Tea at Trianon: The Case For Pretty Plates

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, September 27, 2025

The Case For Pretty Plates

From Of Home and Womanhood:

Femininity, at its core, resists this. The feminine impulse decorates, softens, adorns. Women used to carry this instinct into their homes, lace curtains, embroidered linens, china cabinets filled with delicate dishes that spoke of continuity and care. These were not frivolities; they were signatures of a world where beauty was treated as essential to life, where the feminine qualities were expected in a home.
Now, we’re told to save space. To declutter. To strip away. To keep the walls bare, the counters empty, the cabinets minimal. But a sterile home makes sterile souls. When everything is cold, the family forgets warmth.
The table is where this can be reclaimed. To set with real plates, glasses, napkins, is to bring femininity back into the center of the home. It is a reminder that we are not just bodies to be fueled but souls to be nurtured. A plate can hold food, yes, but it also holds memory, beauty, and meaning. It’s where the family can truly sit and grow.
And this is not nostalgia for “fancier times.” It is a recognition that beauty is tied to transcendence. To eat on something beautiful is to be reminded, if only faintly, of the banquet that awaits us in eternity. This is why Christianity gave the table such reverence: because it knows that the way we eat says something about what we believe life is for. (Read more.)