Tea at Trianon: V&A Exhibition About Marie-Antoinette

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, September 6, 2024

V&A Exhibition About Marie-Antoinette

They interviewed my friend Gareth. From British Vogue:

The drivers of the French Revolution, in particular, used Marie Antoinette as a pawn, caricaturing her as a figure of dubious morals. “Critics of the monarchy accused her of multiple affairs, paedophilia, espionage, even bestiality,” explains royal historian Gareth Russell, who is working on a book about the fall of the French monarchy. “They attempted to attack and undermine the monarchy by presenting the queen as a figure of pornographic excess,” a depiction proliferated via pamphlets shared on the streets of Paris.
In the years following the French Revolution, there was a collective need to defend its principles (and the violence they precipitated), particularly among left-wing thinkers and writers, meaning that the conception of Marie Antoinette as an out-of-touch monarch was only burnished after her beheading. “Those who wanted to justify the revolution in later decades needed to render understandable the execution of a widowed mother, which is what Marie Antoinette was,” explains Russell. “When you depict Marie Antoinette as saying ‘let them eat cake’, you render her completely unsympathetic.” In the 20th century, meanwhile, she’s become an emblem of the dangers of abject consumerism. “As you enter the 1900s, Marie Antoinette as an icon of materialism starts to serve another purpose, almost in the same way as the sinking of The Titanic did,” explains Russell. (Read more.)

From Tatler:

The exhibition will also explore Marie Antoinette's influence on popular culture and style. Her clothes have had a lasting impact on design and fashion and, in 2006, Sofia Coppola's famous homage starring Kirsten Dunst won an Oscar for costume design. To this day, more than 230 years after her execution, Marie Antoinette remains a regular figure on designers' mood boards for her love of pastels, ribbons and flowers. Past collections by Jean Paul Gaultier, Dior and Vivienne Westwood all owe more than a hint of their inspiration to the French fashion plate. (Read more.)