Friday, March 27, 2015

Great Speeches | 8. On the Death of Marie Antoinette (Edmund Burke, 1793)

Jeudi, 26 Mars, 2015
Verse of the Day«Parce qu'il vous a été gratuitement donné dans ce qui a du rapport à Christ, non seulement de croire en lui, mais aussi de souffrir pour lui.» Philipiens 1.29

Quote of the Day“You can fool some people all of the time. You can fool all the people some of the time. But you cannot fool all the people all of the time.”—Abraham Lincoln
«Vous pouvez trompez quelques personnes tout le temps. Vous pouvez tromper tout le monde un certain temps. Mais vous ne pouvez pas tromper tout le monde tout le temps.»—Abraham Lincoln

French Fun Fact: The first department store was founded by Aristide Boucicaut in 1838. (confessedtravelholic.com)

What’s Really Happening Over Here:
Weather – Cloudy, Precip. 10%
Temperature – 53⁰F, high of  56⁰
News – Revealed: Final minutes of Germanwings flight (thelocal.fr)
More News – http://www.20minutes.fr/

A Day In the Life:
Unfortunately, I forgot that it takes a decent amount of time to go back through the recording and take down and translate his answers, so I’ll fill you in on that end in tomorrow’s edition.
Let’s be in serious prayer for the families affected by the recent plane crash. Unbelievable.

On the Death of Marie Antoinette
The following was an address given by Edmund Burke following the death of Marie Antoinette. It reads more like a poem than a speech, and its brevity was as effective as its language. As I read these words, I was struck with their application to the current state of honor and chivalry, and of our treatment of women in modern society. I pray that that light is not, as Burke says, "extinguished forever".
"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely 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 the morning star full of life and splendor and joy.

Oh, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen 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 that threatened her with insult.

But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom! The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness."
Edmund Burke – 1793

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