Tea at Trianon: Pope Clement X's Letter to Mary of Modena

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

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Pope Clement X's Letter to Mary of Modena

The Holy Father persuades the Italian Princess to marry the Catholic Duke of York, the future James II. From Nobility:

Dear daughter in Christ, noble Damsel, greeting etc. Since the design of the Duke of York to contract alliance with your Nobility reached our ears, We return thanks to the Father of Mercies who, knowing our solicitude for His Glory, is preparing for us, in the Kingdom of England an ample harvest of joy. Considering, in effect, the influence of your virtues, We easily conceived a firm hope that an end might come to the persecution still smoldering in that kingdom and that the orthodox faith, reinstated by you in a place of honor might recover the splendor and security of former days, an effect which no exterior power could accomplish and which might become due to the victory of your piety, the inheritance of your eminently religious family. You can therefore easily understand, dear daughter in Christ, the anxiety which filled Us when We were informed of your repugnance for marriage. For although we understood that it arose from a desire, most laudable in itself, to embrace religious discipline, reflecting that in the present occasion it opposes itself to the progress of religion, we were nevertheless sincerely grieved. (Read more.)

May said...: A very touching letter, though sadly the princess was not able to do as she would have wished for the English Catholics.; September 30, 2014 at 9:00:00 PM EDT