Tea at Trianon: Light in Peru

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

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Light in Peru

From Artnet:

The Chachapoya remain one of the lesser known pre-Hispanic cultures of South America. This is partly down to geography. As suggested by their epithet “people of the cloud forest,” the Chachapoya occupied a rugged, jungled pocket between the Andes and the Amazon. Even today, their settlements can be tricky to reach. Conquest by the Inca in the second half of the 15th century furthered their obscurity, dramatically altering the Chachapoya population and way of life that had existed for roughly 800 years. Over the past five years, however, researchers in Peru equipped with the latest technologies have greatly expanded the archaeological record, shedding light on Chachapoya’s circular architecture, cliffside tombs, and complex agricultural systems. Most recently, a team from the World Monuments Fund has uncovered more than 100 previously unknown buildings at Gran Pajatén, a hilltop archaeological site in Río Abiseo National Park, which is located 300 miles north of Lima. (Read more.)