Tea at Trianon: St. Clothilde: Icon of Christian Motherhood

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

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

St. Clothilde: Icon of Christian Motherhood

I missed her feast, earlier this month, but Cause de Joie has an article about the Queen of the Franks who oversaw the baptism of a nation. When Clothilde came to France as a bride it was a pagan land; by the time she died it had become the Eldest Daughter of the Church. Share

3 comments:

Hans Georg Lundahl said...: You mean: when St Chlotilde came to the Franks, they were a Pagan population. Did they anywhere have their own land totally without Christian subjects, I wonder?; November 9, 2010 at 9:18:00 AM EST
elena maria vidal said...: I have no idea.; November 9, 2010 at 9:18:00 AM EST
Hans Georg Lundahl said...: I do have a very exact idea.

Maybe the extreme North, bordering Frisians, was without Roman, Christian subjects. BUT most of their territory even when St Remigius baptised Chlodevechus they were first an occupation force, then recognised as new administration by same St Remigius. St Genevieve was born as daughter of a Roman official in Nemetodurum (Nanterre), and that is not a Germanic name, even though her own name seems to be of Germanic inspiration or even a clear Germanic name. So, King and new army spoke Frankish (far off grandparent to Kölsch, Rhein-FRänkisch, Letzebürgsch, et c), but ruled mostly Roman, Christians, Catholics.; October 12, 2011 at 1:50:00 PM EDT