Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you all had a truly wonderful day, and I just wanted to wish you a blessed holiday!!

Freedom from Want, by Norman Rockwell - 1943.

A Recipe for Hot Chocolate à la Marie Antoinette

A still from Sophia Coppola's 2006 film Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst.

Here's a little something to warm you up during the chilly holidays ahead. It's a recipe I came up with, and it's a modern version of Marie Antoinette's favorite breakfast beverage. According to author Melanie Clegg in her book Marie Antoinette: An Intimate History, during her early years of reigning  France, the queen began her day snuggled in bed with "hot chocolate infused with cinnamon and coffee and Austrian pastries," though I'm sure this drink would pair pleasantly with whatever baked goods you'd care to enjoy with it.

Ingredients: Drinking chocolate, a splash of coffee (a small espresso size cup of it will do, or some that's left in the coffee pot), and a sprinkling of cinnamon.

Step One - Put two spoonfuls of chocolate into a mug.
Step Two - Boil water for the chocolate and make the coffee, if it's not already prepared.
Step Three - Pour the water in the mug and stir the chocolate till it's dissolved.
Step Four - Add the coffee, sprinkle in the cinnamon, and stir.

Bon appétit!

Marie Antoinette's Birthday

On November 2, 1755, at 8:30 in the evening, Marie Antoinette came into the world. Yay! To celebrate, here is an excerpt from my book.

On an early November evening, a squalling newborn archduchess, tightly swaddled in white linen, is bundled off from her mother’s bedchamber to the royal nurseries; yet another child in Francis I and Maria Theresa’s brood – though their offspring will be sixteen in number, only six girls and four boys will survive to adulthood. The newest baby girl (who will be christened “Maria Antonia Josepha Joanna” and called “Antoine”) is as yet merely another blessing, but someday she may be a powerful pawn in a political marriage.

And here are two songs composed by Antoinette during her time in France. The first is called "C'est Mon Ami," and she wrote the music, while a poet named Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian set words to it.

Basically, it's about a shepherd with whom a girl is in love; the idea of romance among the peasantry was a common theme among writers of this era. 

Here's the second one, "Portrait Charmant." Antoinette wrote the lyrics and the music for this one, and it describes how the portrait of a dear absent friend makes the one who has the picture miss their friend even more. 

By the way, if you like these, the singer who performs them, Mayuko Karasawa, has this album (Antoinette) on iTunes, though I prefer her renditions on her other album, L'Art De Marie-Antoinette. You can't go wrong either way. 

And to conclude, here are several of my favorite portraits of the queen, for your viewing pleasure! :)

A portrait by Martin van Meytens, in 1767 - she's about eleven.

Antoinette, about twelve, at her clavichord in 1768, by Franz Xaver Wagenschön.

Antoinette aged thirteen, by Joseph Ducreux, in 1769.
This was the picture sent to the French court so everyone could see how the possible future queen looked.

Detail from a painting by Jean-Baptiste Gautier Dagoty, 1774. Antoinette was about eighteen when this work was done.

Portrait by Dagoty, circa 1775. Antoinette was around nineteen.

A portrait of Antoinette in a muslin dress in 1782, by Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun.

Antoinette with a rose in 1783, by Vigée Lebrun. 

Here she is with her two oldest children in 1790, by François Dumont.

A portrait done in 1785 by Vigée Lebrun. This was Antoinette's favorite likeness of herself. 

And that's that! Happy Birthday, dearest Antoinette!!! :)