Tea at Trianon: Know Thy Enemy

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

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Know Thy Enemy

Knowledge is power. Fr. Angelo Mary writes:

I have mentioned before that Catholic militancy is in the first place about the interior life and that our real adversaries are not men who are “enemies of the Church,” but principalities and powers. This can also be taken a step further. Even in the external order where Catholic Action comes into play, the greatest opposition will come from the dark powers, whether through temptation or something more extraordinary like oppression and obsession.
But I believe there is also a middle between the two. As regular readers of this blog will know, I am not a big fan of conspiracy theories. One reason for this is because I have found that in order for something that appears to be the result of a “grand scheme” to occur it is not necessary for the rich and influential to secretly meet in the middle of the night in a hidden black-curtained dungeon, or, for that matter, in a corporate board room. It is sufficient that men open themselves up to the powers of the netherworld by playing fast and loose with their spiritual life. My own experience tells me that men can effectively collaborate in nefarious schemes without even knowing that they are doing it.

Unknown said...: I could not agree more in terms of conspiracy theories. The move throughout history is certainly not of man's own making. To accept that there is a secret cabal behind everything places too much faith in mankind's own abilities. It is certainly a more acceptable approach to assume that men work together, as tools more or less, for a "greater evil"; July 17, 2010 at 11:01:00 PM EDT