Tea at Trianon: The Vikings Are Back!

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

Friday, June 29, 2007

The Vikings Are Back!

Not quite. But almost! I cannot think of anything more fun than riding the waves in the replica of a Viking ship! What a great summer adventure! (Thank to the LRC) Share

6 comments:

Anonymous said...: It must be the Irish in you.

It put me in the mind of the Enya song "Longships".; June 29, 2007 at 2:40:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, and I probably have some Viking blood, too, from when they raided the coast of Scotland.; June 29, 2007 at 2:48:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: A picture I took of the viking ship we had in Stockholm.

http://surl.se/boxd

Some days later, sadly, it was burned down by people up to no good...; June 30, 2007 at 10:21:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Daniel, what a wonderful photo! C'est incroyable!!; June 30, 2007 at 11:05:00 AM EDT
Anonymous said...: If y ou have viking blood it is from your Irish ancestry. when I was in Ireland I discovered that they did not just ravage an area, but settled in for hundreds of years and brought with them a certain stability of government, etc.; June 30, 2007 at 11:48:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: That's true. But on my Scottish side I am descended from the Watsons, and Watson was a Viking name.; July 1, 2007 at 8:50:00 AM EDT