Tea at Trianon: My Third Novel

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

Saturday, July 28, 2007

My Third Novel

When I was in Lourdes in 1994, I visited the castle on the hill overlooking the town, and was fascinated to discover that it had once been a Cathar fortress. I went to the Lourdes public library to do more research. (The library is in the former rectory, where St. Bernadette visited Fr. Peyramale.) I became inspired to write a novel about a young Catholic girl having to live surrounded by Cathars. I had studied the Cathars a bit in graduate school and so already had a list of sources to consult. Eventually, I came up with a story which took the form of a short novel for young adults, called Soon Will Come the Dawn. Those who have read the entire manuscript have really enjoyed it. However, it has given me no end of trouble and I am in the process of editing it again. I will post portions of it here as I go along. Share