Tea at Trianon: The Bombing of Nagasaki

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

Monday, August 6, 2007

The Bombing of Nagasaki

Nagasaki was not originally the primary target. An eye-opening and disturbing article, which tells how the Catholic Cathedral in Nagasaki came to be at the epicenter of the blast. Share

5 comments:

Terry Nelson said...: The responsorial psalm for today's feast reads;

"The mountains melt like wax before the Lord..."; August 6, 2007 at 12:47:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: don't believe everything you read...; August 6, 2007 at 9:12:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: meaning, of course, that it makes it sound like a complete conspiracy against Catholics...; August 6, 2007 at 9:14:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Not at all, Frank, but as the article says, the pilot was looking through the clouds for his target. He saw the spires of the Cathedral and dropped the bomb. I have read of this elsewhere, too. In the cathedral were small children preparing for their first Holy Communion. The Japanese Catholics saw themselves as an offering for peace. The articles Lew Rockwell provides are very reliable, historically.

Yes, Terry, and in this case it was people who melted like wax.; August 6, 2007 at 9:22:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: Put that way it sounds better. I just understood the article in a different way.

Thanks !; August 7, 2007 at 4:05:00 PM EDT