Tea at Trianon: On the Trail of Annie Oakley

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, July 16, 2013

On the Trail of Annie Oakley

Always a lady. To quote:

There are endless Oakley myths, but it's probable that 15-year-old Annie beat stage marksman, Frank Butler, in a match held on Thanksgiving Day 1875 in a suburb of Cincinnati. By most accounts, Annie married Frank in 1876, but didn't shoot in his act until 1882 -- a period sometimes called Annie's "missing years." When she and Frank joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1885, the seeds of Annie's legend took root, and today she's revered as the greatest marksman our country has ever produced. Paradoxically, the private Annie Oakley Butler was a genteel woman who remained true to her Quaker roots and who reveled in her reputation as "the peerless lady wing-shot," emphasis on lady. (Read entire article.)