Tea at Trianon: Occitanie By Rail

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

Thursday, May 30, 2024

Occitanie By Rail

From Travel Weekly:

In the Middle Ages, this city was part of a cultural area known as Languedoc, where local nobles governed, not French kings, and the language was Occitan, not French. The local culture fostered religious tolerance and gender parity: The cloister at the cathedral here features a plaque honoring six medieval troubadours, including one woman.

Troubadours originated in Languedoc, and the Beziers plaque recalls their 11th-to-13th-century heyday, a time when they traveled to the area's courts to sing of love.
Then, everything fell apart.
A religious heresy called Catharism, involving about 5% of the population, had found a home here. Popes wanted to eradicate it, and French kings coveted the land. They got what they wanted.
Their project began in 1209 with a grisly 20-year assault, known as the Albigensian Crusade, against Cathars and their protectors, followed by an Inquisition that lasted nearly 100 years.
Today, a significant chunk of the medieval Languedoc comprises the Occitanie region. Toulouse, a power center in Languedoc, is Occitanie's capital. (Read more.)