Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Villeneuve-l'Étang

After the Restoration, Marie-Thérèse of France, the Duchesse d'Angoulême, sought to recapture as much as possible the happiness she had known as a child at Petit Trianon. In 1821 she purchased a small estate adjoining the royal palace of Saint-Cloud called Villeneuve l'Étang. There the princess had a dairy even as her mother had in the days before the Revolution, and she proudly kept a pitcher of the cream produced there on her table. When staying at Saint-Cloud, she would rise early and stroll over to her country house on a special path called "the road of the Dauphiness" to spend the day. The large wooded park through which ran a stream was a place in which the daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette found peace after so many tragedies.

According to An Encyclopedia of Gardening: 
Villeneuve l'Etang, near Marne, was occupied before the Restoration by Marshal Soult, who is said to have been very much attached to it, and to have derived great pleasure from planting and altering the grounds. The park may contain up to 300 acres, which occupy two sides of a valley, through which runs a small stream.... The planting in the park has been done in...the English style.... The Duchess d'Angouleme, having coveted this place, obtained it with some difficulty from Soult; and she has the merit of having added to the house a large conservatory and an aviary, and also a dairy establishment and a poultry yard. Notwithstanding the duchess's desire for the place, we were (in 1828) informed that she passed only one night at it, during the whole time it was in her possession.
Joseph Turquan, in his biography of Marie-Thérèse, describes her routine as follows:
At Saint-Cloud she would rise at daybreak, and passing by the guardroom, where the sentries turned out to present arms, stroll under the trees, enjoying the fresh morning air. Book in hand, her favourite spaniel running on ahead, a footman following a few paces behind, she would wander aimlessly along the scented paths, immersed in thought. The King did not care for Saint-Cloud, and seldom went there for more than a few days at a time. She did not find the repose she craved when the Court was in residence; on the other hand, had she gone there often alone, gossips would have been prompt to hint at differences among the royal family. These considerations led her to purchase the estate and castle of Villeneuve-l'Etang....doubtless she longed for a solitude in which she might dream of the peace of a life led apart from the glamour of the throne.
She loved Villeneuve-l'Etang, and retired thither as often as her duties allowed. In memory perhaps of her mother's parties for children at the Trianon, she would invite the best pupils from Saint-Denis and Ecouan and throw her park open to their joyous sports. She presided in person at the tea party which brought a happy day to its close, and showed in her gracious sympathy the maternal instincts which lay dormant in her thwarted nature.
When the duchess was exiled, she took the pseudonym of the "Comtesse de Marnes" in honor of the village near her beloved retreat. Many years later, after the death of Marie-Thérèse, Villeneuve-l'Étang was where Napoleon III and his empress spent their honeymoon. It eventually came to belong to the Institut Pasteur. The original chateau no longer stands.

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How DEI Turned Intel Agencies into a Circus

 From Amuse on X:

But therein lies the problem—these people feel untouchable. They are untouchable. They know they can engage in this insanity, day in and day out, with no consequences. Because the modern federal bureaucracy, rotted through with DEI-driven ideological enforcement, no longer exists to serve the nation. It exists to serve itself. It is a taxpayer-funded sinecure where personal gratification trumps mission readiness, and where accountability is an alien concept.

Imagine for a moment if an employee at a Fortune 500 company—let’s say Boeing or Lockheed Martin—spent hours every workday in internal chatrooms detailing the intimate mechanics of their sex lives, debating “it/its” pronouns, and swapping tips on chemical castration. How long would they last? A day? An hour? Private sector companies, even those leaning woke, have at least the baseline expectation that employees are there to work. But in the halls of our most sensitive intelligence agencies, where clear-headed judgment is literally a matter of life and death, such behavior is apparently tolerated—if not outright encouraged. (Read more.)

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Stuart Spouses

 A book review from historian Andrea Zuvich, The Seventeenth Century Lady:

I received a hardback copy from our mutual publisher, Pen & Sword, and it is beautiful: it is jam-packed full of information, and unlike my work, which is firmly set in the 17th century, it is spread out over all of the Stuarts from 1406 – no mean feat. It also contains a large and sumptuous section of colour images (which, I’ll admit, I wish I could have had for Ravenous!). It also contains maps, a timeline, an appendix containing a selection of poems, several family trees, and – crucially, for me – an index. And, just look at that lush, vibrant cover!

This was the first book by Darsie that I have read and I enjoyed her style of writing: it’s concise and has heart: she conveys sympathy for the plights faced by some of the persons involved. This book has footnotes, whilst I prefer endnotes – I know we all have our preferences when it comes to these things. Perhaps some may look upon it with a more critical eye than I and say that it lacks analysis and depth, but surely, one shouldn’t expect such things from a compendium. In fact, I enjoyed this book – I can’t say I agreed with everything (but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I like seeing another view). Stuart Spouses is what it claims to be: a compendium, and I think it is a fine read particularly for those less acquainted with Stuart history. As such, I would probably not recommend this book if you already have a good knowledge of the Stuart consorts. That being said, however, I think we can reasonably say that I know a fair bit about Stuart history, and even I learned a thing or two from this book. Who knows? It may just be the thing to whet your appetite for the Stuarts! (Read more.)

