Tea at Trianon: General Grant's Anti-Semitism

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

Thursday, November 1, 2007

General Grant's Anti-Semitism

I did not know anything about this, but now I do, thanks to Fr. Jim Tucker. To quote:

We sometimes forget that the Old South was remarkably cosmopolitan for the time and that the Confederacy had Jews, Catholics, immigrants, and Indians among its supporters. I touched on Dixie's forgotten multi-culturalism in this old post.

Anonymous said...: In a wonderful semi-historical novel written by the famous author Stephen Birmingham, who is Jewish, he documents cases of 'Jewish peddlers' walking the whole south in the early 1800's with packs on their backs selling their goods. This was the beginning of enterprising Jews who settled in the South. In a fascinating recent TV series called "The States" there is a section in the presentation on Mississippi about the 'Jews of Mississippi.' Having grown up in Alabama, I do not recall any instances of anti-semitism. There was more tension between the various Christian sects, such as Protestant/Catholic, and Southerners did not like Italians, possibly because of the Catholic connection.; November 1, 2007 at 11:43:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Interesting!!; November 4, 2007 at 6:00:00 PM EST