Tea at Trianon: Recent Works by Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs

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, March 3, 2023

Recent Works by Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs

St. Edmund Campion, Priest and Martyr, with the pearl of great price

From Shawn Tribe at The Liturgical Arts Journal:

The lesson to my mind in all of this is simply this: sacred art continues to exist -- or at least it can. So very often today we seem to find people starting off with the assumption that this or that is not possible anymore. The reality is that whatever was possible 'then' is also possible in the here and now if you only spend a bit of time looking for it. But perhaps more important than this is the understanding that we cannot bring a modern consumerist mentality to this; we live in a culture of the 'now' and we expect everything done quickly and inexpensively and then we find ourselves lamenting quality. Quality, however, is an enterprise that requires both an investment of time as well as resources. (Read more.)