Tea at Trianon: A Move That Could Bring Peace

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, August 19, 2025

A Move That Could Bring Peace

From Overton News:

When it was his turn to speak, President Zelenskyy thanked Trump directly for the personal role he was playing in trying to end the war.
“If I can, first of all, thank you for your invitation and thank you for very much for your efforts, personal efforts, to stop killings and stop this war. Thank you.”
His tone was respectful and sincere.
Entirely different from the more combative posture he’d taken during their last meeting.
Then he handed Trump a letter from his wife to give to First Lady Melania Trump—thanking her for asking Putin to release the kidnapped Ukrainian children.
“Using this opportunity, many thanks to your wife, First Lady of the United States. She sent a letter to Putin about our children, abducted children and my wife—First Lady of Ukraine, she gave the letter. It’s not to you, to your wife.”
(Read more.)