Tea at Trianon: Otto von Habsburg’s Intellectual Legacy Digitalized

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, September 12, 2023

Otto von Habsburg’s Intellectual Legacy Digitalized

From Hungary Today:

Otto von Habsburg contributed to the fact that the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall no longer separated Europe and Germany, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Gergely Gulyás recalled in his speech. He had witnessed the fall of the Habsburg Empire and the death of his father Charles IV as a child, but regardless of his changed status, he followed the legacy of his ancestors and the best traditions of duty and service. He fought against Nazism and communism, the minister said. Otto von Habsburg was committed to working for the building of a new continent on a Christian democratic basis. He advocated the creation of a European Union made up of cooperating nations rather than empires fighting each other to the death.

“Today, when we are confronted with so many difficulties and divisions in European politics, when allies appear as enemies, we can say that the message of Otto von Habsburg is more relevant than ever, and hopefully more people will consider it as a guideline”, Gergely Gulyás said. Gergely Prőhle, director of the Otto von Habsburg Foundation, emphasized: "Otto von Habsburg referred to his Hungarian roots in many of his documents and he referred to Hungarian as his second mother tongue." The foundation, whose sponsor is the Prime Minister’s Office, can also contribute to promoting Otto von Habsburg’s values in relation to Christian Europe, the director said. (Read more.)