Tea at Trianon: Pompei Restored

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

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Pompei Restored

From Smithsonian:

At one point, Unesco even threatened to list the site as one “at risk of destruction” reports the AAP. After the House of Gladiators collapsed under heavy rain in 2010, the European Union stepped in and invested $105 million euros (about $142 million at the time) for renovations. Since the project has come under new mangement, Pompeii has made “excellent progress,” according to an Unesco inspector's March 2015 report.

With the first public display of the workers efforts, the tone has now shifted to one of optimism. “We made news with the collapses, now we are making news with restoration,” said Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi during the unveiling last week, reports the Associated Press. “These are houses of extraordinary importance, because they show a very original and particular cross section of life during ancient Pompeii," Antonio Irlando, president of Cultural Heritage Observer, tells the Associated Press. (Read more.)