Tea at Trianon: Madame Louise of France: the Princess Who Became a Nun

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

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Madame Louise of France: the Princess Who Became a Nun

From Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira:

Wishing to enter the convent, while attending the Countess of Rupelmonde’s reception of the habit at the Carmel, she decided to join that Order. She began to prepare herself for it by studying the rule of St. Teresa and slowly abstaining from the comfort that surrounded her. She would stay away from the heated area of the castle during periods of appalling cold.

She could not stand the smell of candles and only overcame this repugnance after years of effort. Finally, she obtained the consent of the king and on February 20, 1770, entered the Carmelites of Saint Denis. France admired her example, and Pope Clement XIV wrote the princess to express his happiness at seeing his pontificate marked by such a comforting event for religion.
Therefore, this event took place nineteen years before the French Revolution broke out.
In the convent, she fought hard for her companions to stop distinguishing her from the others. She also worked to overcome her difficulty in staying a long time on her knees, a grace she obtained after a novena to St. Louis Gonzaga. She received the habit on September 10, 1770, clad in the mantle of Saint Teresa, owned by the Carmelites of Paris, and took the name of Sister Therese of Saint Augustine.
What an honor to receive the habit clad in the mantle of Saint Teresa!
Later named mistress of novices, she excelled in that difficult work, manifesting constant joy in the midst of the difficulties she encountered. Later she was unanimously elected mother superior. When the Visitor General of the Carmelites brought the news to the king, he said that Sister Therese had only had one vote against her. ‘So,’ Louis XV replied, ‘was there a vote against her?’ ‘Yes, Sire,’ answered the prelate, ‘but it was her own vote.’
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