Tea at Trianon: Marco and Munich

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, February 17, 2026

Marco and Munich

From Tierney's Real News:

Marco Rubio just gave a keynote address at the 62nd Munich Security Conference in Europe, the premier global forum for international security policy.
His speech is one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard against Godless Communism - and it succinctly explains the nightmare and foolishness of Europe (and America) abandoning God and national sovereignty to appease the atheist one-world-order Globalists - in 20 minutes.
If you only listen to one thing this weekend - let it be this. In fact, I think this speech is so powerful of an explanation that it should be played in every Christian church in America on Sunday morning. I’m not kidding.
Rubio said that Europe and U.S. belong together bound by “centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry” and that since WW2 mistakes have been made:
Outsourcing “our sovereignty to international institutions”
Imposing energy policies that impoverish our people “to appease a climate cult”
Opening doors to mass migration “that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people.”
Rubio says “We owe it to our people to face those facts and to move forward to rebuild.”
Some highlights:
MARCO RUBIO: “We in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline!
We are prepared to do this alone but it is our preference, and our hope, to do this together with you, our friends in Europe.
America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The men who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories, the traditions, and the Christian faith of our ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new.
We are part of one civilization, Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have now fallen heir.
And if at times we disagree, our disagreements come from our profound sense of concern about a Europe with which we are connected, not just economically, not just militarily. We are connected spiritually and we are connected culturally. We want Europe to be strong. We believe that Europe and the West must survive.” (Read more.)