Tea at Trianon: Monaco and Lourdes

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, May 20, 2012

Monaco and Lourdes

Believe it or not, there is a connection.

The site of the vision of Our Lady of Lourdes holds a special distinction for the Princely Family of Monaco and this was not Prince Albert's first visit, nor will it be his last. Prince Albert II came to Lourdes in 2008 after the visit of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI and hopes to return again this summer with the regular pilgrimage of Monegasque faithful. His father, Prince Rainier III had gone on a pilgrimage to Lourdes to pray that Our Lady would help him find a good wife. Not long after he met and was soon married to Princess Grace who, at her confirmation, had taken as her patron St Bernadette, the little visionary of Lourdes so, it seemed, the hand of the Holy Mother had brought the two together and Lourdes has remained important to the House of Grimaldi ever since. (Read entire post.)