Tea at Trianon: St. Maria Goretti in Chicago

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

Saturday, October 17, 2015

St. Maria Goretti in Chicago

From Regina Magazine:

Alessandro himself had been born into a family well acquainted with poverty and hardship. Shortly after he was born, his own mother attempted to drown him. Several months later, while in a mental asylum, she died. His brother would also be subsequently interned in an asylum, where he also died.

Alessandro’s father, Giovanni, was an alcoholic who moved his family multiple times trying to earn a living as a manual laborer. Unfortunately, his alcoholism prevented his holding down a job for very long. While working as a sharecropper near Ancona, he’d met Luigi Goretti and they’d decided to attempt to work as a team. It was Count Mazzoleni, a wealthy nobleman who owned much land around Le Ferriere, who’d agreed to hire them both as sharecroppers. He provided a building to house the Gorettis on one side and the two Serenellis on the other, the two living quarters being separated by a common kitchen.

But when Luigi Goretti died, Giovanni Serenelli sank deeper into alcoholism. His son Alessandro, in turn, became increasingly reclusive and withdrawn. (Read more.)