Villa Windsor” and designated the first two floors a museum that he said would only be open to “historians, members of the British royal family, personalities, friends, and important guests of the Ritz.” The third floor’s remodeled seven rooms were reserved for his family.
The interiors of the residence that AD described as a blend of “old-fashioned pomp and postwar posh,” as if “Buckingham Palace met Versailles with a Café Society chaser” were designed for the Windsors by Stéphane Boudin of Maison Jansen, once the premier Parisian decorating firm. Accessed through a wrought-iron gate, the columned entry’s front door bore a bronze royal crest. (The Crown’s third season used West Wycombe Estate as a stand-in for the exterior; in the latest installment, Halton House plays the part.) (Read more.)