LARGE TOWEL HAVING SERVED TO THE QUEEN MARIE-ANTOINETTE,... - Lot 61 - Osenat

Lot 61
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8000 - 10000 EUR
LARGE TOWEL HAVING SERVED TO THE QUEEN MARIE-ANTOINETTE,... - Lot 61 - Osenat
LARGE TOWEL HAVING SERVED TO THE QUEEN MARIE-ANTOINETTE, used during the coronation, and kept by the chaplain of Reims, Monseigneur Coussy Rectangular, damask, decorated with lily flowers in leafy crowns on the circumference and a bouquet of roses in the center. 105 x 75 cm. With its original bill in pen preserved under glass: "Napkin having served Marie Antoinette during the coronation, and which was kept by Mgneur de Coussy who used it during his emigration and from whom we have it." A.B.E. (Stains, wear). Circa 1775. Provenance: - Sale Me Marc FERRI (Drouot Rive gauche), March 8, 1979, n°131, Expert Robert Jean Charles. - Private collection History: The royal couple will keep a very good memory of the ceremony of the Coronation and the consecutive festivities. Marie-Antoinette wrote to her mother that "the coronation was perfect [...]. The ceremonies of the Church [were] interrupted at the moment of the coronation by the most touching acclamations. I could not stand it, my tears flowed in spite of myself, and I was thankful for it [...]. It is an astonishing thing and very happy at the same time to be so well received two months after the revolt, and in spite of the dearth of bread, which unfortunately continues " Biography: Jean-Charles de COUCY (1746-1824). He was appointed chaplain to the Queen by patent of January 28, 1776. Then he became canon of Reims. When the Revolution began, he was the grand vicar of the archbishop of Reims. Appointed bishop of La Rochelle by Louis XVI on October 23, 1789, his nomination was confirmed by Pius VI on December 14. His monarchist convictions led him to go into exile in Spain. From 1791 he experienced a difficult emigration. Settled in Guadalajara, he organized a mutual aid fund between exiles and solicited the financial support of the Spanish high clergy. He refused his resignation to Pius VII in 1801, contributing by this refusal to provoke the schism of the Little Church of the Deux-Sèvres. Refractory to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, he also became refractory to the Concordat. In 1803, on a report of Dupin, prefect of Deux-Sèvres, Bonaparte asked the King of Spain to proceed to the arrest of Coucy. He was then imprisoned and was released only in 1807, at the request of Abbé Emery and Archbishop Fesch. He returned to France in 1814 and told his vicars general that he had not written a single letter since 1804. During the Hundred Days, he accompanied King Louis XVIII to Ghent. In 1816, he finally resigned from the bishopric of La Rochelle to the king and was named to the prestigious title of Archbishop of Rheims on August 8, 1817, as a reward for his loyalty to the Bourbons. In 1819, he publicly disapproved of the Little Church movement which persisted. He was created peer of France on October 31, 1822. He died in Reims on March 9, 1824.
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