Tea at Trianon: A Flâneur’s Guide to Paris: Chopin and Père Lachaise

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, October 27, 2023

A Flâneur’s Guide to Paris: Chopin and Père Lachaise

From France Today:

Plots are so scarce here that the lucky few who can secure a future in the hallowed ground need to take out a lease, at the end of which the remains are moved on (a bit like certain annoying restaurants where lingering clients are asked unceremoniously to give up their table to make way for the next, potentially more interesting, punter). They say there are no pockets in a shroud but deep pockets at Père Lachaise will see customers secure 10, 30 or 50 years of relative peace and quiet.
But think about what edifying company you will keep! Jean de la Fontaine, Molière, Honoré de Balzac, Frédéric Chopin, Heloïse & Abelard, Sarah Bernhardt, Georges Bizet, Oscar Wilde, Isadora Duncan, Marcel Proust, Colette, Max Ophuls, Edith Piaf and more. The cemetery was originally known as the Cimetière de l’Est and was the first major burial ground located inside the city walls (intra muros); it was subsequently renamed after François d’Aix de la Chaise 1624-1709 (padre to Louis XIV, aka Le Roi Soleil) who lived at a parish house on the site. (Read more.)