Tea at Trianon: Prayers — and Royalty — Never Die: The Habsburg Dynasty

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 2, 2019

Prayers — and Royalty — Never Die: The Habsburg Dynasty

From Victor Gaetan at the National Catholic Register:

Archduke Rudolf of Austria, 69, is a very busy man. Having worked in the financial sector for decades, he now concentrates on holiness: promoting the cause for beatification of his grandmother, Servant of God Zita, the last empress of Austria; monitoring progress toward sainthood of his grandfather, Blessed Charles I (or Karl), the last emperor of Austria and the last king of Hungary (who reigned from Nov. 21, 1916-Nov. 11, 1918); being a father to eight children, including four in religious life; and supporting favorite charities, including sitting on the board of directors of the U.S. Magnificat Foundation and co-founding the Zermatt Summit, dedicated to “humanizing globalization” and projecting the Catholic Church’s social teaching as an antidote to the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.

In a rare interview, senior international correspondent Victor Gaetan spoke to the humble paterfamilias to learn more about the enduring devotion of this legendary Catholic family, a pillar of European civilization, the Habsburgs. For the first time, the archduke, the son of Archduke Carl Ludwig of Austria (1918-2007), also reminisces about the relationship between Emperor Charles and Miklos Horthy (the Hungarian statesman who sent Blessed Charles into forced exile following World War I); the lost chance of Hungary’s return to constitutional monarchy in 1990; and the meeting of Empress Zita and Cardinal József Mindszenty in Switzerland in 1972. (Read more.)

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