Tea at Trianon: "Dramatic and Compelling"

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, February 5, 2026

"Dramatic and Compelling"

From the Historical Novel Society:

Generalissima is the second volume in Vidal’s trilogy on Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I of England and sister to Louis XIII of France. This installment traces her life from the unrest that sparked the civil wars of the Three Kingdoms to her dramatic flight to France in 1644.

The novel is divided into two parts. The first centres on the queen’s twin obsessions: converting Charles and their family to Roman Catholicism and preventing the marriage of their eldest daughter to the Prince of Orange. But as the Puritans gain strength, Charles refuses decisive action and Henrietta departs with their older children, carrying her jewels and valuables to sell for arms and munitions in Europe. The second part follows Henrietta in her role as Generalissima, revealing a resolve and strategic boldness that Charles lacks. She is willing to take the risks that might have preserved the monarchy, yet as a French, Catholic woman, she is not heeded. By 1644, after a series of dramatic events, the stage is set for the trilogy’s final volume. (Read more.)

Generalissima available, HERE.