History Meme | [2/8] Objects → Maximiliano & Carlota's carriageIn 1834, the Italian House Cesare Scala made the carriage of the emperors Maximiliano and Carlota. The carriage of Baroque style, is decorated with silver trim and bronze sculptures of children and angels, imperial shields and the slogan “Equity in Justice”.
It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely 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 the morning star full of life and splendour and joy.
Oh, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour, and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.
But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom! The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.
Edmund Burke
Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria with his children from his first marriage, from left to right: Archduke Ferdinand Karl, Archduke Otto Franz, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Archduchess Margarete Sophie of Austria. Circa 1872.
From 1871 until he remarried in 1873, he was the only parent to his children!
Archduchess Carlotte, Empress Carlota of Mexico (born Charlotte of Belgium) June 7 1840 - January 19 1927.
Charlotte and her former governess in the park of the Castle of Miramare. Summer 1859.
Portrait of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and her son, the Emperor Joseph II and several of her other children, 18th Century.
A day out with Kronprinz Rudolf and Kronprinzessin Stephanie of Austria. 1880s
