Tea at Trianon: The Spirit of Respect

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

Saturday, August 30, 2025

The Spirit of Respect

From Brownstone Institute:

The first subject he chooses concerns what he calls “the spirit of respect.” I tried but failed to anticipate what he means with this word, but it becomes clear quickly. He proposes the word respect as a replacement for the word patriotism, which he finds too much wrapped up in the history of warfare. The Vietnam experience did indeed loom large in those days.

Respect in his view covers the whole of what is good about patriotism but is inclusive of so much more. It means respect for country and the symbolism thereof, including its music, national anthems, and flag. More than that, it is about respect for the inner air of what these symbols mean to signify.

Above all else, they signify freedom. That is for him the essence of the American idea.

With respect for freedom comes respect for that which freedom grants unto us, including faith, family, community, the dignity of oneself, and the dignity of others. He found tremendous evidence of this idea in American history and worried already in 1973 that this attitude was ever more rare.

Of course, he was writing in a time of tremendous crisis in American life. The draft riots, the assassinations, the political scandals, and the loss of cultural identity were fresh on everyone’s mind. (Read more.)