Famous Affinities of History: The Romance of Devotion. Volume 2
by Lyndon Orr
- Pages
- about 108
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
The English-speaking world long ago accepted a conventional view of
Marie Antoinette. The eloquence of Edmund Burke in one brilliant
passage has fixed, probably for all time, an enduring picture of this
unhappy queen.
When we speak or think of her we speak and think first of all of a
dazzling and beautiful woman surrounded by the chivalry of France and
gleaming like a star in the most splendid court of Europe. And then
there comes to us the reverse of the picture. We see her despised,
insulted, and made the butt of brutal men and still more fiendish
women; until at last the hideous tumbrel conveys her to the guillotine,
where her head is severed from her body and her corpse is cast down
into a bloody pool.
In these two pictures our emotions are played upon in turn--admiration,
reverence, devotion, and then pity, indignation, and the shudderings of
horror.
Probably in our own country and in England this will remain the
historic Marie Antoinette. Whatever the impartial historian may write,
he can never induce the people at large to understand that this queen
was far from queenly, that the popular idea of her is almost wholly
false, and that both in her domestic life and as the greatest lady in
France she did much to bring on the terrors of that revolution which
swept her to the guillotine.
In the first place, it is mere fiction that represents Maria Antoinette
as having been physically beautiful. The painters and engravers have so
idealized her face as in most cases to have produced a purely imaginary
portrait.
She was born in Vienna, in 1755, the daughter of the Emperor Francis
and of that warrior-queen, Maria Theresa. She was a very German-looking
child. Lady Jackson describes her as having a long, thin face, small,
pig-like eyes, a pinched-up mouth, with the heavy Hapsburg lip, and
with a somewhat misshapen form, so that for years she had to be
bandaged tightly to give her a more natural figure.
A short sample. Read the whole book
More to read
- A Belated Guest (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance)William Dean HowellsHistory19 pages
- A Bit of Old ChinaCharles Warren StoddardHistory17 pages
- A Book of Remarkable CriminalsH. B. IrvingHistory341 pages
- A Book of ScoundrelsCharles WhibleyHistory202 pages
- A Brief History of the Internet The Bright Side: The Dark SideMichael HartHistory59 pages
Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks or a similar open source. Copyright differs between countries. Rights holder? See our takedown process.