Tea at Trianon: America, the Northern Kingdom

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, March 17, 2020

America, the Northern Kingdom

From Crisis:

This is the first way that we can perceive the comparison between the northern kingdom and America. Like the first Israelites, early Americans felt a call to establish a “city upon a hill,” and foster a nation that would honor the laws of God. For many generations, most Americans believed their nation to be a Christian one, and promoted laws that communicated Christian truths and prioritized Christian morality. Yet in recent generations that Christian consensus has been eroded, and new competing allegiances, one might even say religions, have taken hold. Secular elites in our nation’s political, educational, and media institutions have promulgated the religion of the autonomous self, the religion of consumerism and materialism, and the religion of sexual gratification. All of these have disassociated Americans not only from God but from each other, as we, untethered from religious, familial, and civic bonds, pursue our pleasures and passions. (Read more.)