Bol Sein de la Laiterie de Rambouillet

In June 1787, Louis XVI surprised his wife Queen Marie Antoinette with the gift of a dairy - The Laiterie at Rambouillet. Inspired by Rousseau and a desire to return to nature, fanciful dairies were very fashionable among the aristocracy of Europe during the [period], but this Neoclassical dairy designed by Richard Mique would surpass all others. The king had hoped that Marie Antoinette would please herself at Ranbouillet playing Dairy maid while he was at one of his favorite things to do, hunting.

65 pieces of Sèvres “Etruscan” style porcelain were delivered to Rambouillet in two shipments in 1787 and 1788. Included the 1788 delivery were a set of four Breast cups made for drinking milk from. Famous today because the cups are said to have been molded from the Queen’s own breast! 

The cup is in the shape of a breast painted flesh colored with a pink nipple at the bottom. The porcelain breast rest in a Greek style tripod with the head of goats terminating in hoofed feet. The late 18th century Sèvres breast cups makes reference to the traditional Greek mastos cup (from mastos = breast, udder) itself modeled on a breast. 

(Source: andrewhopkinsart.blogspot.co.uk)

The Moberly–Jourdain Incident, or The Ghosts of Versailles

The Moberly–Jourdain incident was an event that occurred on 10 August 1901 in the gardens of the Petit Trianon, involving two female academics, Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain. The women were both from educated backgrounds. During a trip to Versailles, they visited the Petit Trianon, a small château in the grounds of the Palace of Versailles, where they allegedly experienced a time slip, and saw Marie Antoinette as well as other people of the same period. After researching the history of the palace, and comparing notes of their experience, they published their work in a book entitled An Adventure, under the names of Elizabeth Morison and Frances Lamont, in 1911. Their story caused a sensation, and was subject to much ridicule.

On 10 August 1901, they travelled by train to Versailles. They did not think much of the palace after touring it, so they decided to walk through the gardens to the Petit Trianon. On the way, they reached the Grand Trianon and found it was closed to the public. They travelled with a Baedeker guidebook, but the two women soon became lost after missing the turn for the main avenue, Allée des Deux Trianons. They passed this road, and entered a lane, where unknown to them they passed their destination. Moberly noticed a woman shaking a white cloth out of a window and Jourdain noticed an old deserted farmhouse, outside of which was an old plough. At this point they claimed that a feeling of oppression and dreariness came over them. They then saw some men who looked like palace gardeners, who told them to go straight on. Moberly later described the men as “very dignified officials, dressed in long greyish green coats with small three-cornered hats.” Jourdain noticed a cottage with a woman and a girl in the doorway. The woman was holding out a jug to the girl. Jourdain described it as a “tableau vivant.” Moberly did not observe the cottage, but felt the atmosphere change. She wrote: “Everything suddenly looked unnatural, therefore unpleasant; even the trees seemed to become flat and lifeless, like wood worked in tapestry. There were no effects of light and shade, and no wind stirred the trees.”

They reached the edge of a wood, close to the Temple de l’Amour, and came across a man seated beside a garden kiosk, wearing a cloak and large shady hat. According to Moberly, his appearance was “most repulsive… its expression odious. His complexion was dark and rough.” Jourdain noted “The man slowly turned his face, which was marked by smallpox; his complexion was very dark. The expression was evil and yet unseeing, and though I did not feel that he was looking particularly at us, I felt a repugnance to going past him. A man later described as “tall… with large dark eyes, and crisp curling black hair under a large sombrero hat” came up to them, and showed them the way to the Petit Trianon.

After crossing a bridge, they reached the gardens in front of the palace, and Moberly noticed a lady sketching on the grass who looked at them. She later described what she saw in great detail: the lady was wearing a light summer dress, on her head was a shady white hat, and she had lots of fair hair. Moberly thought she was a tourist at first, but the dress appeared to be old-fashioned. Moberly came to believe that the lady was Marie Antoinette. Jourdain however did not see the lady. After this, they were directed round to the entrance and joined a party of other visitors. After touring the house, they had tea at the Hotel des Reservoirs before returning to Jourdain’s apartment.

[Image: Portrait of Marie Antoinette by Wertmüller. The figure that Moberly saw near the Petit Trianon was claimed to bear a resemblance to the Queen as depicted in this painting]

The Dauphin’s Heart: 

Louis XVII was collateral damage in the French revolution. He was seven when the sans-culottes decided to end civilisation: ‘the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever’. And he was  ten when he died, in 1795, a lone prisoner in the Temple Tower in Paris, his mother and father having already gone to pay for their dynastic blood on the steps of Monsieur Guillotine.

At the autopsy in 1795 the doctor in attendance, Pelletan, decided (as you do) to take Louis’ heart as a souvenir. Pelletan squirreled the heart away, unseen by the other doctors, and stored it in a crystal cup in liquid on a bookshelf.

In 1810 Pelletan noticed that the heart was missing and decided that the  thief was a student of his, a Dr Tillus: in a dangerous Republican age Pelletan had told only Tillus the story of the heart. Pellatan tracked down Tillus who had just died of tuberculosis and convinced Tillus’ wife to give the heart up.

In 1828 the heart was handed over to the Archbishop of Paris in a casket with the crystal cup and various papers describing its history: the Archbishop had hoped to get it back to the royal family. But in 1830 in riots in the capital – revolutions teach bad habits – a group of ne’er-do-wells got into the Archbishop’s building and two looters, not knowing what was inside, fought over the casket. In the fight a sabre blow smashed the crystal cup and the heart disappeared. The heart was later found on the floor of the room.

In 1895 the heart was handed over to the Bourbon claimant to the throne, Don Carlos, with whom it travelled to Frohsdorf in Austria, where it sat next to Marie Antoinette’s bloodstained scarf from the day of her guillotining: ‘I thought that ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards…’ Mother and son were reunited. In 1942 the heart was taken to Italy by Don Carlos’ daughter. Then in 1975 the heart was handed over to the royal relic collection at Saint Denis where it remains to this day.

The history of the heart is not the most reliable (read MORE), but certainly it shares DNA with Marie Antoinette.

There is no hair more iconic, perhaps, than Marie Antoinette’s elaborately curled and beribboned wigs. Her daringly avant-garde style and her love of fashion took Versailles by storm, and the ladies of court were constantly trying to emulate the Queen’s frequently changing coiffure. As young aristocrats in the 18th Century, women (although in a position of social power) were obviously not in a position to express themselves freely or assertively. Perhaps the young Queen of France used her love of fashion as a way of expressing herself when in all other areas (marriage, politics) she was rather a lost soul. One of the most well known trends of this period was for miniature models of war ships to be placed upon rolling waves of curls, in celebration of French Navy victories against the British.