Tea at Trianon: The Future Tsar Nicholas II in 1870

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, May 23, 2014

The Future Tsar Nicholas II in 1870

Via Tiny-Librarian. To quote:

You are looking into the face of a child, making eye contact across centuries. You see the play of lights on his eyes, his lashes, the patterning of the iris. He is serious, intent - perhaps a little questioning. Yet because this is a particular child - the child who will one day grow into Nicholas II, last Tsar of Russia - there is a historical irony at play here. You are aware of his future, he is not, and you are meeting him at a moment when the tragedy of the revolutionary years was beyond imagining. It might still have been prevented. He stares into the camera lens over 130 years ago. The camera and the photographer are long gone but the child lives on, his gaze captured on a frail piece of paper as if it were here and now. ~from The Camera and the Tsars by Charlotte Zeepvat.

julygirl said...: I do not know if it is because I already know what was to happen, but his face seems to emanate the sorrow and tragedy that is yet to come not only to Mother Russia but to the entire western world.; May 23, 2014 at 8:12:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: I totally agree!; May 23, 2014 at 9:02:00 PM EDT
Centauro said...: Sin querer lo vemos a traves de los ojos de la historia. Un precioso niño angelical en todo su candor.
Totalmente de acuerdo contigo...; July 29, 2023 at 10:52:00 AM EDT