Tea at Trianon: Heartbroken

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 11, 2018

Heartbroken

A woman died trying to follow her Savior by showing mercy to the poor. From CBN:

Police are still looking for the suspects in the stabbing death of a woman in East Baltimore. Jacquelyn Smith, 52, was stabbed and killed early last Saturday when she rolled down her car window to help a woman holding what appeared to be a baby and a sign asking for help. Outrage over Smith's senseless murder has spread across the country....

Smith, an electrical engineer, and her husband, Keith, were driving in Baltimore around 12:30 am after a night of celebrating their daughter's 28th birthday party. The couple noticed a woman in need holding a sign that read, "Please help me feed my baby." When Smith, who was in the front passenger seat, rolled down her window to give money to the woman, an unknown man walked up to the car, reached inside and tried to steal her wallet. Police say there was a struggle and that's when the man pulled out a knife and stabbed Smith in the torso. He then ran away with the woman who had been holding the sign.

"He snatched her necklace and before I knew it, the girl snatched the lil' pocketbook in the seat and they both ran," recalled Smith's husband. "I jumped out the car to run, but I heard my wife screaming. I came back to the car." (Read more.)