Tea at Trianon: Georg Ritter von Trapp

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 31, 2012

Georg Ritter von Trapp

A hero for liberty.

Many people have probably heard of Captain Ritter von Trapp because of the hugely successful film "The Sound of Music", but not many may be aware of the whole story of this upstanding man and devoted son of Austria. Georg Ritter von Trapp was born on April 4, 1880 in the coastal city of Zara, what is today Zadar, Croatia but what was then a Hungarian port, part of the Hapsburg Empire of Austria-Hungary. The son of a navy captain, the sea was in his blood from the very beginning. He listened to his father's stories of naval adventure all his life and eventually attended the Naval Academy and became an officer in the Imperial and Royal Navy of Austria-Hungary, first seeing service in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China where he earned his first combat decoration. (Read entire post.)

Titus said...: He has a very readable little memoir of his service as a U-boat captain.; January 31, 2012 at 8:55:00 AM EST
Hans Georg Lundahl said...: Thank you for linking to Amazon!

He left earthly cares same year as ma was born, 1947, and 40 years later his second wife Maria von Trapp, née Kutschera, passed away when I was finishing secondary high school with declared intent of converting to Catholicism.

Also, Sound of Music is a very good musical (despite Mons. Williamson's assessment) and based on a very lovely book. Nice to know her husband also left some writing!; May 31, 2012 at 8:29:00 AM EDT