Tea at Trianon: A Room of Her Own

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, April 26, 2024

A Room of Her Own

The Tuileries, which was the part of the Louvre where Marie-Antoinette lived, was destroyed in the 1870's. From Euronews:

France’s Louvre could move the Mona Lisa to her own basement room. Here’s why. She’s the world’s most famous and most visited work of art, with up to ten million admirers per year. Her enigmatic smile has been idolised by art lovers, and even targeted by thieves, soup-loving protesters, and even a man disguised as an elderly woman in a wheelchair who threw cake in her face. But now, a new project may prove the last queen of France Marie Antoinette right, as she found her “too small, too dark.”

Leonardo da Vinci’s painting "Mona Lisa" is about to be moved, in order to give La Gioconda more space. And appease visitors. Indeed, with Louvre visitors getting an average of 50 seconds to admire the "Mona Lisa", which is displayed behind a barrier and bullet-proof glass in the centre of the Salle des Etats (glass installed in the 1950s to protect it after an acid attack), many have dubbed it the world's most disappointing masterpiece. Understandable really, as the huge crowds and limited space in the gallery means it’s difficult to see Mona Lisa. (Read more.)