Tea at Trianon: A Cottage in Maine

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

Thursday, June 6, 2024

A Cottage in Maine

From House and Garden:

That intrepid spirit was likely inherited. Jim and Maudie have never shrunk from the daunting task of preserving the Big House. “It has really shaped our lives. It was like joining the nunnery of Maine,” says Jim, who was practicing law at the time. There was its jacking up: Jim armed with only belted khakis, pencils, a ladder, and a team of cousins to buttress the sagging house. There was the re-shingling, with family enlisted to dip the cedar planks into paint before fastening them to the exterior. Maudie took care of the interior: stitching slip-covers and curtains, replacing mattresses, painting floors.

The couple’s commitment to the Big House shows up inside and out, but for Elizabeth, it is the aural memories that have kept it alive for her. It is impossible to step onto the sun-set porch and not hear ice clinking in glasses, a cheese knife rattling on china, and the snap of Ritz crackers. “To me, the Big House has always been the crucible of my father’s dreams—of family legacy, of public leadership, and of loving will. But it was my mother’s valor and strength—over countless years of renovation and renewal—that has made this dream truly habitable for the rest of us.”

This is an extract from The Maine House by Maura McEvoy and Basha Burwell, text by Kathleen Hackett. Published by Vendome Press. (Read more.)