Tea at Trianon: Franklin and Washington

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

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Franklin and Washington

From Gwinnett Daily Post:

Unless you are a bona fide historian or a serious student of history, you may not be aware of the infighting and rivalries which took place with our founding fathers. They hammered out an exemplary and extraordinary constitution but the process was accompanied by contentious debate and vigorous quarreling.

The intense struggle to reach a consensus was not without rancor and bitterness. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had no use for the other. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton settled their differences by a duel, an exercise in which you never want to finish second. Hamilton did. The point about all this is that the passion and discord of politics was as evident then as it is today. (While there is no dueling now, thankfully, mean spiritedness seems to have moved front and center and has taken over.)

Larson’s book, “Franklin and Washington,” is fascinating and insightful. Washington gets the highest of marks from Larson for his adroit leadership during the Revolutionary War as general of the Continental Army while Franklin’s savvy recruitment of the support of the French was equally important. Without the leadership of Franklin and Washington, “an unlikely couple,” there would be no United States.

If you know someone who likes to bash the French for not appreciating the U. S., for its contribution to France in World War II, remind them that had Franklin’s diplomacy at the court of King Louis XVI, Washington’s Continental Army could not have been fed, clothed and armed without France’s support.

A Wall Street Journal review has this take on Larson’s book: “The gregarious and folksy Franklin (1706-90) was old enough to be Washington’s father. Born in Boston to humble parents but associated with Philadelphia after he moved there in his teens, Franklin was an enlightened polymath, a printer, scientist and inventor who became an opponent of slavery. Washington (1732-99), the restrained, status-conscious, slave-owing Virginia gentleman, can seem like Franklin’s opposite. If the aloof Washington came to be regarded as his country’s father, Mr. Larson observes, Franklin was his approachable uncle.” (Read more.)