Tea at Trianon: Le Privilège du blanc, 2025

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, May 20, 2025

Le Privilège du blanc, 2025

Prince and Princess of Monaco

King and Queen of Belgium

King and Queen of Spain

The Privilège du blanc is the privilege granted to Catholic Queens, Princesses of the House of Savoy, the Princess of Monaco and the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg to wear white in the presence of the Sovereign Pontiff. Women ordinarily wear black, including a black mantilla, when having an audience with the Pope, according to the long-standing Vatican dress code. From The Royal Watcher:

The Queens of Spain and Belgium, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, and the Princess of Monaco exercised their ‘Privilège du Blanc’ at the Inauguration Mass of Pope Leo XIV yesterday, the special Papal Privilege which allows certain Catholic Queens and Consorts to wear white in the presence of the Pope at the Vatican. Traditionally, protocol for papal audiences required that women wear long black gowns with a black mantilla, with the colour signifying virtues of piety and humility. However, certain Catholic Queens and Consorts have traditionally been exempted from wearing black garments and are instead allowed the special Privilège du Blanc, to wear white in the presence of the Pope, which remains in affect despite papal protocol having changed over the years. (Read more.)