Tea at Trianon: The Gift of the Château de Rambouillet

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 19, 2024

The Gift of the Château de Rambouillet

Neither the dairy at Rambouillet nor the one at Trianon were for "playing milkmaid." Both Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette embraced the practical view of generating food, income, and employment by having dairies, as well as giving an example to other nobles of investing in agriculture. From France Today:

Back to Louis XVI and his desperation to bring Marie-Antoinette to the castle he loved so much. Along with an experimental farm, which he populated with merino sheep imported from Spain, and a nursery garden, in which he had exotic species planted following botanic exploration trips abroad, he wooed Marie-Antoinette with a rather astonishing gift.

He ordered the construction of an ornamental creamery, which was designed for the sole purpose of tasting and enjoying dairy products, a fashionable hobby at the end of the 18th century. The king commissioned the best artists of the time: painter Hubert Robert and sculptor Pierre Julien, who crafted the building to resemble a Greek temple. A small zoo was also built just outside the creamery. The project was completed by 1787 and the king planned a spectacular unveiling for the queen who, despite the monumental grotto, finely sculpted detailing, mahogany furniture and finest porcelain set…still preferred Versailles’ Trianon palace! (Read more.)