Tea at Trianon: The Story of Diogenes

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

Monday, August 1, 2022

The Story of Diogenes

From DSF Antique Jewelry:

In 412 BC, in the ancient Greek city of Sinope, a boy named Diogenes was born. His childhood took an entirely different turn after his family was sent into exile in Athens because his father tried to circulate counterfeit money. It wasn't easy for Diogenes to go from his home, good food, and a certain status in society to a life where he had none of these things. They were so poor they were almost starving.

In those days, Athens was a famous cultural center, and one of its most famous citizens was a philosopher named Antisthenes, who argued that a person does not possess things, but rather things come to possess the person. If one measures one's success by how many and valuable things one owns, then that person will not be able to own every possible thing he wants and will not stop wanting more and more things. In other words, such a person will not be able to reach a point where they are truly happy, so the fewer things a person wants, the more likely that person is to be happy.

Diogenes, the boy who had lost almost everything, listened to Antisthenes and thought about his own situation. Wasn't his father's greed that got him into trouble? Wasn't he himself depressed because he missed everything they had left behind? Diogenes concluded that the philosopher was right. In time, he developed his own philosophical concept and started talking about it, attracting larger and larger crowds of people. As his reputation grew, people sought his advice on all sorts of things. Sometimes because they knew he was wise, and sometimes because his answers were quite funny. (Read more.)