Tea at Trianon: "Alas They Have No Other Mound"

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, November 6, 2011

"Alas They Have No Other Mound"

Proh Dolor illis non tumulus alter. From Vive la Reine. A 1793 Royalist stamp commemorating the deaths and missing graves of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. The bodies of the King and Queen were later recovered in 1814, after the Restoration. Share

4 comments:

The North Coast said...: They had no graves, but what does that mean? The are many other and better ways of commemorating a life than by a tombstone or pretentious, expensive crypt.

Marie Antoinette and her husband don't need such things. They are remembered and at last appreciated for the lovely people they were.

I feel that a person's body is only his earthly home, and once he or she is out of it, it is nothing but a biohazard, something that will go back to the earth from which it came, and which it's almost barbarous to dwell on. I have directed my own to be disposed of as cheaply, ecologically, and expeditiously as possible, through cremation, and so has everyone else in my family. Scatter the ashes on a garden to help something beautiful grow, or on Edgewater Beach.

You wouldn't spend $20K on some useless frippery for me while I'm alive, I told them, so please don't do it when I'm dead.

You can bet that these two have gone to a place where a pile of discarded bones doesn't mean a thing. They surely don't care what has become of their poor, sad remains.; November 6, 2011 at 9:57:00 PM EST
elena maria vidal said...: Their bodies were later recovered and are now buried at Saint Denis in Paris. But initially, they were thrown on a mass grave, and it was hard for their family and faithful subjects not to know where. In those days, people liked to visit grave sites and pray for the departed.; November 6, 2011 at 10:05:00 PM EST
lara77 said...: I recently read that the Cathedral of Saint Denis is surrounded by a totally Muslim community. A young French schoolgirl complained that the Muslim students in her class refused to visit or step into the Cathedral;infidels were buried there. How do you study the history of France without studying the foundations of Christianity and monarchy? THIS is what the republic has given France. What a total disgrace.; November 7, 2011 at 8:33:00 AM EST
May said...: North Coast, I understand you have a different point of view, but the body is traditionally important to Catholics because it is seen as a former temple of the Holy Ghost as well as the instrument of a person's sanctification. In the case of saints and martyrs, it is believed that God, in order to honor the saint, will listen especially to prayers offered at the resting place of the saint's remains or other relics. Hence the emphasis on burial places.; December 5, 2011 at 1:22:00 PM EST