Tea at Trianon: Children and Friends

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, November 11, 2017

Children and Friends

From Return to Order:

People forget that education involves not only the imparting of knowledge to children. Education above all consists of the building of character that will prepare children for the hardships of life. The time in school should be spent helping the boy develop the certainties that will guide him for his whole life. The girl develops those qualities and charms that will be with her for her lifetime. Childhood games teach valuable social and negotiating skills to the young. Forming friendships of all intensities is part of the learning process. Youth should be a time of carefree and chaste pleasures that gradually prepare the child to assume hardship and responsibilities. Children need their time of innocence to develop a non-cynical worldview that will guide them throughout their lives. (Read more.)