Tea at Trianon: Count Raymond VII of Toulouse

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

Monday, September 23, 2024

Count Raymond VII of Toulouse

In history as in The Night's Dark Shade, one of the major players in the Albigensian crusade was Raymond VII of Toulouse. Count Raymond was the son of the notorious Raymond VI, who had almost as many wives as Henry VIII, and Joan of England. During the crusade, Raymond fought against King Louis VIII and later against Queen Blanche and the royal seneschal Imbert de Beaujeu. Eventually the French won and Raymond was prevailed upon to do public penance in Notre Dame de Paris for his support of the Cathars. According to New Advent:

Count of Toulouse, son of Raymond VI, b. at Beaucaire, 1197; d. at Milhaud, 1249; had espoused a sister of the King of Aragon, and had assisted his father in the reconquest of his estates. In January, 1224, Amaury de Montfort, reduced to the sovereignty of Narbonne, concluded a treaty with him, but ceded his rights in the south to Louis VIII of France. In vain Raymond VII offered his obeisance to the assembly of Bourges in 1226; a new Crusade was decided upon. Louis VIII seized Avignon and occupied Languedoc without resistance, but on his return to the north he died 8 Nov., 1226, at Montpensier. Raymond VII, profiting by the feebleness of Blanche of Castile, took several places from Imbert de Beaujeu, seneschal of the King of France. This success was of short duration; in 1228 new bands of crusaders began to plunder the country of Toulouse, and soon Raymond lost nearly all his strongholds. He then asked peace from Blanche of Castile. After the conference of Meaux, Raymond returned to Paris, and on 12 April, 1229, in the Church of Notre Dame, did public penance and was released from his excommunication. He pledged himself to demolish the walls of Toulouse, and to give his daughter Jeanne in marriage to Alphonse of Potiers, brother of King Louis IX. Returning to Toulouse, Raymond VII kept his promises and accepted the establishment of the Inquisition. In 1234 he went to Rome, and received from the pope the restitution of the Marquessate of Provence. In spite of his zeal in suppressing heresy, he was several times accused of favouring the massacre of the inquisitors. He allied himself with the Emperor Frederick II against the pope, then with the King of England, Henry III, against Louis IX. The victory of the latter at Taillebourg caused him to renew his oath of fealty. In 1247, as he was starting for Palestine with St. Louis, he died, leaving his estates to his daughter Jeanne.