Tea at Trianon: Is History Repeating Itself?

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, April 29, 2010

Is History Repeating Itself?

Did a volcanic eruption in Iceland in 1783 precipitate the economic and agrarian disasters which helped to bring about the French Revolution? According to Euronews:

A French historian says it has happened before.

Emmanuel Garnier argues that a volcanic eruption in Iceland in 1783 brought freak weather conditions in Europe that indirectly led to the French Revolution.

“Without a doubt, repeated episodes of eruptions, droughts and floods across Europe played a not insignificant role,” he said. “In France, in particular, in July 1788, there was a storm which destroyed all the main regions which produced wheat for Paris. The next year, in May 1789 to be precise, just at the beginning of the Revolution, we see that the first revolts were not outside Versailles, but outside the bakeries. And that is no coincidence.”

Brantigny said...: Yes! This effect was taken advantage of by the Philosophes, using the plight of a normally happy people by accusing themonarchy of not helping their subjects. "Never waste a good crisis" was the mantra of the Jacobins, long before Rahm Emanuel.
The mob is so easily led, then and now...; April 29, 2010 at 9:02:00 AM EDT
Julygirl said...: The weather has certainly had an historical effect on events past and present.; April 29, 2010 at 10:27:00 AM EDT