Tea at Trianon: Jerusalem and Babylon

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, November 14, 2014

Jerusalem and Babylon

From Vultus Christi:

From the Exposition of Psalm 63 by St Augustine, Bishop & Doctor

The Israelites were taken captive and transported from the city of Jerusalem to a life of servitude in Babylon. The holy man Jeremiah, however, prophesied that seventy years later they should return from captivity and the city of Jerusalem, over whose fall into enemy hands he had lamented, should be restored. At that time there were Prophets among the captive people in Babylon, and one of these was Ezekiel. The people were looking forward to the end of the seventy years predicted by Jeremiah: and indeed when the seventy years were up, the majority of the people did return and the Temple which had been destroyed was rebuilt. But since the Apostle says: “These things happened to them as a warning, and were written down as a lesson for us upon whom the end of the ages has come,” we too must first be aware of our captivity and then of our liberation; we must be aware of Babylon, where we are enslaved, and of the Jerusalem, to which we long to return.

Consider the names of these two cities, Babylon and Jerusalem. Babylon means “confusion”, Jerusalem “vision of peace”; now take note of the city of confusion in order to understand the vision of peace. You endure the former while you long for the latter. How can these two cities be told apart? Can we possibly separate them from one another in this world? They are intermingled; they have been from the very origin of the human race, and shall remain so until the end of time. What proof have we now then that they are intermingled? The Lord will make it plain when he places some at his right hand and others at his left; Jerusalem will be on his right, Babylon on his left. Jerusalem will hear him say: “Come, you who have my Father’s blessing, take possession of the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” Babylon will hear: “Depart into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Read more.)