Mercredi des Cendres

From author Catherine Delors:

Ash Wednesday follows Fat Tuesday, and the mood could not be more different. Today, a day of fast and prayer, marks the beginning of Lent. The day of ashes on foreheads, and the admonition Memento, homo, quod pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris (“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”)

No better illustration of the contrast between Carnival and Lent than this work by the 19th century Bavarian artist Carl Spitzweg. Spitzweg, though classified as a Romanticist, admired and emulated the genre paintings of the 17th century Flemish school. His style is often humorous and down-to-earth (two qualities I find somewhat lacking in Romantic art.) (Read more.)

Share

Marie-Antoinette's Sleigh Rides

One of Marie-Antoinette's favorite youthful pastimes was sleigh-riding, which she made popular after she became Queen. What was a perfectly innocent amusement was twisted into something sordid by those who liked to see dirt. It was during the winter of 1775-1776 that the Queen befriended the unfortunate Princesse de Lamballe. According to Madame Campan's Memoirs:

The winter following the confinement of the Comtesse d’Artois [1775-76] was very severe; the recollections of the pleasure which sleighing-parties had given the Queen in her childhood made her wish to introduce similar ones in France.

This amusement had already been known in that Court, as was proven by sleighs found in the stables, which had been used by the Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI. Some were made for the Queen in a more modern style. The Princes also ordered several; and in a few days there was a fair number of these vehicles around. They were driven by the princes and noblemen of the Court. The noise of the bells and pompoms with which the horses’ harnesses were decorated, the elegance and whiteness of their plumes, the varied shapes of the carriages, the gold with which they were all trimmed, made these parties a delight for the eye. The winter was very favorable to them, the snow remaining on the ground nearly six weeks; the drives in the park afforded a pleasure shared by the spectators.

No one imagined that any blame could attach to so innocent an amusement. But the party was tempted to extend its drives as far as the Champs-Elysées; a few sleighs even crossed the boulevards; the ladies being masked, the Queen’s enemies took the opportunity of saying that she had traveled through the streets of Paris in a sleigh.

This became a momentous issue. The public discovered in it a predilection for the habits of Vienna; but all that Marie Antoinette did was criticized. Sleigh-driving, smacking of the Northern Courts, found no favor among the Parisians. The Queen was informed of this; and although all the sleighs were kept, and several subsequent winters lent themselves to the amusement, she would not resume it.

It was at the time of the sleighing-parties that the Queen became intimately acquainted with the Princesse de Lamballe, who made her appearance in them wrapped in fur, with all the brilliancy and freshness of the age of twenty, the image of spring, peeping from under sable and ermine.

To quote from a wonderful post by Catherine Delors:

The Queen introduced sleighing parties, which were organised like this: the Queen invited the women she wanted to be there. When she invited the princesses, she sent a page to convey her personal invitation to those of the princesses’ ladies-in-waiting it pleased her to choose; usually she only asked one at a time. Everyone met at the Queen’s at midday for luncheon; all the men dined together in another room. The Queen never ate in the company of men when the King was not present. The Queen had all the ladies seated at her table. We had quite a long lunch-dinner; then, we went into a salon where we rejoined all the men. Then, as one had to be escorted by lords, as people said in those days, the Queen and the princesses named those who would escort them, and all the ladies relied on chance and drew lots; a very prudent custom which avoided the inconveniences of favouritism and malicious gossip. We went from Versailles to country houses, to La Muette, to Meudon, etc. There, we descended from the sleighs, went into a salon, got warm, chatted for three-quarters of an hour or an hour; after that, we got back into the sledges and returned to Versailles.

(Artwork: "Winter" by François Boucher, 1755)
Share

Marie-Antoinette at Saint Denis

Catherine Delors beautifully describes the statue of the Queen over her tomb at the Basilica of Saint Denis, and how it reflects the transformation of her relationship with Louis XVI. To quote:

Here... she is pensive, humble, leaning forward and sideways towards her husband. This is very moving in light of the evolution of the royal couple's complex relationship: mutual coldness at first, then disdain on her part, gradually followed by ever increasing closeness, respect and affection. During their last months together at the Temple, Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette cared for each other in the deepest sense of the word. She was devastated by his death, and his last earthly concerns were for her and their children.

I believe this sculpture beautifully captures this. There was definitely more than propaganda to the Saint-Denis reburials.

I agree; the royal couple became more and more devoted to each other over the years. I think that the deaths of their baby Sophie and then of their oldest son Louis-Joseph in 1787 and 1789 respectively brought them closer together, too, even before the long imprisonment forged them into one. It has been described by eyewitnesses how she threw herself into Louis' arms when he returned from Paris in June 1789, after Bastille Day. According to Lemaire:

This princess, as virtuous as she was amiable, whom monsters later on accused of having never loved her husband, was absolutely in despair. As soon as she heard the King's carriage entering the Cour Royale she ran towards him holding the Dauphin in her arms, then breathless and almost fainting she fell into those of the King who was no less moved than she was. Holding out one hand to his children who covered it with kisses, with the other wiping the tears from the eyes of Marie-Antoinette and Madame Elisabeth, Louis XVI smiled again...he kept on repeating: "Happily no blood was shed, and I swear that not a drop of French blood will ever be shed on my orders."

