Tea at Trianon: The Star Road

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, July 25, 2020

The Star Road

St. James in battle

From L'Esprit du Chemin:

In the “Codex Calixtinus” the Camino is seen as the earthly replica of the Milky Way. According to the book, Charlemagne one night saw “a road of stars. It started at the Frisian Sea and led (...) to Galicia, where in that time the remains of the holy James rested without anyone knowing.” James himself then gives Charlemagne the task to liberate “my pilgrimage route (...), so that one (..) can visit my grave.” Whether this is true or not, Charlemagne never got further than Zaragoza, from where he made his famous retreat via Roncesvalles.

Faith in holy places is of all times. For example, the Camino de Santiago follows an old road to Cabo Fisterra (= the Cape at the End of the World) which had already been used by the Celts. There the sun sets and both the underworld and the world of rebirth begin. According to some, the Celts in their turn followed an old star road, which led back to the lost kingdom of Atlantis. In the Middle Ages many Christian pilgrims followed this old example, by walking on to Cabo Fisterra after Santiago de Compostela. This old tradition is followed by more and more pilgrims nowadays. (Read more.)

From Compostela: The Joining of Heaven and Earth:

Charlemagne and the Compostelan pilgrimage were inextricably linked in the medieval imagination. It was an essential component of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela that pilgrims were journeying through a mythical landscape. This was a world through which the armies of Charlemagne had passed, where great battles had been fought and the tombs of the fallen heroes could be venerated as the shrines of martyrs.

This legendary aspect was part of an eschatological narrative which was continuing and ongoing and in which pilgrims themselves were taking part. History and legend were merged, without distinction. The transcendent distant past was mirrored in events in the recent past and then into the present day, thereby confirming the transcendence of each. This was reaffirmed by geography. To visit the place where a transcendent event had occurred was to corroborate the authenticity and validity of the shrine and martyr associated with that site. Thus the world itself was invested with a numinous quality whose meaning lay in a divine plan. (Read more.)