Tea at Trianon: The Way of Beauty

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, November 24, 2009

The Way of Beauty

The Holy Father speaks of the Romanesque and Gothic architecture of the great medieval cathedrals as a "fascinating way to reach God." (Via Joshua Snyder)

"The works of art born in Europe in past centuries are incomprehensible if one does not take into account the religious soul that inspired them," said the Vicar of Christ, drawing attention to Europe's Christian roots. His Holiness later prayed "the Lord help us to rediscover the way of beauty as one of the ways, perhaps the most attractive and fascinating, to be able to find and love God."

Above is a sketch of the Romanesque Basilica of Saint Sernin in Toulouse where Raphaëlle, the heroine of the new novel The Night's Dark Shade, stops to pray on her way to the fête at the castle of the Hospitallers.

They entered the gates of Toulouse in the early dusk, spending the night at an inn near the basilica of Saint Sernin. In the morning they assisted at Mass in the vast cathedral. The pink brick of the octagonal steeple seemed to glow with joy in the morning light, as the bells echoed over the roofs of the city.... the finite infinity of the basilica caused her soul to soar in prayer.... The painted statues of the saints, the silken embroidered banners, the nine chapels radiating behind the apse, the billows of incense, all conspired to flood her with the hope of a better world. After Mass, she placed the colored candles she had brought with her before the altar of the Virgin and, lighting them, she prayed for a child.

~from The Night's Dark Shade by Elena Maria Vidal