Tea at Trianon: One of My Favorite Reviews

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

Thursday, October 14, 2021

One of My Favorite Reviews

Boy oh boy did I ever touch a raw nerve. Someone in 2018 wrote this about my novel Madame Royale, published in 2000, on Goodreads. To quote: "This book is complete and total, biased drivel! It is a work of garbage that is not worth the paper it is printed on (or the digital space it takes up). It is pure, uneducated tripe attempting to pass as something of substance. But the stench it gives off quickly reveals it to be the outlandish pile of trash that it is!" Good! Glad I made a leftie mad! Glad that after being out for more than twenty years, Madame Royale has not been forgotten, and is still aggravating socialists. How do I know the person is a socialist? Because only a socialist would describe a novel which criticizes the excesses of the French Revolution as "biased."

julygirl said...: A meticulously researched account of France after the Revolution as told through the life of beheaded Louis VIX and Marie Antoinette's remaining child. A must read for anyone interested in that little known period of French history. Historical fact cannot be disputed no matter what one's political outlook!; October 14, 2021 at 2:33:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Thank you so much, Julygirl! I rejoice to say that MADAME ROYALE has been a steady seller over the last 21 years and has been appreciated by readers across the globe.; October 14, 2021 at 6:58:00 PM EDT