Tea at Trianon: The Angelus and the Dignity of Labor

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

Sunday, November 9, 2025

The Angelus and the Dignity of Labor

From The Catholic Herald:

Millet was lauded by those on the Left as a reformer (and criticised by those on the Right as a subversive) for this portrayal, but he was not the revolutionary both sides wanted to paint him as; rather, he painted harsh reality, treating these rural workers with dignity.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is The Angelus, two people, perhaps a husband and wife, pausing in their work in a field with bowed heads to say the Angelus, in response to the bells of a church just visible in the background. It's a painting loved by several other artists, including Dalí, who made many versions of it including Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet's Angelus, and Van Gogh, who made copies of a number of Millet's paintings.
It's a very spiritual painting, showing a moment of true piety. In 1865, a few years after he painted it, Millet wrote: "The Angelus is a picture that I painted while remembering how, when working at that time in the fields, my grandmother, on hearing the bell ringing, never failed to make us stop our work to say the Angelus prayer 'for those poor departed', very piously and with hat in hand."
The church bell would be rung for the Angelus at sunrise, noon and sunset.
The Angelus was apparently one of Millet's favourite works – so was it a painting with deep spiritual significance for him, or was it merely a nostalgic childhood memory of working in the fields with his pious grandmother? Opinion is divided, depending on who you read. A fascinating essay in the slim but very worthwhile catalogue mentions that Millet described his grandmother's "beautiful religion" that "gave her the strength to love so deeply and unselfishly".
But as an adult Millet did not regularly attend church. He married his wife in a civil ceremony, after they had already had four children together; they only married in a religious ceremony over 20 years later, when he was close to death. And some of his early artistic works were erotic in nature – a fact completely ignored by his friend and biographer Alfred Sensier. (Read more.)