Tea at Trianon: Saint Valentine's Day

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there 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 a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Saint Valentine's Day

Saint Valentine was an actual martyr. Here is a link to the Carmelite shrine of Saint Valentine, in Dublin, Ireland.

This morning I was perusing Michelle Lovric's exquisite anthology Love Letters and found a line from a letter of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to her husband Robert Browning: "You have lifted up my soul into the light of your soul, and I am not ever likely to mistake it for the common daylight." Beautiful. People really knew how to express affection in those days. I then went in search of her poems, still incomparable after so many years. Here is the most famous one:

Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sonnets from the Portuguese

XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

elena maria vidal said...: And to you, too, dear! Yes, it is cold and snowing here. Two feet, at least.

Have you ever seen the film "The Barretts of Wimpole street," about Elizabeth and Robert? It stars Jennifer Jones who was in the "Song of Bernadette." I need to add it to my Favorite Films list.; February 14, 2007 at 11:12:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...: Yes, "The Barrets of Wimpole Street" was a powerful film depicting the twisted authoritarianism of a Victorian age parent. However, films of that nautre encouraged rebellion in me as a teenager to any parental authority, and likely affected others of my era in the same way. I am from the 'goody goody', generation of the 50's, but we fomented the rebellion that exploded on the cultural seen in the 60's.; February 16, 2007 at 4:19:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...: I can't picture it being Jennifer Jones in the Barretts of Wimpole Street. Are you sure about that?; February 16, 2007 at 7:29:00 AM EST
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, it was she, with Bill Travers as Robert Browning. Norma Shearer played in the 1937 version.; February 16, 2007 at 7:56:00 AM EST