Tea at Trianon: A Living Hell

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

Friday, July 13, 2018

A Living Hell

Pray for Nigeria. From The Christian Post:

Nigerian Christians were have been displaced by the thousands due to mass slaughter in the villages surrounding Jos in Plateau state are in a "living hell" and agony, a watchdog group assisting the victims said. "The displaced Christians were in a pathetic situation," an Open Doors USA worker, identified as Kerrie, said on Tuesday. "Life has become a living hell for them. They have lost loved ones, houses, and all they labored for in the twinkling of an eye. The agony they are going through is hard to describe.

"We saw people who were still in a haze over what they have just gone through. Children were crying hysterically, perhaps because of hunger or perhaps because of hunger and the trauma."

Open Doors, which along with some indigenous churches is helping bring aid to the people in the area, estimates that at least 3,000 believers were displaced by the slaughter of over 200 people in a series of raids at the end of June. Christian leaders in Nigeria have said that as many as 6,000 people, mostly women and children, have been killed by Muslim Fulani herdsmen since the start of the year. (Read more.)