Tea at Trianon: The Man, the Ox, the Lion and the Eagle

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

Wednesday, May 27, 2026

The Man, the Ox, the Lion and the Eagle

From Hilary White at the Sacred Images Project:

There is a running internet joke going around about “biblically accurate angels” that usually involves sticking googly eyes and extra wings onto random objects until they become progressively more horrifying. Like most jokes, it exists because there is a grain of truth behind it. The heavenly beings described in Scripture are often deeply strange, covered with eyes, multiple wings and composite forms, sometimes not even remotely anthropomorphised and seem designed less to comfort than to overwhelm the human imagination.
We’re going to take a brief look today at the background for these images, and we’ll learn how Christian artists traditionally rendered as symbols some of the strangest passages in Scripture.
You’ve seen them hundreds of times if you’ve ever looked at medieval art, even if you never noticed them consciously. Whenever you see an image of Christ enthroned, surrounded by the mandorla - the “Christ in Majesty” prototype we’ve discussed, you also see these four strange beings: a winged man who looks like an angel, a lion, an ox and an eagle, usually all with wings and halos. And it’s in nearly every single depiction of it, from illuminated manuscripts and book covers to Romanesque frescoes and carved Gothic tympana over church doors. (Read more.)