Tea at Trianon: Benjamin Franklin: His Private Life

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

Monday, November 11, 2024

Benjamin Franklin: His Private Life

From The Collector:

Meanwhile, the governor of Pennsylvania, Sir William Keith, had convinced Franklin to go to London to acquire equipment to start a newspaper. Franklin took up Keith’s offer, but while in London, it became apparent to Franklin that Keith’s promises were false.

Before he left, Deborah and Benjamin “interchang’d some Promises,” as Benjamin later wrote of the events before he set off. With Keith’s promises proving to be lies, Benjamin found himself compelled to spend longer than anticipated in London. He sent Deborah a letter stating that he would be in London indefinitely.

After several months, Benjamin returned to Philadelphia and found that Deborah had been heartbroken by his absence. Believing that she may never see him again, she entered into a relationship with a potter (or a carpenter, depending on the source) named John Rogers, whom she later married. Franklin would later write of the event, describing it as a “great Erratum” for which he felt a certain responsibility and guilt. (Read more.)