Tea at Trianon: Marking the Centenary of the Death of Blessed Kaiser Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen

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, April 17, 2022

Marking the Centenary of the Death of Blessed Kaiser Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen

From Charles Coulombe:

On April 1, 2022, Masses and observances shall mark the centennial of the death of Bl. Karl, Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Galicia, and lord of many other places. But his tomb does not lie with his fathers and his beloved consort Zita in Vienna’s Kaisergruft, but on the lonely, windswept island of Madeira, deep in the North Atlantic. A century ago he died in exile because he and his wife refused to renounce the obligations to their peoples they firmly believed God had placed upon them. The powers who defeated them – the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and the minor politicians who had divided their realms into petty and unstable states – determined that they should be punished for this refusal by being cut off from the financial support owed them – or even gifts from their still-loyal followers. This led directly to the conditions which culminated in Karl’s death from pneumonia. Had the gallant King Alfonso XIII of Spain not come to the aid of the Emperor’s pregnant widow and seven orphaned children and rescued them, they might well have shared their husband and father’s fate.

In the years following, the Imperial family would find themselves relocating from Spain to Belgium, fleeing the invading Germans in 1940, finding refuge in the United States and Canada, and spending the Postwar Years attempting to apply their dynastic vocation to a severely changed world. The Archduke Otto was able – among other things – to convince Franklin Roosevelt that Austria was as much a victim of the Nazis as any other country; this is why the country exists to-day, rather than being part of Germany. His younger brothers joined the Resistance in Tyrol in 1944, while Karl Renner enjoyed the comforts his collaboration with the occupiers brought. Otto joined his brothers in Innsbruck when the war ended, only to be expelled by Renner, whose new Soviet sponsors had returned him temporarily to the Chancellor’s seat. The new government also kept the family’s real estate seized by the Germans in 1938 – and continues to hold on to this Nazi loot to-day.

Zita returned to Europe in 1954; her family grown, she lived in a Swiss convent and devoted herself primarily to religious and charitable work. In the meantime Otto worked in the shadow of the Soviet Bloc for a the creation of a United Europe that would be at once Christian and free – a vision shared by the founders of the European Union. In 1979, he was elected to the European Parliament. The Soviet Bloc began its collapse the very year of Zita’s death and State Funeral a decade later. Otto and his family worked hard and successfully for the entrance of most of the newly-liberated Central European countries (many of which had been ruled by the Habsburgs for centuries) in the EU and NATO. By the time of the Archduke’s death in 2011, this latter work had been largely accomplished. (Read more.)

A review of Charles Coulombe's biography Blessed Charles of Austria.

I will conclude by claiming that the life and legacy of Blessed Charles applies to our times as well. There is much I could say in this regard, but I will restrain myself to one central thought. I cannot help but think of the past 18 months. We have been enduring one persecution and betrayal after another. Jobs have been lost. Loneliness has been mandated. Breathing regulated. Physical "health" has become a god, while spiritual health has been separated from God. Insanity reigns. Holiness is exiled. Even in the past few weeks I think of my own provincial traditional Latin Mass organization. We, the lowly laity with a host of children to raise in the faith, have, for the time being, had the Mass - the same one cherished daily by Blessed Charles - taken away. The sheep are scattered. Everything seems to be coming undone. It is a burden which feels too heavy for us.

Well such was the life of Blessed Charles. He inherited a war and a revolution which gave him approximately zero chance of success. Yes, he may have been too trusting and kind (if only I had "faults" like that), but his life seems to have been one short and grueling sprint of unimaginable suffering. Every turn was met be a prodigious cross. Every step forward brought a heavy blow. It should have crushed this royal couple. It should have turned them to dust, or at the very least sent them to an institution. It did not. The faith of Charles (and Zita) is perhaps amongst the greatest you shall ever witness. It is what happens when souls are formed for greatness, and when hearts are transformed by the love of the Sacred Heart.

Charles Coulombe has written a superlative book. How fitting, for the book is written for one who lived a superlative life.

Blessed Charles of Austria, pray for us. (Read more.)

More HERE.