Tea at Trianon: Parliamentary Debate on Far-Left Violence

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, March 10, 2026

Parliamentary Debate on Far-Left Violence

From Hélène de Lauzun at The European Conservative:

The murder of the young nationalist activist Quentin Deranque in Lyon in February highlighted the presence of extreme left-wing violence in European societies—tolerated, if not encouraged, by some politicians and the media. The MEPs of the Patriots group nevertheless succeeded in forcing a debate in the European Parliament on the threat posed today by the far left in Europe.

The French delegation welcomed the adoption of the request to include a debate on “the rise of political violence attributable to far-left organisations in Europe” in the LIBE Committee (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs). The adoption of the Patriots initiative, the result of an agreement reached between representatives of the various groups represented in the European Parliament, is a sign that some consensus is emerging on the need to address the issue. (Read more.)