Tea at Trianon: Lost Abbey

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

Monday, October 28, 2013

Lost Abbey

Lost Abbey is a suspenseful young adult novel by Amanda Jones and Clinton Jones about the plight of English Catholics in the reign of James I. From Amazon:

All sisters fight, but not all sister fights threaten the family with total destruction. Susannah Hill, the youngest maid at Oldbourne Manor in 1610, knows her sister is wrong to sneak out at night. But she isn't ready for what she discovers when she spies on Mary, her beloved older sister, courting by moonlight. Mary's suitor brings a gift, and Mary keeps it secret. Unable to curb her curiosity, Susannah soon finds Mary is hiding a Holy Bible, freshly printed in English. This is fine - and legal - in Protestant England, but at Oldbourne, recusant Catholics keep their ancestors’ faith against the law. Mary has privately turned Protestant. Will she give away their secret, a secret so dangerous that it could lead to the grisly death reserved for traitors? Would Mary even endanger the life of the little sister she has nurtured since their mother died in childbirth? Will Susannah have to choose between her faith and her family?

Lost Abbey gives a balanced picture of the religious conflicts of the era from the point of view of two young girls. It shows the particular hardships visited upon those Catholics who could not afford to pay the recusant fines levied by the government. In many cases, they were faced with homelessness, beggary and imprisonment. Since families were indeed faced with utter destruction it made it easy for many to give in and join the state-sanctioned church. The fact that choices have far-reaching consequences is a strong message of the book. With vivid descriptions and multidimensional characters, it is book that shows that God's mercy never leaves us, even in the darkest moments.

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