Tea at Trianon: Saving the Culture

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

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Saving the Culture

From BusinessMirror:

It may be considered a contradiction of sorts that the American Revolution and War for Independence would have reached perhaps a different outcome if King Louis XVI of France had not forked over to American patriots guns, goons and gold in what today may amount to as much as $20 billion.

This extraordinary expense—along with a social and financial meltdown caused by, among other things, the Seven Years’ War with Britain, harvest wipeouts and rumors that Marie Antoinette was gambling away the kingdom’s coffers by buying diamonds—led to the French Revolution that raged from 1789 to 1799 and the guillotine for “Louis the Baker” and his Hapsburg wife, who was thought by many to be nothing more than an “Austrian whore.”

Later, the new France, reeling from the transition from absolute monarchy to democracy, would sent a representative to study how it could further help America, or how it could save itself. The visitor toured the former British colony for around two years and gave an eyewitness account back home.

His name was Alexis de Tocqueville, and he had a glowing report now compiled into a book, Democracy in America, which is preferred reading for those embarking on a political career in the democratic tradition. Tocqueville said America was like a lifeboat brimming with humanity. He could have mused that it was a piece of flotsam, a bite of floating wreckage teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown on the high seas. (Read more.)