Tea at Trianon: Why Louis XIV Said ‘Non’ to Bernini

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

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Why Louis XIV Said ‘Non’ to Bernini

From ArtNet:

In 1664 the French King Louis XIV and the First Minister of State Jean-Baptiste Colbert announced that they were searching for an architect to redesign the Louvre Palace, which had long been the home of the French royal court. Redesigning the palace wasn’t unusual—nearly every French king had added their own flourish since the Middle Ages.

Bernini had been encouraged by the Pope to travel to Paris in early 1665, having been invited to submit Louvre designs by Colbert. He arrived in June, and was provided with his own personal tour guide and translator—paid for by his Royal hosts. During his stay, Bernini created an incredibly well-received bust of the Sun King. This should have been something of a good omen for their next collaboration. But the relationship would quickly turn sour.
Bernini submitted four different designs for the palace to Colbert. His first, made in pen and brown ink, featured a grand Italianate oval pavilion at its centre (a wild choice in comparison to the rigid formation of straight-lines the Louvre ended up with). Bernini’s design was so admired that the English architect Christopher Wren, upon seeing it in Paris, said he “would have given [his] skin” to have made it himself. And yet neither this design, nor any of the following three, ever came to fruition.

Despite the fact that in October 1655, an elaborate ceremony—attended by the King himself—was held to celebrate the laying of the foundations for Bernini’s Louvre project, everything quickly came to a halt. A few days after the ceremony, Bernini returned to Rome. It would be another two years before Bernini’s designs were officially rejected. (Read more.)