Tea at Trianon: The Empire of Brazil

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

Friday, July 29, 2011

The Empire of Brazil

What it was and where it went. There is a strong monarchist movement in Brazil so I find the following reflections to be very interesting:

The Emperor was an enlightened ruler, anxious to promote the development of his country, and keenly interested in the scientific and technical developments of his age. This brought him during his incognito visit to Europe in 1871 to visit the sinking of a new colliery a few miles from my home town. As a result it was named in his honour the Dom Pedro with the result that for the next century or so the Emperor of Brazil was commemorated by a coal mine on the outskirts of the small town of Normanton, between Pontefract and Wakefield.

That however is not the limit to my interest in this remarkable ruler, who deserves better recognition, both for what he achieved and for what his empire might have achieved had it not been overthrown. (Read entire blog post.)