Tea at Trianon: Thinking Blogger Award

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

Author Susan Higginbotham has been kind enough to honor me with the "Thinking Blogger Award" (more information here.) Susan has written a historical novel about King Edward II and knows everything about the Plantagenets. I have learned a great deal from her and the other writers who post on her blog about the art of writing historical fiction. Like me, they value the medium of the historical novel and have a high standard for accuracy and authenticity. I nominate Susan in return and some other blogs as well. I am limited to five choices, which is difficult, since there are so many blogs I read everyday that have fascinating and interesting things to say.

Here are five blogs which make me think:

Vultus Christi by Don Marco

The Western Confucian by Josue Andreas

Under the Gables by Linda

Potpourri

Reading, Raving, and Ranting by Susan Higginbotham Share