Tea at Trianon: While Europe Slept

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, August 3, 2007

While Europe Slept

The New Oxford Review provides some interesting book reviews, including one on Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within.

Also via the NOR is an article about how one of Queen Elizabeth's grandsons may lose his place in the line of succession if he marries a Catholic. Share

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: +JMJ+

Reacting to the second article:

So adultery just may be rewarded with a crown, but a valid union before the eyes of God and man will be punished with removal from the line of succession?

Hmmmmmmm . . .; August 3, 2007 at 10:59:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, it's pretty twisted.; August 3, 2007 at 11:10:00 AM EDT
Anonymous said...: Then I guess the thing to do is marry who The Queen and Duke say you can marry then commit adultery on the side.; August 4, 2007 at 8:44:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: No, I don't think so....; August 6, 2007 at 11:48:00 AM EDT