Tea at Trianon: Empress Elizabeth of Russia and the Death Penalty

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, January 24, 2012

Empress Elizabeth of Russia and the Death Penalty

The daughter of Peter the Great tried to continue her father's reforms.

Elizabeth was worried that abolishing the death penalty, with the fear such a punishment inspires, would increase the numbers of crimes committed. But that wasn't the only reason that held her back. Elizabeth was the only one who wanted to abolish the death penalty. The Synod would happily have released the Empress from her promise, and even the Russian people wouldn't understand why she wanted to give mercy to criminals. The Senate too was against it. They had just approved a law that, in addition to the usual forms of death penalty (including burying alive, drowning and even forcing people to drink liquid metals), recommended two new ones: hanging by the rib and being torn apart by horses. The Empress refused to approve that law. (Read entire post.)

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