Tea at Trianon: Isengard

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, January 26, 2022

Isengard

From Gamerant:

In the books, Gandalf describes a feeling of sadness at the ruin of Isengard, and the ailment that has befallen the once beautiful land because of the treachery of the wizard who was supposed to protect it. He tells them that ‘Once it had been green and filled with avenues and groves of fruitful trees, watered by streams that flowed from the mountains to the lake. But no green thing grew there in the latter days of Saruman.’

In his long reign as the head of the order of the wizards, it was Saruman who ordered the construction of the large wall. It was built by slaves to keep out prying eyes when he first began to concoct his plan to seize power from the dark lord. From that point onwards, he began twisting the birds and creatures who lived there, chopping down the trees until nothing was left but the ‘burned and axe-hewn stumps of the ancient groves.’ He was also crafty and built forges underneath his tower in secret so that neither friend or foe would learn of his weaponry and orcs armies until it was too late to stop him. (Read more.)