Tea at Trianon: France and the Decline of the West

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, December 18, 2018

France and the Decline of the West

From The Federalist:

While protests and car-burnings are actually common in France, what’s happening now is much worse than usual and will not go away anytime soon. What observers should know is that this is not about fuel prices or Macron’s incompetence; this is about the fall of the West. People have long complained of France losing its soul by becoming a secularized, progressive, socialist welfare state shortly after two miserable losses in the two world wars. After being known for its fine arts, beautiful landscapes, rich Catholic tradition, genius philosophers and scientists, and famous monuments, people now see France as a stagnant irrelevant pool of decadence (this descent is captured well in Thomas Merton’s description of the country in Seven Storey Mountain). It is the land of nasty writers like Celine and Michel Houellebecq, nasty singers like Serge Gainsbourg, and nasty architecture like the Musee de Pompidou. All the same, most Frenchmen didn’t seem to mind this decline as long as they could have shorter workweeks and socialized health care. (Read more.)

From Brigitte Gabriel at Townhall:

As world leaders recently gathered in France to celebrate the centurion anniversary of the ending to World War I, French President Emmanuel Macron took it upon himself to attack President Trump, warning about the dangers of so-called “nationalism.” The arrogance of a Western world leader using such a unifying event to attack the elected leader of one of his nation’s closest allies aside, Macron would’ve done well to keep his own house in order before lending advice.

Just weeks later, Paris was ablaze with violent mobs attacking police and vandalizing some of France’s most precious historical sites. The world-famous Arc de Triomphe was laced with graffiti by a generation poisoned and brainwashed with socialist ideology, never satisfied with what their government could give them.

France spent decades pushing the same anti-nationalist ideology on its citizens, glorifying the European Union and heavily taxing the wealthy to give to the poor. Combine this with France’s decades of open borders, reluctance to celebrate their own rich culture, Western values and contributions to the world, and you get an angry, self-loathing and even violent citizenry. Suddenly there’s no more wealth to tax, no more jobs to hand out and no more national identity.

Socialism has never worked in any part of the world in the entire history of civilization. Its consistent destruction of wealth, freedom and democracy has proven to be a recipe for national suicide. Combined with the open border policies that France embraced, you won’t just get poverty and civil unrest, but terrorism as well.

When I was a little girl, Beirut was dubbed “Paris of the Middle East.” Today, Paris is the Middle East of Europe and the “city of love,” has turned into the “city of chaos.” Decades of un-fettered immigration from the Middle East and North Africa has birthed sharia-ridden “no-go zones” and horrific terrorist attacks from the Charlie Hebdo massacre to the Paris bombings of 2015. (Read more.)

From Royal Central:

The ongoing “Yellow Vest” protests in Paris have increasing royalist support. Several groups from different fractions of the French monarchist movement have demonstrated against the current government. During the early demonstrations, a royalist flag was spotted, and many called out for the restoration of the French monarchy. French media and the International Monarchist Conference reported that a fraction of 200 royalists attended the protests early in December, and the number has increased over the last weeks. In addition, several Catholic groups have attended the demonstrations. Through the last weeks of demonstrations, more and more royalist symbols have been spotted in the demonstrations, mostly the flag with the Fleur-de-lis. The Fleur-de-lis was the symbol of the French monarchy during the reign until the Bonaparte dynasty. (Read more.)

From The New York Post:

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday would not rule out imposing a state of emergency as nationwide economic protests turned violent in the capital, Paris. Macron was forced to fly home from the G-20 summit in Argentina for an emergency huddle with advisers on how to quell the worst civil unrest to grip the City of Light in a decade. Thousands have taken to the streets, with some torching cars and scrawling anti-government graffiti on cultural icons such as the Arc de Triomphe.

Macron, 40, was greeted with boos and chants of “Macron resign” as he surveyed damage on the 2-century-old monument to France’s war dead Sunday. Inside the monument, the “La Marseillaise” statue by François Rude commemorating the French Revolution was defaced by protesters, who smashed a likeness of the Revolution’s allegorical icon, Marianne. Police have responded to the unrest in kind — unleashing batons and tear gas on the rock-hurling protesters. On Saturday alone, 412 people were arrested in the capital, where at least 133 injuries have been reported, including to 23 security force members. Protesters set fire to six buildings and nearly 190 blazes had to be put out across Paris, according to the French Interior Ministry. (Read more.)