Several years ago I became engrossed in a book about Marie Antoinette of French Revolution fame. What I discovered was a much different person than I expected. If she ever said ‘Let them eat cake’, which is doubtful, it was most likely an honest suggestion. Marie Antoinette wasn’t callous so much as she was totally clueless.
Once, at the end of a lavish royal banquet, she noted that the tables were still heavily laden with food. In a moment of great charity, she suggested to her husband, Louis XVI, that they might give the leftovers to the peasants, and the remains of the banquet were spread out on the street below. As the starving Parisians clawed over each other to lick up the food, Marie, gazing out the window, remarked to Louis: ’How the peasants must love us. We are so good to them.’ But crawling on their hands and knees among the food scraps, the peasants spat out their hatred and vowed to have the monarchs’ heads.
Fast forward to Sunday September 16 2001. In the numbed aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre, a prominent member of our church stood up and asked for prayer for our nation. ‘How could this happen to our country?’ he asked in pained puzzlement. ‘We Americans are so good to the world! How could we be hated?’
