Tea at Trianon: A Nation's Icon

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, February 21, 2012

A Nation's Icon

Westminster Abbey.

Within the heart of London resides the presence of the contemporary British monarchy that only echoes that of England’s prime, its medieval era. Within this period, such things like the Tower of London, the War of the Roses, and the many wives of Henry VIII come to the minds of those who know the basics of England’s past, but there is one aspect of this time that most everyone has heard of around the world; Westminster Abbey. Being a church with a decadent history of both art and monarchy, it is one of the most important and well known structures that exist in Europe. Resplendent as the Abbey appears today, one needs to understand its humble beginnings and development during the Middle Ages within the historical context of its time in order to have a true sense of its grandeur and impact on the nation of England. (Read entire article.)