Tea at Trianon: Survivors of the Gulag

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

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Survivors of the Gulag

Paula has an amazing post about the survivors of the Romanian gulag on her new blog about those who suffered under Communism in the 20th century.

One ex-inhabitant of that horrific space said: "I was kept here for three days, chained by the wall." I wonder how could one last three days there without going mad. Or without simply dying out of cold and despair. Later I learned that others had to endure there for months…. Share

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: thank you for the support Elena. Coming from you it means so much for me.

English is not my native language...I hope that I did not make too many mistakes.; May 17, 2007 at 3:05:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Your English is better than mine, dear.; May 17, 2007 at 3:06:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: Must be the effect of my Doktorvater (PhD supervisor).

He is German but he criticized my writing in English bitterly.:-)

Thank you.; May 17, 2007 at 3:14:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Oh, but sometimes such criticism can help us to excel.; May 17, 2007 at 3:20:00 PM EDT