Tea at Trianon: A Scholar Among Rakes

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

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

A Scholar Among Rakes

R.J. Stove reflects upon the genius of the historian Thomas Macaulay. To quote:

No historian has aroused a greater range of emotions, from deep love to wild hate....

No other writer in the English pantheon has surpassed Macaulay for sheer learning. Milton alone came close. Macaulay knew firsthand all the surviving productions of the leading Greek and Roman authors and felt bound to study them in the original languages. He also knew every major French author, contemporary or ancient. Later, he acquired enough German to read Goethe and Schiller. On the Elizabethans and their Italian contemporaries, he had wider expertise still....

The miracle is not that Macaulay made mistakes, or that he glorified King William III with a zest incredible to us today who know more about William’s political corruption and erotic perversions than Macaulay ever knew or we ever wanted to know. Rather, it is that despite his weaknesses, Macaulay remains compulsively readable and at times profound.

Gareth Russell said...: I do enjoy Macauley's readability. However, although I'm no fan of William III, I would have to say that I'm unaware of any erotic perversions on the Orange prince's part. It seems to me that the best evidence points to a bizarrely frigid character, curiously devoid of any form of sexual or carnal warmth to wife, mistress or favourite. Political corruption and self-righteous deception aplenty, however. If it were not for the matrimonial misadventures of Henry VIII, I think we would have to search long and hard for an episode in English royal history more unpleasant than the calumnies against Maria of Modena and the "warming pan baby" scandal.; December 23, 2009 at 2:49:00 PM EST