Tea at Trianon: "Dracula" and the Battle of Belgrade

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

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

"Dracula" and the Battle of Belgrade

Without the dreadful Vlad the Impaler, the crucial battle would not have been won.

Yes, Dracula—or, more precisely, Vlad III the Impaler, who is better known to history by the dreaded name. Pope Callixtus III added the Feast of the Transfiguration to the calendar to celebrate the important victory of the Hungarian nobleman Janos Hunyadi and the elderly priest St. John of Capistrano at the Siege of Belgrade in July 1456. Breaking the siege, their troops reinforced the Christians at Belgrade, the Muslim Turks were routed, and Islam was stopped from advancing further into Europe.

With the exception of St. John of Capistrano, Hunyadi could find no significant allies to accompany him to Belgrade, but he did enlist the help of young prince Vlad, who agreed to guard the passes into Rumania, thus cutting off the Turk. Without his aid, the battle might not have been won. (Read entire post.)