Tea at Trianon: Noble Motherhood

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

Thursday, April 24, 2025

Noble Motherhood

From Ally's Substack:

It seems like we are hearing more and more complaints from mothers about the duties of motherhood—cleaning, cooking, driving kids to practice. I get it; I have done my fair share of grumbling. I had to laugh when I saw a short clip of the famous Aretha Franklin. When asked what the most difficult thing she faced was, she thought for a while and said, “Trying to figure out what to make for dinner every day.” That is a woman we can relate to! And yet this culture of disrespecting motherhood as well as mothers themselves, continually complaining about their lot, is certainly not good for society, or for the young girls watching and deciding in advance they don’t want such grief.
And even if many of the duties and “emotional toll” of motherhood do dampen happiness, is that a reason to give it up or to whine about it? As Lewis Carroll explains, giving others happiness is more noble than being happy ourselves. What makes such self-sacrifice noble? (Read more.)