Tea at Trianon: The Destruction of Cluny

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

Friday, January 24, 2014

The Destruction of Cluny

One of the casualties of the French Revolution. To quote:

The other day I was looking on the Internet for some pictures of the remains of the abbey at Cluny in answer to an enquiry from a friend, and as I did so I was once more struck by the enormity of the destruction of the abbey in the years after the dissolution in 1790. Having visited Cluny last year that is all the more borne in upon me. The remains are an indicator of what has been lost, and the realisation of just what was once there. The scale of the destruction is, in its own way, quite awesome. It is also profoundly shocking. This led me back to a recurring line of thought with me when confronted by such wanton destruction, that is of just how wicked it is.

It was whilst thinking along these lines in the devastated remains of the great Norman abbey at Jumièges, also a casualty of the 1790s, in 2004 that an Anglican priest friend opined to me that it is not much comfort in such places to think that the perpetrators of such vandalism must surely be in Hell, and I agreed with him.

At Cluny as a result of the demolition which begn in the 1790s and continued into the 1820s only the main south transept of what was for centuries the largest church in Christendom - and then only surpassed by St Peter's in Rome - survives intact.There is an introduction to the history of the house at the online account Cluny Abbey.

Today we often hear the phrase "crime against Humanity" about massacres and political violence, and yes, such they may indeed be, but crimes can also be committed against Humanity which do not involve the loss of human life or physical injury. There are crimes against Humanity which involve the destruction of the things of the spirit and of objects of beauty. By doing so, and the destruction of Cluny and Jumièges are classic examples, future generations are impoverished of great and wonderful things that could and no doubt would have enriched their souls and minds. This is not just loss for the art historian or the heritage-minded - it is a loss for all of Humanity. (Read more.)