Tea at Trianon: Slash and Burn

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, December 16, 2025

Slash and Burn

From Tierney's Real News:

46-year-old Ashley Wasielewski was walking around Forsyth Park after attending a Christmas program at a nearby church when a stranger approached her from behind and poured an acidic liquid over her head. The substance burned through her clothing and skin and was so corrosive that it melted her car key fob, which was in her pocket. Nothing was stolen and the attacker fled the scene.
“She was instantly like, ‘Why are you pouring water on me?’ And then her skin started to burn. She looked down and her pants were starting to burn off her body. She started screaming. They didn’t rob her. They didn’t take anything from her. This was a random person in the park who went out of their way to disfigure another human being.”
Wasielewski was rushed to the Augusta Burn Center, where she’s being treated for second- and third-degree burns over half her body, including her face, scalp, hands and legs.
Her son, Westley, said he learned about the attack after a bystander stopped to help his mother and called him while she was screaming in pain. He said that the burns covered half of her body.
“We don’t know who did it. She doesn’t have any enemies. She is a friend to everyone.” (Read more.)