Tea at Trianon: InsideCatholic Book Circle

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

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

InsideCatholic Book Circle

Ron Hansen's novel Exiles is being discussed at InsideCatholic. All are invited to participate. I have finished the book but am still gathering my thoughts about it. It started out beautifully, loaded with historical detail and poetic descriptions about Gerard Manley Hopkins' experiences with Jesuits. Towards the end it took a prosaic course and started reading more like a biography. It entwines the writing of Hopkins' poem "The Wreck of the Deutschland" with the stories of five German nuns whose lives were lost in the sea disaster. They die a violent death; Hopkins' death is slower but, like the nuns' final end, is caused indirectly by his consecration of himself in the religious life. The novel delves into the heart of self-offering to God and the utter immolation that is the result. Share