Tea at Trianon: Business Ethics according to Christine de Pizan

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, December 18, 2023

Business Ethics according to Christine de Pizan

From Medievalists:

How should one run a business? For Christine de Pizan, the famous medieval French writer, those who lived by trade should follow these simple rules.
Christine de Pizan (1364 – c. 1430) is one of those unique figures from the Middle Ages who showed how the period was changing in new and interesting ways. Born in Italy, but having grown up in Paris, she received a very good education. Widowed at the age of 25 with three young children to support, Christine turned to writing to earn an income. At first she might have been viewed as a novelty, but soon Christine proved herself to be a formidable intellectual. Her most famous works include The City of Ladies and her poem eulogizing Joan of Arc. (Read more.)