Tea at Trianon: The Man, the Myth, the Legend

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

Thursday, January 15, 2026

The Man, the Myth, the Legend

From The Claremont Review of Books:

David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler’s The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics, is not another biography; instead, it’s an examination of the myths and legends surrounding Jackson’s election. How did a man with “a nasty temper, a violent streak, and a past littered with appalling lapses in judgement,” get elected president? Centering on Jackson’s handlers, spin doctors, and apologists, the Heidlers’ study answers this question through its chief characters—John Coffee, Sam Houston, Henry Lee IV, William Berkeley Lewis, John Overton, and Martin Van Buren.

The Heidlers divide Jackson’s supporters into “Jacksonians” and “Jacksonites.” Jacksonian true believers saw Jackson as the voice of the people and stuck with him despite political setbacks. The Jacksonites, in contrast, were more tactical, utilitarian, and opportunistic. Skeptical of Jackson’s abilities and character, they embraced him when it suited them, employed his rhetoric when necessary, and rode his coattails to secure their own ambitions. In short, “Jacksonites believed in winning elections.”

The Heidlers open with the War of 1812’s Creek campaign, one of the lowest points in Jackson’s career. He had been shunned by President Monroe’s administration, undersupplied, and threatened by deserting troops. Following his victory at Horseshoe Bend, however, Jackson, the “man the government had abandoned in Natchez had in the span of a single year become the country’s darling.” Jackson’s victory during the Battle of New Orleans sealed his celebrity. According to the Heidlers, the victory was so stunning that some even attributed it to divine intervention. Jackson’s newfound fame prompted a spread of hagiographic and celebratory misinformation. John Overton had been considering Jackson for a political future since 1814, but, after the Battle of New Orleans, talk of the presidency began in earnest.

The bulk of The Rise of Andrew Jackson deals with the elections of 1824 and 1828 and the political machine that propelled Jackson into the White House. The heart of this machine were the men behind the pro-Jackson newspaper, The Tennessee Junto, whose job was part damage control, part mythmaking. In newspapers, biographies, at rallies, and in private correspondence, the Jacksonian and Jacksonites lauded Jackson’s generalship, casting him as a new George Washington, and turned contemporary events—the dying out of the founding generation, the collapse of the Federalist and Democratic-Republican Parties, the Panic of 1819, presidential hopeful William H. Crawford’s stroke, the expansion of voting rights for white men without property, and John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay’s so-called “corrupt bargain” that denied Jackson the presidency in 1824—in Jackson’s favor. Properly leveraged by Jackson’s sophisticated political machine, these events propelled Jackson to the presidency in 1828 despite his personal flaws. (Read more.)