Tea at Trianon: A Gloucestershire Farmhouse

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, January 2, 2025

A Gloucestershire Farmhouse

From House and Garden:

Phoebe and Luke moved in over a whirlwind two days, thanks to the family’s unpacking practice. ‘Every time any of us move, everyone in the family, including our cousins, descends to help. We each have different responsibilities – my father hangs the pictures, Octavia styles every room and our mothers unpack the kitchen. The bonus is that we all know where to find everything in each other’s homes,’ says Phoebe. The house itself aided their speedy settling in. ‘It barely needed anything doing to it because Adrian and Lucretia had looked after it so well,’ says Phoebe. Gradually, however, with Octavia’s help, changes are being implemented. A sofa is reupholstered, a room repainted, a carpet replaced – and insulating the whole house is firmly near the top of the list. ‘The pipes tend to freeze rather too often,’ observes Luke wryly. (Read more.)