Tea at Trianon: "In the Desert"

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, October 23, 2015

"In the Desert"

From Aleteia:

Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, born in 1960, philosopher of education, playwright, novelist, prolific director, is a well-known cultural figure in Europe—a transalpine mover of the culture. In the October 6 edition of Avvenire he agreed to discuss the story of his conversion, which occurred one night in 1989 in the Hoggar desert, the Sahara.

Traveling with friends, Schmitt had lost his party and ended up spending the night alone in the desert, where, he says, he experienced an all-consuming encounter with God. “To say a person is converted—to say [he] has made choice that is active and voluntary—I must admit this is not exactly what I experienced that night in the desert. Rather, I received a grace and an extraordinary gift, and I have retained within me and all about me an open space for that gift. So if you call me converted, you may define it as one that has ‘received a revelation.’

“‘Received a revelation’ is the expression that best characterizes this experience, over the word ‘conversion,'” says Schmitt, “because it admits to the surprise of the gift I received. I was not looking for God, but I knew that God was looking for me. So I had the gift of surprise, of the unexpected, and this revelation for me was just the beginning. ”

Returning to France, the playwright has spent his time reading various mystic poets of different religions. “After that revelation,” he says, “I made a journey to the discovery of the Gospel. And there’s been a very active work on my part, just to understand this text full of contradictions, within which I experienced a conversion. So in summary: in the desert, a revelation; with the Gospel, a conversion. ” (Read more.)