Tea at Trianon: Realism vs Reality

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, December 20, 2024

Realism vs Reality

From Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem:

The other day, you and your mother and I went to see the new movie, The Return. Those who wisely listen to your Young Heretics podcast can hear your full review, so I’ll be brief here. The film is about Odysseus’s return to Ithaca to reclaim his wife and kingdom after the Trojan War. In Homer’s magisterial epic The Odyssey, the story is one of struggle with the gods, personal heroism and joyful triumph. But this slow, lugubrious version was “realistic.” No gods. No joy. No triumph. Just a lot of maundering angst about wicked war and personal failure
“Why did you not come home after the war?”
“Sometimes war becomes your home…”
Place rolling eye emoji here. (Read more.)