Tea at Trianon: The Years That the Locust Hath Eaten

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, October 21, 2025

The Years That the Locust Hath Eaten

From Lane Scott at Matriarch:

From 2009 to 2017 we battled through what both of us now recognize as the biggest mistake of our marriage, the purchase of our first fixer: a old 1850s ranch house, with multiple outbuildings, a 1960s mobile home (do not even try to get a traditional loan on a place with one of those anywhere in sight), and seven acres.
I guess my dad and several older friends knew it to be a mistake at the time: which, looking back, if you consult the opinion of older, experienced people who have built houses and remodeled things in the same location you are about to try doing that, perhaps it makes sense to listen to them when they tell you things like “I wouldn’t ever buy a house with post and pier foundation again.” (the link above carries this fabulous description: Imagine your house doing a balancing act on a series of concrete or wooden stilts. That’s basically a post and pier foundation.) Indeed.
But we knew better than all of those experienced people, obviously. We knew we could take this very rundown, post-housing market crash, dawn of the Great Recession “deal” and turn it into a beautiful home.
When I think back to the cause or reason why two people in their twenties thought they knew better or thought they could do what most experienced people knew could not be done, I conclude that we knew better than our elders because we lacked practical wisdom, for one, because we had little understanding of the value of time, especially of one’s youth, and because we only had two young children.
We hadn’t yet reached the point of parenthood when the kids sort of force you to realize that life is about them and you’re just the support staff. We were still in main character phase, and so we bought this run down ranch on a private note, at 7% with a ten year term. (Do not do that).
It’s important to note that anybody buying anything in post-crash 2008 made money. But when we closed on this place it was a bit like that scene in Ghostbusters when Ray shows up with “everybody can relax; I found the car!” We found this cool place with a windmill and artesian well and seven acres and a barn and a cool old house and a rental for only 225k! It just needs an entirely new septic system (engineered, of course, because the county saw us fools coming a mile away) a new well because the old one is contaminated with E. coli from grazing cattle, obviously, fencing, grading, plumbing, a new foundation, and the whole house has knob and tube wiring. (Read more.)