Tea at Trianon: Under House Arrest

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

Friday, March 27, 2026

Under House Arrest

From Paul Gilbert:

On this day – 22nd March (O.S. 9th March) 1917 – the Provisional Government decreed that Emperor Nicholas II, his wife and five children should be held under house arrest in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo.

At eleven in the morning, the Imperial Train pulled into the Imperial Railway Pavilion at Tsarskoye Selo. Nicholas emerged wearing a Caucasian fur cap and soldier’s greatcoat. Behind him the members of his suite began to jump off the train – like rats abandoning a sinking ship – and run down the platform. Not looking back – they fled.

According to Count Paul Benckendorff (1853-1921), the Emperor’s motorcar arrived at the gate of the Alexander Palace and was stopped by the sentry, who summoned the Commandant. The Commandant went down the steps and asked in a loud voice who was there. The sentry cried out, ‘Nicholas Romanov’. ‘Let him pass,’ said the officer.

During his captivity, the Tsar was subject to constant harassment and humiliation from the soldiers – most of whom were thugs – stationed in and around the Alexander Palace.

According to Pierre Gilliard: “The Emperor accepted all these restraints with extraordinary serenity and moral grandeur. No word of reproach ever passed his lips.” (Read more.)