Tea at Trianon: Toad Hall in Buckinghamshire

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, March 8, 2024

Toad Hall in Buckinghamshire

From House and Garden:

In a house with such a rich history, there’s a sense of fun that must be maintained–and entering the front door it feels as though Mole or Ratty might pop out at any moment. Indeed animal motifs are a constant throughout the house. Monkeys climb the kitchen walls on a Jennifer Shorto wallpaper. A Scarlet Ibis greets guests at the top of the stairs. Fish swim across the bathroom. Toad himself leaps into the frame of the stained glass front door.
There’s a sense of magic everywhere here–rooms that were destined to be relatively neutral spaces have ended up as almost den-like dwellings. Downstairs, the kitchen was supposed to be left untouched until the team became dissatisfied by its neutral presence in such a colour-packed house. A lick of Farrow & Ball's 'Cooks' Blue' on the existing cabinets revived the space almost immediately. Treading the staircase up to the second floor, a similar story unfolds in one of the bedrooms. 'We thought long and hard about it. We put up some orange stripe curtains and did a fun headboard...but last minute we decided to fabric the ceiling. It ended up being one of the hardest jobs the fabric waller had ever done!’ Difficult to construct perhaps, but the effect is well worth the trial.
Yet it's not just the house's past that the decoration reveres, but its present too. A house needs to feel like a home, not just a space packed full of literary allusion. As such, every room with a river view offers a space to sit and admire it from. Most spectacularly of all, built-in seating was added to the primary bedroom to provide a perch from which one can watch the world go by. It is the perfect frame for that magnificent vista, the blues of which are reflected in the wallpaper. (Read more.)