Tea at Trianon: Fall of Rome

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 24, 2020

Fall of Rome

Romulus Augustulus resigns Roman crown to Odoacer

From Heritage Daily:

With the fall of the Western Empire in 476 CE, Odoacer had gained the support of the remnants of the Roman Senate in Rome and was crowned the first King of Italy, forming the first Ostrogothic Kingdom. His rule, although stained with conquest adopted the Roman administrative system and the law of the Empire remained as ruling the Roman population (though Goths were ruled under their own traditional laws). And so, the Roman way of life continued, albeit a shadow of the glory that was Imperial Rome. But by the Reign of Theoderic the Great (493–526), the relationship with the Byzantine Empire and this fledgling Ostrogothic Kingdom begun to strain. Even the native Roman populous of Italy was feeling an increasing alienation of their cast from the Gothic regime. (Read more.)