Tea at Trianon: Teach Your Children Good Manners

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

Friday, February 3, 2023

Teach Your Children Good Manners

From Fr. Lovasik at Finer Femininity:

Good manners are the expression of controlled strength. A person who is kind to others and respectful of their feelings has learned the magnificent art of directing his strength and controlling merely animal tendencies. Early in their life make your children aware of the enormous value – here and now, and just from the standpoint of temporal advantages – of practicing good manners.

In good manners lies the true art of winning friends and influencing people. Lifelong good manners mean real popularity, with the later success in life that comes from popularity. Social and financial success is enormously facilitated for the person who knows the right thing to do and does it. Good manners are important, because they give us confidence, and confidence is necessary for success. Point out to your children by example and out of their own growing experience how welcome the well-mannered person is in any circle.

Let them know how much you enjoy visits by children who are well behaved, who have a decent regard for other people’s rights, who ask permission before they touch things, who thank people after they have played with their things, and who willingly share with them their own things. Impress your children with the fact that good manners are not sissy, but, rather, that they indicate a strong character and kind personality if motives are truly Christlike and sincere.

Bad manners are not a sign of cleverness, but the clearest indication of selfishness. A bad-mannered person may betray a real stupidity that holds that the rest of the world is unworthy of his effort to win and retain anyone’s friendship. Show your children how bad manners mark uncontrolled greed, selfishness, and even ignorance of the most fundamental human likes and dislikes, a sign of the most ungracious disregard for others prompted by utter egotism. (Read more.)