Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Louis XVI with St. Louis IX

From Vive la Reine:
But there was a sense of the sacred as well as showmanship in the revolutionaries’ putting to death of the king. They staged the death of the monarchy, not of a man. Just as in days gone by when they used to richly attire sacrificial victims being led to the altar, they showed consideration to the man who embodied the repudiated regime, so as to immolate him with solemnity on the baptismal font of the Republic. By doing so they forgot that such consecration worked both ways. Everything was in place to transform the victim into a martyr. –Simone Bertière, The Indomitable Marie Antoinette
Share

No comments: