Tea at Trianon: The Grand Accuser

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

Tuesday, December 24, 2024

The Grand Accuser

From Leo's Newsletter:

Earlier this week, Ukraine openly boasted of assassinating a top Russian general outside his home in Moscow.
Lt. General Igor Kirillov was killed when a bomb attached to a scooter was detonated remotely upon him leaving his apartment early in the morning. One of his assistants was also killed.
Russia on Tuesday criticized Ukraine's Western allies, accusing them of being complicit in the general’s murder. It was easy to come to this conclusion after no one in any official capacity in Washington, London, Paris or Berlin condemned the killing.
Western politicians and media love to characterize Putin as a dictator of the worst sort, a “KGB thug.” I hear a lot of conservative pundits using this same language and I find it laughable in its hypocrisy.
When has Putin ever reached across the Atlantic and assassinated an American general on U.S. soil? I don’t recall ever reading of such an incident but, if I am having a senior moment, please, someone, refresh my memory.
Moscow’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the West in a Telegram post of “approval for war crimes by fighters of the Kyiv regime” and said “all those who welcome terrorist attacks or deliberately hush them up are accomplices.”
This also hearkens back to past reports exposing a CIA program to train and assist Ukraine's special forces and intelligence in sabotage and cross-border targeted assassinations.
Lest you think this is just a clever piece of Russian propaganda, think again. It’s been reported even by a prominent member of the American deep-state media.
Last year, The Washington Post published a report on how Ukraine’s intelligence services were capable of carrying out assassinations inside Russia thanks to support they have been receiving from the CIA since 2014.