Tea at Trianon: Be Careful Whom You Trust

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, July 5, 2026

Be Careful Whom You Trust

From Chronicles:

Rasputin’s arrival in the Russian capital came at a moment of acute vulnerability both for the Russian nation and the Romanov dynasty. Timid, insecure, and stubborn, with an unbending belief in his God-given right to rule, Tsar Nicholas possessed neither the temperament nor the vision to govern a sprawling empire of 175 million subjects at a time when the chancelleries of Europe were sleepwalking towards the cataclysm of world war. His German-born wife, Alexandra, was even more problematic. Not only was she politically naïve, but she became psychologically unbalanced by the hemophilia of the royal couple’s only son, Alexei.

Within days of meeting the family, Rasputin was advising the tsar on family matters, Beevor writes. The mystic’s influence at court took another significant step forward when he appeared to “heal” the young tsarevich after a leg injury caused a life-threatening hemorrhage. The doctors believed that Rasputin’s calm demeanor may simply have relaxed the boy, lowering his blood pressure and thus slowing the bleeding. But to Nicholas and Alexandra, it was proof that the dipsomaniac, sexually profligate traveler in their midst was in fact God’s instrument on earth.

Inevitably, there were rumors that he was the tsarina’s lover, which Rasputin himself never actively discouraged. Such a development would not have been inconsistent with his relations elsewhere in high Russian society. On the other hand, Beevor’s research extends to the discovery that “while Rasputin was content to lie naked with many women, he had sex with very few of them.” The author further doubts that Alexandra, a loyal and devoted wife and mother, whatever her other shortcomings, would have yielded in this way. Nor does he credit the rumor, widespread in the feverish atmosphere surrounding the Romanov court, that there had been anything improper in Rasputin’s relations with the four royal princesses, then aged between nine and 14, even if his late-night conduct in their bedchamber might have raised eyebrows in our own, more morally vigilant times. (Read more.)