Tea at Trianon: Of the Coming of Men Into the West

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, December 27, 2022

Of the Coming of Men Into the West

More on the Tolkien legendarium about Galadriel's brother Finrod and his friendship with Beren. From TOR:

When Frodo offers to take the One Ring in “The Council of Elrond,” the Half-elven loremaster places the hobbit in high esteem when he says:

But if you take it freely, I will say that your choice is right; and though all the mighty Elf-friends of old, Hador, and Húrin, and Túrin, and Beren himself were assembled together, your seat should be among them.

So who are these First Age fellows and why would Elrond, who isn’t even born yet at this point in The Silmarillion, hold them aloft as he does? Well, we’ll learn each of their stories soon enough, but we need to start with where they came from….

Three hundred years have now elapsed since the Noldor returned to Middle-earth. Its princes have long since settled into their realms and strongholds and become kings; the greatest of these kingdoms are Doriath, Gondolin, and Nargothrond. And Morgoth is still hemmed in by the vigilant forces of High King Fingolfin and Maedhros, eldest son of Fëanor. But now let’s talk about Finrod Felagund, Hewer of Caves and Lord of Nargothrond, who lives further south than all of them…when he’s actually home.

We already know that Finrod is a bit of a loose cannon. He’s the eldest of the house of Finarfin and the ruler of most of the Elves in West Beleriand, but he often goes abroad and makes new friends in a way that other kings never do. Turgon in Gondolin definitely isn’t coming out of hiding for a while, and Thingol in Doriath never walks beyond the nice fence his wife put up. Neither of them want visitors. But Finrod—also a king—is different. I’m just going to come out and say it: Finrod is the Fred Rogers of the Elves. He’s the neighbor who wants you as a neighbor; and if you don’t live next to him, he’ll come and visit you.

Case in point: one day Finrod goes on sabbatical to hang out in East Beleriand with the two eldest sons of Fëanor. That is, Maedhros and Maglor, who fall on the halfway decent end of the Fëanorean spectrum. (But even if they didn’t, they’d probably still get along with Finrod. Seems everyone does.) One day, bored of the hunting that the Fëanoreans are all into, his eyes are drawn to the mountains in the east: the shining Ered Luin, or Blue Mountains. You know, where his Dwarf friends live, the ones who helped him make his stronghold of Nargothrond!

So he starts off solo toward the mountains, then wanders south into Ossiriand, the Land of Seven Rivers where the Green-elves live. He’s friends with them, too. Because of course he is. (Read more.)