Tea at Trianon: Russia Comes Clean

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, April 21, 2010

Russia Comes Clean

About one atrocity, at least.

Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, was waiting there to pay his nation’s respects – and atone – for the terrible Soviet crime at Katyn.

In 1939, Stalin and Hitler invaded and partitioned Poland. Stalin sought to wipe out Poland’s national identity. The Soviet dictator ordered the NKVD secret police to murder 22,000 Polish officers, intellectuals and political figures at Katyn.

Soviets propaganda blamed this crime on the Nazis. The truth was only revealed in 1989 by Russia’s late president, Boris Yeltsin. One wonders how many other Nazi "crimes" were committed by the Soviets.

lara77 said...: The poor Polish people; situated between the Germans and the Russians. Their history is so tragic; yet as with Ireland their faith sustained the people throughout the centuries. This crime that Stalin ordered reminds me of the violence in the Vendee. Though, the French were a bit more "creative" in their approach to mass murder!; April 22, 2010 at 10:37:00 AM EDT