Tea at Trianon: Violation

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

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Violation

The royal tombs were despoiled at Saint Denis in 1793, at the height of the French Revolution. The long dead kings, queens and their families were torn from their tombs for being "oppressors" of the people. In so many ways, the French Revolution was a blueprint for future Communists. (Via Vive la Reine.) Share

1 comment:

lara77 said...: The French love to talk about 1789 but never want to discuss the Reign of Terror. The desecration at St Denis of the royal tombs truly showed the depth of depravity of the leaders of the French Revolution. How truly vile, amoral and repugnant was this act of desecration and destruction. America's revolution and Britain's Glorious Revolution never sunk to the level of depravity of the French Revolution. What a permanent stain on the soul of France.; June 30, 2014 at 7:27:00 AM EDT