Tea at Trianon: November 2024

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

Friday, November 1, 2024

La Reine Marie-Antoinette Enfant

Baby Antonia, a small archduchess. From the Memoirs of Maria-Antoinetta by Joseph Weber, her foster brother:

Maria-Antoinetta-Joseph-Jane of Lorraine, Archduchess of Austria, daughter of Francis I. Emperor of Germany, and of the immortal Maria-Theresa, Empress of Germany, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, was born on the 2nd of November, 1755.

A short time previous to her birth, the Empress gave orders to her governess to look for a nurse in some respectable family, of pure morals and unspotted character ; a description completely applicable to my virtuous parents, to whom I am proud to pay this public tribute of respect. My father, Mr. George Weber, was a Counsellor in the Magistracy of Vienna, and at the head of the Victualling-Office : my mother, Maria-Constantia Hoffman, was distinguished for the beauty of her person, and still more for that of her mind. Their marriage had constantly presented a union of the domestic virtues. My mother was fixed upon to be the nurse of the Archduchess, and I was three months old when she had the honour of receiving the charge.

Maria-Theresa was a good mother as well as a great Queen. Her tenderness seemed as soft as her courage appeared majestic and sublime. No sooner had she entrusted her child to my mother than she adopted us all. She rewarded the long services of my father with a considerable pension, and a grant of apartments in the Hotel de la Chancellerie. A pension was settled on my mother, and one also on each of her children. As for me, whose lot it was to be nourished with the same milk that Maria-Antoinetta was, Her Imperial Majesty desired my mother, while I was a child, to take me with her whenever she went to pay her respects to the young Princess whom she had suckled.

The daughter of the Cesars then made me join in the sports of her infancy, in which the Empress herself took a part; and, as at that age no thing had yet made me sensible of the immense distance between myself and her with whom I played, the august and good Maria-Theresa, fearing to give me pain if she bestowed her caresses partially, often took me on one of her knees when she held her daughter on the other, and honoured me with embraces similar to those she lavished upon her. (Memoirs of Maria-Antoinetta, Queen of France and Navarre by Joseph Weber, translated by R.C. Dallas, pp1-3)

Rogan Interviews J.D.

Thunderdome Is Upon Us!

From The Transom:

That’s before we get to any of the technological issues, like this horrible looking password-exposing botch by the office of Colorado’s Secretary of State, who probably should’ve spent more time focused on security than on getting a total loss at the Supreme Court trying to get Trump off the ballot (she cried about it on MSNBC after). Or the bizarre attempt, rebutted by that same Court, to block Virginia from culling its voter rolls of those who had already personally admitted they aren’t citizens. And of course, if it isn’t Pennsylvania, we could be following all those weird X accounts focused on Maricopa County. The whole thing looks like everyone’s already collecting their threads for if and when things go sideways.
And what are we talking about in the closing moments? Oh, all the things we expected way back when we started: Why Donald Trump is in a garbage truck and why half the American electorate won’t give “grace” to President Biden for calling them “garbage”, all because America’s most prominent insult comic behaved like one to open a Trump rally, telling a joke which the most important interviewer of the cycle, a former host of Fear Factor, advised him against. We’re talking about the betrayal of Jeff Bezos, and all the other media figures who decided not to their duty and endorse Kamala Harris with a full-throated defense of her dubious and utterly unestablished ability to lead. And if you’re Tim Walz, you’re talking about the importance of having free access to porn, as a very normal vice presidential candidate does.
Give thanks for this at least: As silly as this election season has been, as dangerous and chaotic, it does as all elections do (excepting Stacey Abrams and Kari Lake) eventually end. Let’s hope and pray for America, unsteady as she is at times, to handle this as well as possible. And please, can we figure out who the next president is by this time next week? I need a vacation. (Read more.)