No. 18
China Mail
HOME SUPPLEMENT
HONG KONG, SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1935
No. 18
FAMOUS WOMEN IN HISTORY
Impressions
TE so often hear envious
WE sichs accompanied by
words such
as these: "How much more peaceful and com- fortable was the life of the Victorian woman " Yes, there are still those who enry the lot of their sisters of that period
A discussion among women has been going on in one of the over- seas papers. There are those who advocate efficiency in all things as the key to happiness and successo And there are those who claim to be "barn homely" and feel they do not fit in nowadays,
A mother finds her daughter tell- ing her it's time she "snapped up a bit" and got some decent clothes and found a facial expert to give her some lessons--and that when she would so like to grow old comfort-, ably and gracefully! Her children end their night's revelry by going bacon-and-egg party. Being what is described as Д fussy parent" she has zo sleep until the youngsters return home. She views the drawing room after one of her son's "binge" empty bottles, cigarette ends, dirty glasses and ash scattered all over the room
All that is hard enough, but nowadays even her friends harangue her about psychology or the latest political crises. Psycho-analysis has "got" several of them and she has to feirn an interest in this too. What she really would like is a light chat about the children, the" naids, exchange recipes. for pot- pourri or discuss the virtues of parsnip wine as against that made from rhubarb
Her husband and son talk of wrestling, her daughter joins in with them, using technical terms and expressing a fervent admiration for The Masked Marvel A hard task for her! She claims that, there is no life for a woman such as she and says there must be thousands ́ of wives and mothers in a similar positico. She even found the bring- ing up of her children too difficult, But would it not be natural for the woman of today whose life's interest is in the home to enjoy
Marie Antoinette
TARIE
M*
Antoinette, the beautiful Spendthrift Queen of France! Her story is a tragic one- The French pec- ple never loved her and con- temptuously called her whe Austrian.
Her unpopularity was. perhaps, a minor cause of the French Revolution. She loved the nobility and her con- tempt for anything but the nobility was ill-concealed; ber appetite for luxury and ber amazing extravagance were equalled only by her generosity. So beautiful and so brave, it was written of her by Lamar tine: "Frivolous in prosperity. sublime in misfortune, intrepid on the scaffold"
2
→
The Revolution breaks out: people bent on destruction marches un Versailles. Blood flows, and the lives of the King and Queen are in danger. Marie Antoinette is saved .. by the dramatic and chivalrous gesture of General La Fayette, who kneels at her feet and kisses her hand on a balcony in full view of the vast multitude But the fol- lowing day the people triumph when they take the royal family- the baker, the baker's wife and the bay-to Paris to the squalid Tuileries, uninhabited for a hundred years, where the King, the Queen and the Dauphin must resign them- selves to sleeping upon extemporary beds and the ladies of their suite upon chairs.
20
Weber, foster-brother "to Maric Antoinette, relates in his memoirs that the evening the royal family entered the deserted Tuileries, the Dauphin, on seeing the ancient and discoloured hang- ings of the palace, was amazed at the darkness which reigned in the vast and disused apartments and said to the Queen:
"Isn't" everything ugly in this place, Mamma!”
Vigee Le Brun
Versailles
Marie Antoinette
Press. Did not the deputies of the States-General when visting the palace of the Petit Trianon ask to see the reception room whose walls and columns were of gold encrusted with brilliants, of which they had beard rumours?
These were happy hours when Marie Antoinette was surrounded by her carefully-tended English garden. where romantic nature was stylised in
.To which Marie
sham Antoinette re plied: "My child, Louis XIV lived
please than he was."
studying the latest dietitic princi-here, and we must not be harder to ples, the methods of child-raising advocated by such experts as Mos- tessori and Truby King?- No need to worry about dreing her hair making-up, wearing bigh heels, and becoming suddenly “up- to date.” No need even to read ail the latest novels or feign an under- standing of modern art. But what use to grouse and claim to be a inisfit when there are a thousand call for your attention, a thousand means of becoming an intelligent and lively companion, without; sacrificing the ideal of growing old gracefully!
Marie Dressler, too, claimed that she "was born homely”? but she was not content to sit back and deplore modern domesticity—she found her place. After all, surely no modern could be satisfied to chat lightly about maids and pet recipes wher- ever and wherever she went out to tea! That picture of Victorian "happiness" is rather, too simple for Twentieth century tastes.
Phyllis Juky:
But soon in this strange and in- secure existence Marie Antoinette has resumed her castomary routine. She spends the morning supervising the education of her daughter, who takes all her lessons in her mother's presence; she employs herself upon elaborate embroideries; twice week she receives the court, and on those days she dines în public with the Eing. The remainder of the time is spent within the fawdly circlë.
*
The Queen is by no means 2 voracious reader. She has always preferred desultory conversation in the open air. or has taken her pleasure in singing a part in an opera by Gretry, Gluck or Rousseau. Now she thinks back of those happy. days at Trianon where she had de- luded herself
that she had been happy to give. Generosity has been the greatest 'quality and the greatest defect of this Queen.
With regard to the crazy extra- vagance of Marie Antoinette and the immense sums which she de- manded from the State for the beautifying of her minute kingdom entire legend has grown un. fostered by pamphleteers and the
AT
+
rocks, sham grottoes, sham lakelets, streams and waterfalls. Happy hours in ber little blue and gold theatre...
to save
Of all her friends only the Comte Axel de Fersen remained. Why did he risk grave dangers, sacrifice everything. If only
the royal family of France? Was it love? Did he and Marie Antoinette love one another? Books have been written around that question. But someone has written of Marie Antoinette:
"Her alleged gallantry was but profound feeling of friendship for
one
or more persors, an innate feminine coquetry which give her as Queen and woman a desire to please everyone. Not even at the time when her youth and inerperi- ence might have invited, a greater familarity towards her. did any of us who had the joy of reeing her daily, venture the smallest unse-m- liness: she acted as a Queen with- out being, aware of doing so; we worshipped her without a thought
of love."
Meanwhile before his death, Mirabeau sets to work contriving a scheme for the flight of the King and Queen from' Paris. The King was implored to fly to Metz Strasburg. He firmly refused on his own account but left the Queen
OT
free to retur
She to Austria. sparned the suggestion contempta- ously. But Madame Campan, lady- in-waiting to Marie Antoinette, re- lates that a few days later a gather. ing discussed whether the King should leave Paris with his troops or remain there. The Queen voted for departure. That same evening she commanded Madame Campan to remove all her jewels from their cases and place them in a small portable casket. She also proceed- ed to burn many papers. But the departure did not take place.
Other schemes were suggested to the Queen: that she disguise her- self as a simple gentlewoman; the Dauphin and his sister to follow their mother dressed alike. in female attire. But Marie Antoinette declared more than once that she would rather die at the King's side than escape alone. Of the two, she is less dismayed at the idea of flight; possibly because leaving France does not mean deserting ber own country, or perhaps because, as a mother, she wishes to see her children in safety. Mirabeau said of the Queen that she was the only "man" in the King's service.
now but a
When the royal family did eventually attempt flight they were captured and again imprisoned. Marie Antoinette was shadow of the beautiful Queen who still smiles at us from the pictures of le Brun. Her hair was quite white and her face, bore the marks of all the physical and moral suf- fering she had undergone. At her trial she defended herself with great skill and power. Even an her way to the guillotine she maintain- ed a marvellous composure
and queenly dignity,
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