Tea at Trianon: Details from the Queen's Private Apartments

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

Sunday, July 9, 2023

Details from the Queen's Private Apartments

From Architectural Digest:

As Queen of France, Marie Antoinette lived in the elaborately adorned Palace of Versailles. She married the future Louis XVI at age 14 and claimed the first floor apartment as her own—as well as the several private rooms located behind a secret door in her bedroom. She began decorating and furnishing the palace shortly after becoming queen in 1774. Known for her exquisite taste and an affinity for the finer things, she decked out the rooms with furnishings befitting her royal status. The queen’s private quarters are now open to the public after five years, following some renovations. Per a press release from Versailles, the project required several years of research and restoration to reawaken “the richness and coherence of an eminently feminine suite of rooms.”

The reopened spaces are where Marie Antoinette would play with her children and entertain friends in her free time. Some rooms follow a cohesive theme, such as the Méridienne Room and the Gold Room. In 1779, Marie Antoinette arranged for the walls in the space that would become her Gold Room covered with rich silk hangings embellished with flowers, arabesques, and gold medallions. In 1784, she added sculpted wood paneling inspired by her fascination with ancient Egypt. (Read more.)