~ Histoire de la Revolution Francaise (3 vol.) by M.H. Lemaire, 1816

The focus of my novel Trianon is the evolution of the relationship of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette and how they developed from adolescent strangers into a couple who could be separated only by death. Share

The Royal Hunt and Bastille Day

From Catherine Delors:

When Louis XVI wrote in his diary Rien (“Nothing”) on July 14, 1789, it did not mean that the King was oblivious to the events in Paris. On the contrary he had taken measures to prevent the unrest, in particular by posting foreign regiments in and around the capital. Those measures proved unsuccessful, and even counterproductive, but it is undeniable that Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were extremely concerned.

The so-called diary was in fact a log, in which Louis XVI would record the number and species of the animals killed by the Royal Hunt on any given day (he was an excellent horseman and avid sportsman) and sometimes other brief notes on various topics. Louis XVI never meant to express intimate political or personal thoughts. The Nothing entry on the 14th of July simply means that there was no hunt on that day, or that no animal was killed. (Read more.)

More HERE.

Here is an old post on Marie-Antoinette and the Revolution.

I keep reading on various sites phrases such as "Marie-Antoinette obstinately fought for the divine right of kings." Yes, it seems to be the general consensus that Marie-Antoinette did not support the French Revolution; she even had the temerity to think that monarchy was a good idea. Surprise, surprise. How could anyone expect the "Daughter of the Caesars" to see things differently? Her father was the Holy Roman Emperor, her mother an autocratic sovereign in her own right, and yet people censure Marie-Antoinette for not rejoicing when France became a Republic. Especially, it should be kept in mind that the Revolution was introduced to her in a manner of extreme violence, with herself and her family being dragged to Paris with the heads of guards on pikes before them. That the queen would dedicate herself to trying to save her family from further violence by working against the Revolution should not come as a great shock. (Read more.)

Share

Catacombs of Paris

From Daily Glimpse:

The Catacombs are former quarries, where gypsum and limestone were extracted until the 18th century to construct Parisian buildings. For the last two centuries, the underground tunnels have officially sunk into silence. They are closed to the general public, except for a very small part tourists can visit. The official museum – seventy feet underground – offers quite a spectacular tour: visitors go through a dimly lit tunnel surrounded by millions of skulls and bones transferred from Parisian cemeteries in the late 18th century. But this ossuary gives a distorted image of the Catacombs as a whole, because there is no light whatsoever in the unofficial parts of Paris underground, and not many bones outside the “museum”, except under Montparnasse.

There have always been people illegally visiting the closed parts of the catacombs, as the graffiti left on the walls by former “cata-addicts” show. The Catacombs are mainly narrow tunnels, but there are also bigger galleries, including some underground “monuments” (like a German bunker dating from World War II), where visitors like to gather.

Anthony is a “cata-addict”. This 23 year-old student engineer has visited all the Parisian and suburban quarries. He is part of a team of urban explorers: “What pleases me the most is discovering new things” says he, “I also like to take interesting pictures, like many cata-addicts, in order to show people everything that is worth seeing underground. But to be honest, we also go down to have dinner with other underground fans, drink alcohol and have fun. The Catacombs are a bit like a squat which is always free.” (Read entire post.)

Share

Marie-Antoinette as Venus

Marie-Antoinette was often painted as various characters from Greek and Roman mythology, as was the custom of the time. It is thought to be the Queen in the painting above. Marie-Antoinette is shown as some kind of a classical deity, holding coral and rushes, crowned in pearls, with a dolphin at her side. Catherine Delors discusses this unique miniature, saying:

More to the point, the nautical character of the work is obvious: the branch of coral and bunch of rushes held by the lady, the seascape in the background, and the fish on which she rests her arm. All quite unusual for a miniature. This one is dated as of 1781, the year when Marie Antoinette gave birth to the heir to the throne, the Dauphin Louis-Joseph. “Dauphin” in French was the title given to the heir to the throne, and also the name of the dolphin. So here the “fish” wouldn’t be a fish at all, but a dolphin, and the allegory of the long-awaited achievement of the royal couple: the birth of a male heir. Some artifacts around the time of Louis-Joseph’s birth reflect the form of a dolphin to celebrate the momentous event. (Read entire post.)

I am wondering if Marie-Antoinette is supposed to represent Venus, the goddess of love and beauty who, according to the myth, rose out of the foam of the sea. Furthermore, coral, symbolizing joy and happiness, has a classical association with that goddess. Venus was the wife of Vulcan, god of the forge. Perhaps the portrait was a gift for Louis XVI, whom she once likened to Vulcan because of his dedication to his locksmith work. A dolphin was on the coat-of-arms of the Dauphin. I think this miniature was intended as an intimate gift from the Queen to the King to celebrate the birth of their son and heir. Share

An Interview with Catherine Delors

An informative interview with one of my favorite contemporary novelists and dear friends.

Catherine Delors, author of "Mistress of the Revolution" and "For the King" answers 10 questions about her favorite time period in history, her favorite figures from history, and the age old question of coffee or tea. (Read entire post.)

Share