Tea at Trianon: The Assassins

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

Sunday, July 11, 2010

The Assassins

Those who tried to kill Napoleon but ended up murdering innocent people instead. Share

2 comments:

May said...: I'm not a fan of Napoleon (as you know), but I don't think I approve of assassination in general, and certainly not of killing innocents in the process.; July 11, 2010 at 1:12:00 PM EDT
lara77 said...: Joseph de Limoelan was a very attractive man by the drawing on your website. I guess I will never understand what drove him to kill so many innocents. I realize his hatred of Bonaparte but he must have realized all the innocents that would suffer when his bomb went off.I thought of the men who tried to kill Hitler ; they too failed and were tortured and murdered for their deed. Would history say they were heroes if they killed Hitler? How many lives could have been saved? If Napoleon had been killed before his invasions of Europe. A hero? Interesting questions.; July 12, 2010 at 9:50:00 AM EDT