Tea at Trianon: The Fascinating Story of the Real-Life Alexis Zorbas

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

Saturday, November 16, 2024

The Fascinating Story of the Real-Life Alexis Zorbas

From The Greek Reporter:

Zorba the Greek, the story of Alexis Zorbas, is one of the most memorable films in the history of the genre, and the Nikos Kazantzakis book on which it is based is one of the best works of modern Greek literature. Yet, it is not widely known that Zorbas was a real person and not a fictional character. Nor is it known that the real person had never set foot on Crete and was not actually named Alexis. When Nikos Kazantzakis met Giorgos Zorbas on Mount Athos in 1915, the man impressed the writer so much that he befriended him, and he was later inspired to write a novel based on his carefree personality and lust for life. (Read more.)