Tea at Trianon: Forgotten Warrior-Saints

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

Friday, May 22, 2020

Forgotten Warrior-Saints

From Ancient Origins:

In Bulgaria, a previously unknown medieval church has been unearthed in an abandoned medieval city. It dates from the Second Bulgarian Empire and archaeologists have found some important murals in the church. One fresco, in particular, depicts ‘warriors saints’ has been hailed as a very important find.

This discovery was made by Bulgarian archaeologists working in the ruined medieval city of Cherven, which overlooks the Danube in Northern Bulgaria. It was one of the most dynamic urban centers in the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD). Cherven was originally a Thracian settlement in ancient times and was later an important city in the First Bulgarian Empire until its capture by the Byzantines in the 10 ^th century AD.

However, it once more flourished after the establishment of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1185 AD. This state eventually dominated an area from the Adriatic to the Black Sea , until it was conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14 ^th century. (Read more.)