Tea at Trianon: Unless We Turn Back to God

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, August 19, 2017

Unless We Turn Back to God

From Matt Walsh:

We are divided as a people. I’d say we’re even more divided now than we were during the run up to the (first?) Civil War. At least back then the two sides had some very fundamental things in common. They believed in God, they loved their families, they cared about virtue and valor.

These days, you can’t get a consensus on anything. Forget about living in two separate countries — we’re living in two separate universes. Hundreds of different universes, really. I have little in common with a modern leftist, but I have even less in common with an alt-right neo-Nazi. Who is on my side? I don’t even know anymore. We’re all strangers to each other. Even as men met on the battlefield in 1862 and visited horrific violence upon on another, there existed a mutual respect, a sense of honor, and similarity. We have no respect for one another. We laugh at the concept of honor. We laugh at all that is good and decent. We laugh at each other. We hate each other. That seems to be the only thing we have in common. (Read more.)

julygirl said...: Those of us who are old enough to remember the Viet Nam War protests witnessed the conflict and division that was rampant in this Country. Protests are not new and can even be traced back to George Washington's presidency. As I mentioned in a previous Blog comment, during the Viet Nam War protests 4 young people on the campus of Kent State University were shot to death by other young people who belonged to our U.S. National Guard forces. Our Country survived these protests without a civil War. Unfortunately and sadly protests often become violent. But if you will note from the film footage most of the protestors on both sides were young males and many arrived in full body protection because they were intent on creating violence. As Samuel Johnson remarked back in the 1700's, we have a right to our opinions and others have a right to not agree with them. To me this talk of 'civil war' does nothing to ease tensions between various factions. Getting to the root of who is creating the violence is much more useful.; August 19, 2017 at 2:50:00 PM EDT