Tea at Trianon: The Byzantines and the Rise of Islam

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 9, 2022

The Byzantines and the Rise of Islam

From Ancient Origins:

The Byzantines and Sasanians were rival powers who fought each other for supremacy in the Middle East. Although the conflict between the two powers began during the 6th century AD, it is in fact a continuation of a much longer rivalry which was started by their predecessors during the 1st century BC. The Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 AD is considered to be the most devastating of the wars fought between the two powers. Moreover, it is also the final conflict between them, as the Sasanian Empire was completely conquered by the Muslims shortly after the war concluded. The Byzantine Empire was also severely weakened and exhausted by the war, which contributed to the loss of much of their land to the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate. Nevertheless, the Byzantines, unlike its Persian rivals, were not entirely destroyed by the Muslims, and the two were engaged in a series of wars that lasted till the 11th century. (Read more.)