Tea at Trianon: The Two Towers of Acre

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

Sunday, January 31, 2021

The Two Towers of Acre

From Medievalists:

The Mediterranean port of Acre has captivated the imaginations of medievalists for centuries. Although it dates back to at least the Bronze Age, Acre is most often associated with the crusaders who ruled there from 1104 to 1187, from its first capture to its loss to Saladin after the Battle of Hattin, and then again from 1191 to 1291, between its recapture during the Third Crusade and final loss to the Mamluks, which effectively ended the period of Latin rule in the Levant. Immediately after taking the city, the Mamluks destroyed it. Acre remained relatively abandoned until it was redeveloped by the Ottomans in the eighteenth century. Although much of the old city dates from this later period, some earlier structures have survived, including a number of churches and the famous Hospitaller compound; many Ottoman buildings also sit on earlier foundations, preserving the general layout and medieval feel of the town.
Much of Acre’s fame, at least in the context of the crusades, is associated with its fortifications. Most notorious among these are the so-called Accursed Tower (turris maledicta) and the Tower of the Flies (turris muscarum). But almost all of Acre’s medieval defences were levelled when the Mamluks destroyed the city, fearing the possibility that such a defensible port might once more fall into the hands of a crusader army from Europe – the landward artillery defences that can be visited today date to the Ottoman period. While no trace of the Accursed Tower has been seen in centuries, the Tower of the Flies is viewed by thousands of tourists each year. (Read more.)