Tea at Trianon: An Attack on Greek Heritage

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, May 19, 2020

An Attack on Greek Heritage

Migrants destroy olive groves. From Greek City Times:

It has been a wild few days on the Greek island of Lesvos. The past few days has seen two gangs of Afghani immigrants battle each other and African immigrants ridicule and cough on police in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, as reported by Greek City Times. However, if these incidences were not enough, 5,000 olives trees were cut from their roots by illegal immigrants from the infamous Moria migrant camp, to the north of Lesvos’ capital city of Mytilene. Olive trees take approximately 65-80 years to reach stable yields, meaning that the destroyed trees are a major blow to the local economy. Olive exports amount to about US$700 million every year to the Greek economy. (Read more.)