Tea at Trianon: The North American Martyrs

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, October 19, 2007

The North American Martyrs

The bravest of the brave. One of the best online accounts I could find was here.

It is also the anniversary of the death of Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette at Frohsdorf in Austria in 1851. Share

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: The Iroquois certainly seemed to be infected with Satanic zeal. I have visited the site along the Mohawk river in New York and read the detailed accounts of the kind of torture suffered by the Jesuit martyrs. It surpasses anything in modern times. They WERE the bravest of the brave, and because of them the Gospel of Jesus was brought to that area, freeing the Native Americans of the dark spell of paganism they had lived under for hundreds of years.; October 19, 2007 at 9:39:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Auriesville is one of the most blessed spots on our continent.; October 19, 2007 at 9:40:00 AM EDT