Tea at Trianon: Winters in the World

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

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Winters in the World

From Eleanor Parker at Medievalists:

In this book, we’ll explore how poets like the anonymous author of Maxims II and the writers of other works from Anglo-Saxon England – histories, scientific texts, sermons and many more – thought about the cycle of the seasons. We’ll look at the festivals and traditions they associated with particular times of year, considering how the changing seasons affected patterns of work and religious custom, as well as investigating the language these English writers used to describe their experience of the year. The six centuries we today call the Anglo-Saxon period – six hundred summers and winters – were a formative time for English society, in which many things first took shape which, after the passage of centuries, are still to some degree recognizable as those the Anglo-Saxons knew: the English language; the settlement and naming of most of our cities, towns and villages; the monarchy; the national church; and England itself. (Read more.)