Marie Antoinette – Let Her Read Books!

1915

Marie Antoinette's Books.

The unhappy Queen Marie Antoinette possessed an important library of 4,712 volumes, consisting of plays and romances, little books a la mode, the works of Pascal, Bossuet, Fenelon, Bourdaloue, Massillon, Boileau, Cousseau, Corneille, Moliere, Voltaire and many others. Sbe loved music passionately and had a large collection of operas in eighty-nine numbers. The bindings were by Blaizot and were uniform in red morocco, with the arms of France and Austria stamped upon them. The execution of the work was poor and the decadence in the art of binding evident. The glories of the art of Padeloup and the Deromes had passed away, and the revolution effectually killed whatever knowledge remained of the ancient skill of the bookbinders. Half a century later saw its revival in France, and the art has since fiourished both there and on English soil.—London Spectator.


Daniel O'Connell.

After a dinner at Lord Dungarvan's, Lady Morgan writes in her diary, I met the redoubtable Dan O'Connell. Dan is not brilliant in private life, not even agreeable. He is mild, silent, unassuming, apparently absorbed and an utter stranger to the give and take charm of good society. I said so to Lord Clanricarde, who replied: "If you knew how I found him this morning: His hall, the very steps of his door, crowded with his clientele. He had a word or a written order for each, then hurried off to the law courts, thence to the Improvement society and was the guest here today. Two hours before he was making that clever but violent speech to Mr. la Touche. and now no wonder that he looks like an extinct volcano."