Tea at Trianon: Stolen Treasures

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

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Stolen Treasures

From The Royal Observer:

Among the stolen treasures were two historically significant snuffboxes linked to the King's immediate ancestors. One, gifted to his great-grandfather, King George V, on his 55th birthday in 1920, was described as a "gold and lapis lazuli snuff box" with a stunning onyx cameo depicting the Birth of Venus.
The Royal Collection Trust highlights its intricate details, stating, "In the center, the goddess stands on a dolphin and holds a length of billowing drapery."
The second snuffbox, purchased by his wife, and the current King's great-grandmother, Queen Mary, in 1932, for 1,000 pounds (approximately $75,000 dollars today), is an opulent bloodstone piece encrusted with nearly 3,000 diamonds. The Royal Collection Trust describes it as "one of the finest of the series of boxes made in the Fabrique Royale in Berlin and associated with Frederick II ('the Great') of Prussia." (Read more.)