Tea at Trianon: Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames

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

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames

From My London:

But what many Londoners don’t realise is that there is one monument on the banks of the River Thames that is older than London itself. Try around 1,500 years older. In fact, it’s so old that it even pre-dates the arrival of Anglo-Saxons to Britain, meaning it was built long before England even became English.What’s more is that the oldest monument in London wasn’t even built in Britain. Rather, it was transported to London all the way from Egypt. Of course, we are talking about none other than Cleopatra’s Needle. Located on the Victoria Embankment near the Golden Jubilee Bridges in the City of Westminster, the 68ft obelisk was built in Ancient Egypt around the year 1450 BC. (Read more.)