Tea at Trianon: A Little Slice of History

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

Friday, February 10, 2023

A Little Slice of History

From Architectural Digest:

“I don’t need to tell her anything, she knows what I need,” Michael says of his wife, an interior designer and set designer who outfitted their current pad around their extensive collection of art. It ranges in provenance from the Enlightenment to the 1930s, much of it unsigned and picked up in antique shops over nearly three decades. The space evokes a bygone age with clear Italian influences, not unlike the Sicilian palazzos in The White Lotus. “To me this apartment is a refuge from the world,” Michael says. “It’s representative of the past. This could easily be an apartment from the Jazz Age in New York around when it actually was built a hundred years ago.”

Back then, their building was a hotel, which means the kitchen is on the smaller side (relatable for many New Yorkers), but although Michael is an avid cook who once won the Chopped Tournament of Stars, he’s quite low-maintenance when it comes to that space. “I don’t like gadgets and things like that. I’ve had the same set of knives for 20-something years,” he says. For Victoria, the building’s past served as inspiration. She designed the space as if it were “a beautiful hotel suite,” she says, speaking particularly about the living room, which is done in rich tones of gray to allow the art to pop. “Now that we have no kids living with us, I just wanted something that’s sexy.” (Read more.)