Tea at Trianon: Desmond Doss

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

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Desmond Doss

The hero behind the fabulous film Hacksaw Ridge. From Vintage News:

During the Battle of Okinawa, the fighting took place on the Maeda Escarpment in April 1945. The battlefield was located on top of a sheer 400-foot steep cliff which was nicknamed Hacksaw Ridge. The battalion had to climb on the top of the cliff and face a deadly network of Japanese machine guns and traps. After a horrifying battle, the battalion was ordered to retreat and Doss was the only one who stayed behind because he didn’t want to leave his fallen friends to suffer. Alone, he carried his wounded comrades to the edge of the cliff and one by one he lowered them down to safety. Singlehandedly, he saved the lives of 75 soldiers. Doss was evacuated from Okinawa on May 21, 1945, aboard the USS Mercy. (Read more.)