Tea at Trianon: "I Will Defend"

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

Thursday, February 14, 2019

"I Will Defend"

From Michael Knowles:

On Saturday, the U.S. Navy commissioned the USS Michael Monsoor, a Zumwalt-class destroyer and the most technologically advanced ship in our nation’s fleet. The sublime vessel offers a fitting tribute to its namesake, the late Navy SEAL who gave his life to protect teammates and Iraqi soldiers during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2006. The ship’s crest depicts a sword held in the winged hand and arm of St. Michael the Archangel, patron of warriors, after whom the devoutly Catholic Michael Monsoor was named. The ship’s motto reads, “I will defend.”

Throughout his brief and distinguished career, Monsoor did just that. On May 9, 2006, Petty Officer Monsoor leapt to the aid of a fellow SEAL who had been wounded in action and exposed to machine gun fire on the streets of Ramadi, Iraq. With no regard for his own life, Monsoor dragged his wounded comrade to safety while simultaneously carrying a 100-pound rucksack and firing a heavy machine gun to fend off their attackers. This act of gallantry and intrepidity in action earned him the Silver Star. (Read more.)