Tea at Trianon: Blair to Brussels?

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, January 17, 2008

Blair to Brussels?

John Laughland on Tony Blair and politics as escapism.

The politician in history who Blair most closely resembles is Oliver Cromwell. Both profoundly religious men, the religion of both men seems to consist mainly in their belief that they are themselves instruments of divine providence. Just as Cromwell leant over the body of the dead King Charles I and muttered “Cruel necessity!” – as if he himself had not strained every fibre to engineer the military coup d’état which created the Rump Parliament and the kangaroo court which tried the king – so Blair, when confronted with his own lies over Iraq, preferred not to reply but to say only that God would be his judge. In the mouth of a hereditary Christian monarch, that would be a laudable reply; but it completely incompatible with the dogmas of democracy to which Blair claims to adhere. According to the rules of democracy, indeed, it is the people who judge politicians, not God.

Anonymous said...: It can be scary when a politian thinks of himself an instrument of God, because, who but himself,is going to define for him what God wants. The will of the people is ignored and has no value in his/her eyes.; January 17, 2008 at 11:50:00 AM EST
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, Cousin John really hit the nail on the head.; January 17, 2008 at 12:19:00 PM EST