Tea at Trianon: Robespierre's Supreme Hour

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, August 30, 2022

Robespierre's Supreme Hour

From the Catholic Textbook Project:

While Paris ran with the blood of patriots, French arms continued to achieve victories against the republic’s enemies. By the spring of 1794, the revolutionary army numbered 720,000 men, and the French navy had built ships of the line. The combined armies and navies of Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Spain, and Piedmont-Sardinia were, of course, quite strong; but the allies were divided among themselves. They were not working together. Their efforts had become merely a selfish war of conquest.
In England, Prime Minister Pitt had decided to throw all his energy into the war against France. His efforts paid off when, on June 1, the British navy won a smashing victory over the French and thus gained control of the seas. But on land, the allied forces were everywhere driven back. In April, the French had seized important Alpine passes leading into Italy. By June the French had forced the Austrians to leave Holland. By July, the allies had abandoned all their conquests in France, and the French revolutionary army began its invasion of Holland.
Such victories were due to the energy and genius of Lazare Carnot, not to Robespierre. Yet, in the months leading up to the execution of the Dantonists, Robespierre had become tremendously popular. He was so popular that, though his only allies on the Committee were Saint-Just and Couthon (three men out of 12), the Committee would do whatever he wished. Robespierre had thus become the dictator of France, and he was feared by the Committee, the Convention, and his own party, the Jacobins. (Read more.)