Tea at Trianon: A 17th-Century French Manor in Normandy

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, February 20, 2024

A 17th-Century French Manor in Normandy

From Elle Decor:

Couturier calls it destiny that the perfect summer place for him—a 17th-century manor in Normandy, France, modest by the usual standards with just three bedrooms and a few surrounding acres—was in the same area as a former family home he knew as a child. “I only discovered after buying it that a house of my grandmother’s was a few miles away,” he says. It was an easy thing to miss—Couturier’s grandmother had inherited the building from her father, but with only one daughter and several other residences between her and her husband, it made little sense to keep it. Couturier was five when he last visited.
The newly acquired abode is the crowning achievement of a decades-long career. Originally owned by a family of Huguenots before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes forced them to relocate, it is undeniably grand and yet still surprisingly livable. “It was the first house I came across when I began my search,” Couturier says. “I looked at the picture and said, ‘Oh wow, this is manageable.’” The high-born family who built it in the 1640s followed the orderly style expected of aristocratic architecture of the time. Lofty public rooms comprise most of the main floor, with bedrooms above at a smaller scale. (Read more.)