Tea at Trianon: Then Again: The Memoir of Jeffrey Brace

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

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Then Again: The Memoir of Jeffrey Brace

From VT Digger:

We only know his story because of the extraordinary memoir he left behind. Memoirs of enslaved people are not uncommon, but one this long and detailed, or which include memories of Africa, is extremely rare. Titled “The Blind African Slave: Or the Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nick-Named Jeffrey Brace,” his memoir was published in 1810, at which point Brace was about 68 years old and had recently lost his eyesight.
The book was a collaboration with a 22-year-old lawyer in St. Albans named Benjamin Prentiss, who met Brace and was struck by his life story. Prentiss interviewed Brace and turned the man’s recollections into a narrative. The purpose of Prentiss’ publication was purely political, as he explained in his introduction: “This simple narrative of an individual African cannot possibly compass all the objections to slavery; yet we hope that the extraordinary features and simplicity of the facts, with the novelty of this publication, will induce many to read and learn the abuses of their fellow beings.”
Although some of the events described in the book had occurred more than a half century earlier, Brace remembered them in great detail. His contemporaries commended Brace for his honesty and his prodigious memory. “Jeffrey Brace(’s) reputation for truth & veracity stands unimpeached & will gain Credit where ever he is known,” wrote the judge who certified his Revolutionary War pension application. The Northern Spectator newspaper commented in his obituary that “his mental powers appear to be hardly impaired. The powers of his memory are frequently tested by repeating whole chapters of the scripture nearly verbatim.” (Read more.)