Tea at Trianon: The Painted People

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

Saturday, May 21, 2022

The Painted People

From Historic Mysteries:

The Roman Imperial period saw one of the most aggressively expansionist policies ever adopted on a large scale. The Romans launched themselves into an all-or-nothing attempt to conquer the entirely of western Europe, leaving the stamp of Roman architecture and Roman culture on lands as far apart as Turkey and Scotland.During their centuries of growth the Romans encountered many other cultures whom they dismissively referred to as “barbarians” (as in “blah blah, we don’t understand what they are saying”). Many of these were exotic, but almost all of those weaker than the mighty armies of Rome were ultimately conquered, subsumed and absorbed into the empire.
However, this is not to say that the Romans did not encounter “problematic” barbarians who did not relish the opportunity to become Roman. Britain, protected by treacherous seas and full of hairy natives, was a particular problem.
Although Britain did eventually fall to the Romans, in the far north was Scotland, full of an enigmatic and even hairier people. And here the Romans finally met their match. Despairing of ever dealing with these strange peoples, the Romans were forced instead to build a huge wall across northern England to keep them out. (Read more.)