Tea at Trianon: Unknown Catholic Genocide

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, October 19, 2014

Unknown Catholic Genocide

From Meghan Ferrara of Regina Magazine:

“A friend suggested ‘Why don’t you do the War of the Vendée?’ Jim Morlino recounts. “And I said, ‘The what?’ I’d never heard the word; I had no idea what he was talking about. That was a period of history and an event that had escaped me.”

The War of the Vendee (1793 to 1796) was an armed rebellion against the French Republican troops which resulted in a general massacre of over 100,000 Catholics – men, women and children – in the west of France. As an early modern example of revisionist history, this shocking genocide was completely whitewashed from French history, and in fact until recently denied by the French government.

[...]

Jim clarified how, despite the horrific efforts of the Infernal Columns to wipe out resistance to the Revolution and to eliminate the Catholic population, the Vendean soldiers conducted themselves with dignity and honor.

“The architects of the French Revolution knew exactly what their generals were doing, as proved by documentation which still exists in the National Archives.” Though they fought with cunning and used their knowledge of the land to their advantage, the Vendeans also treated captured Republican soldiers humanely, even when this was difficult.

On one occasion, when his soldiers wanted to exact revenge against Republican prisoners, Louis d’Elbée urged them to recite the Our Father. At the words, “forgive us our trespasses,” the Vendeans’ anger dissipated and they abandoned their plans for retribution.

Later, on his deathbed, Vendee commander Charles de Bonchamps pardoned five thousand captured Republicans. This act was commemorated by a statue designed by the French sculptor Pierre Jean David, whose father was among the pardoned.

The sacrifice of these Vendeans ensured the survival of the Faith in France. (Read more.)