Tea at Trianon: Records from the 17th Century

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

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Records from the 17th Century

In 1662 there was a tax on hearths in Britain. From the BBC:

To ensure households did not lie about the number of hearths, people were paid to monitor their neighbours' records, and Dr Andrew Wareham, from the University of Roehampton which has been running the national project, said "the level of intrusiveness was something which would never be achieved again".
Dr Andrew added: "It gives you an insight into what is happening at street level in the 17th Century. Several counties across the UK have had records put up online as part of the university's digitisation project, with Wiltshire's records dating back the furthest.
Dr Wareham said: "What was slightly weird about the 17th Century was that it was your local neighbours who did the tax collection as a kind of part-time job almost."
They were told to collect a lot of information as well about their neighbour's everyday lives.
Dr Wareham described the records as "remarkable".
"It's a unique short period where the state captures this incredible amount of information about every household," he added. (Read more.)