Tea at Trianon: The Great Inversion of Our Age

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, July 8, 2024

The Great Inversion of Our Age

From Catholic Exchange:

Dragons have always been a symbol of darkness. Stories matter a great deal. They shape entire cultures and civilizations. We are a people of a specific true story, which is to say, a people of the most powerful story ever told. We have an obligation to reclaim our story, which means rejecting the inversion of symbols tied to our Christian Faith. The devil is not a tragic and misunderstood character. He is the enemy of our souls who must be vanquished by Christ.

If none of this convinces us, then we should look to the most perfect, beautiful, and holy person ever created for guidance. Our Blessed Mother does not befriend dragons. She crushes the dragon—serpent—with her heal, as was promised in Genesis 3:15 in the protoevangelium: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.” (Read more.)