Tea at Trianon: The Wedding of Archduke Alexander of Austria and Countess Natacha Roumiantzoff-Pachkevitch

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

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

The Wedding of Archduke Alexander of Austria and Countess Natacha Roumiantzoff-Pachkevitch

I was once presented to Archduke Imre, the brother of the groom. From Tatler:

It was a major event in the European royal calendar this weekend, as Archduke Alexander of Austria and Countess Natacha Roumiantzoff- Pachkevitch were wed at Eglise Saint Pierre in Belgium.
The bride, Countess Natacha, claims to descend from Russian nobility, while the Archduke is the son of Archduke Carl-Christian and Archduchess Marie Astrid of Austria. He is the great-grandson of Charles I, the last Habsburg emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. He also hails, through his grandmother Archduchess Yolande of Austria, from one of the oldest noble families in Belgium, the Princess of Ligne. His esteemed grandmother died just a few weeks before the wedding, on 13 September, aged 100.

Arriving on Saturday at Eglise Saint Pierre, a red brick neo-gothic Catholic church, in the Belœil region of Belgium, the guests were an understandably sizable display of European royalty and aristocracy. Those in attendance included Queen Mathilde of Belgium, Crown Grand Duke Guillaume of Luxembourg and Crown Grand Duchess Stephanie of Luxembourg, Prince Felix of Luxembourg and Princess Marie-Gabrielle of Nassau, Prince Amaury of Bourbon-Parma and Princess Pelagie of Bourbon-Parma, Prince Jean of Luxembourg and his wife Countess Diane de Nassau, Archduchess Priscilla of Habsburg-Lorraine and Gabrielle des Comtreras, Michel of Ligne and his wife, Princess Eleonora of Ligne and Prince Joachim of Belgium. (Read more.)

Lots of photos, HERE.