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 just began to move in,--glittering like the morning star
full of life and splendour and joy.... 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 honour 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.
-- Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
-- Reflections on the Revolution in France, Vol. iii, p. 331
