Tea at Trianon

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, November 11, 2010

The Act of Supremacy

When the State became a god in Tudor England.

...Be it enacted, by authority of this present Parliament, that the king, our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England, called Anglicans Ecclesia; and shall have and enjoy, annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm, as well the title and style thereof, as all honors, dignities, preeminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities to the said dignity of the supreme head of the same Church belonging and appertaining; and that our said sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority from time to time to visit, repress, redress, record, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offenses, contempts and enormities, whatsoever they be, which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed, repressed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended....

Vintage Jewelry

Wearing old pieces in new ways. Share

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Charlotte and Leopold

A brief but romantic idyll. Share

Who is More Tragic?

Marie-Antoinette or Alexandra Feodorovna?

They are two of the most tragic consorts in history, both having the blood of Mary Stuart. Women of great beauty, passion and taste, both martyrs.

Pope Pius VII said that Louis VXI fulfilled all the qualifications of Christian martyrdom. He and Marie-Antoinette were both often referred to as the "Martyr-King and the Martyr-Queen" by faithful Catholics in the years immediately following the Revolution. Like Nicholas and Alexandra, they were killed because of what they represented, not necessarily because of what they had done. The people who killed them would have found any excuse. Most of the ordinary French people were horrified that Louis and Antoinette were killed; even many Revolutionaries thought they should have been exiled rather than executed.

Marie-Antoinette was hemorrhaging during her trial because she may have had ovarian or uterine cancer. That is just a theory. She may also have been anemic. She had suffered great emotional trauma. She was only 38 years old.

I think that the Queen of France had the more tragic life. Alexandra got to marry her great love and that makes all the difference in the world. Louis and Antoinette loved each other, but few loves can compare with the grand passion of Nicky and Alix.

Both women were devoted to their children and tried to have a real family life with them. Both loved the "simple life" and tried to create quiet refuges amid the splendor of the court.

Both women were vilified in ways that transcended all reality by their political enemies. In order to pull apart a family, destroy the image of the mother; in order to bring a nation into revolution, then destroy the reputation/ image of the queen/ empress, who was the mother figure of the people. If they could convince the people that the queen/empress was evil and that the king/tsar was an idiot, then it meant the children were no good and the entire family should be gotten rid of. It was a deliberate ploy. Antoinette and Alexandra are tragic because no matter what they did it played into the hands of their enemies. The Great Catherine outwardly had lovers and no one held it against her and she was loved by the people. Napoleon's Josephine spent more money on clothes in one year than Marie-Antoinette did in her entire life and yet Josephine was popular with the French people. It is sad that two women of virtue like Antoinette and Alexandra should be so terribly misunderstood.

Aprons

Out of the kitchen and onto the runway.

Though many people still think of an archetypal housewife when they think of aprons, the garments go back much further. In the Middle Ages, monks and nuns frequently wore sleeveless garments called scapulars over sleeved garments, says Daniel James Cole, a professor of fashion history at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Soldiers also wore apron-style garments over their armor to help reduce glare from the sun, he says. Such coverings gradually migrated into court dress.

In the 19th century, apron-like garments were worn as part of uniforms by servants, and their association with housework and working-class labor endured throughout the 20th century.

Aprons do have historical ties to fashion. Akris, the family owned, Swiss fashion label, was launched as an apron company in 1922. The fashion house continues to draw on that history. Akris designer Albert Kriemler cited the legacy of his grandmother, Alice, in "the minimalist shape of our white double-face sheath," for example.

By the 1970s, women were entering the workplace in larger numbers and cooking less, and the women's-liberation movement saw the apron as a symbol of female oppression. Aprons enjoyed a renaissance about six years ago, with rising interest in home entertainment and gourmet cooking. But these aprons were strictly for the home.

About Shakespeare

15 Forgotten Facts. Share

Monday, November 8, 2010

In Praise of Folly

The life of Erasmus.

Erasmus returned to England in 1509 and wrote The Praise of Folly with its Latin pun on Thomas More's name: Moriae encomium; he left England to have the book printed in Paris. In August of 1511, John Fisher invited him to teach Greek at Cambridge and Erasmus also received a living and a pension. In 1513, he went to Basel where he accomplished much of the work on his Novum Instrumentum edition of the New Testament. In 1515, 1516, and 1517, he made brief visits to England.

The Banyan

What every fashionable eighteenth century gentleman wore in his leisure hours. To quote:

The banyan, a fashionable and loose man's indoor garment made with exotic fabric, is thought to have originated from the gown worn by the Hindi in India. From the seventeenth century it was used for indoor wear over the shirt and breeches with a cap instead of a wig and was also apparently worn for receiving close friends at home or for morning walks. [Historical Fashion in Detail, by Avril Hart]