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Monday, February 24, 2025

The Duchess Flees Bordeaux

The daughter Louis XVI exhorts the troops at Bordeaux before having to escape Napoleon.

As readers of Trianon and Madame Royale well know, Marie-Thérèse of France, the Duchesse d'Angoulême, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, was at times forced to flee from wars and revolts. Above is a picture of the princess during her flight from Napoleon Bonaparte in March 1815. Bonaparte, hearing of her attempt to raise an army against him, hailed Marie-Thérèse as "the only man in her family," which was a bit unfair to the Duc d'Angoulême, who had hastened to rally his forces to cut off Bonaparte's march on Paris. The Duc and Duchesse d'Angoulême had been in Bordeaux celebrating the restoration of the Bourbons when news came of Bonaparte's escape from Elba. Although Napoleon admired the daughter of Louis XVI, he would like to have made a prisoner of her. Marie-Thérèse left for England only because to stay behind would have endangered the citizens of Bordeaux. Below is an excerpt from Chapter Sixteen of Madame Royale, describing the scene:
Thérèse and her entourage left Bordeaux in a swirling rain shower, darkness, and mud. Yet the voices of the saints seemed to pierce the curtain of rain. There was always hope. If only she knew if her husband was safe. They travelled all night, their coaches slipping and bumping along in the blackness. By morning they reached Pauillac, with its port and ship which would take them away from France. Thérèse hardly thought about where they were going. She heard Mass in the parish church, then went to board an English ship called The Wanderer. Her military escort assembled on the peer to bid her farewell, as the rain continued to pour. Where were the vast crowds? Where were those who had flung themselves weeping at her feet? Never again would she lavish a single, splintering thought on human honor and praise. It was all less than nothing. The faithful few begged for some tokens; she gave them the feathers from her bonnet, and the green and white ribbons which bound her hair. "Bring them back to me in better days!" she cried, the wind and rain blowing around her. "And Marie-Thérèse will show you that she has a good memory, and that she has not forgotten her friends at Bordeaux!"

The vessel carried
Thérèse over rough waters to Spain, and then across the channel to England. It was a tumultuous crossing; most of her ladies were morbidly seasick, besides being distressed over their belongings left behind at the Tuileries for the Buonaparte clan. When Thérèse and her party finally arrived at the royal French embassy in London, she was greeted with the news that her husband had been captured, and was a prisoner of Napoleon Buonaparte.

~from Madame Royale by Elena Maria Vidal, Ch. 16, "The Heroine," copyright 2000 by E.M. Vidal

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The Green Slush Fund

 From Amuse on X:

The Biden administration’s funding of Power Forward Communities (PFC) represents an example of political patronage at its worst. More than just a case of inefficient spending, this $2 billion grant epitomizes an outright transfer of public wealth to Democratic operatives without the faintest concern for financial accountability. The notion that this was anything other than political cronyism defies both common sense and the available evidence.

To understand the gravity of this case, one must begin with the nature of PFC itself. Incorporated in August 2023 under the name Clean Communities Investment Partnership, Inc., PFC was a nonexistent entity until it was rapidly rebranded just in time to become eligible for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. This was not a long-standing nonprofit with a history of serving communities. It had no financial track record, no independent funding, and no demonstrable expertise. Yet, in a stunningly short period, it was granted an astronomical sum of $2 billion. This alone is enough to raise serious questions about the legitimacy of the process.

PFC’s own IRS Form 1023 application betrays its true purpose. It did not propose a diverse funding strategy or a plan to cultivate private investment. Rather, it explicitly stated that if it did not receive government funding, it might simply dissolve. In other words, this is an organization designed solely to collect and distribute taxpayer funds. Unlike traditional charities that work to secure donations from a variety of sources, PFC was built from the ground up as a taxpayer-funded operation. Such an entity is not a nonprofit in any meaningful sense of the word—it is an extension of the federal government masquerading as a private organization. (Read more.)


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What To Do In Cornwall

I really would love to go to Cornwall someday. From House and Garden:

Anyone of an artistic bent should head to St Ives where the light has been attracting artists for centuries. The Tate St Ives is worth a visit for the architecture alone, built on the site of a former gasworks; the imposing rotunda designed by architects Eldred Evans and David Shalev echoes the design of what was there before. Situated just above Porthmeor Beach where surfers catch waves and children play it is a tranquil spot to get away from the hustle and bustle of St Ives. Exhibitions include works from the Tate collection as well as that of contemporary artists. Nearby is the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden which is managed by the Tate. Take in the fantastic bronzes of the late Dame Barbara Hepworth, who was one of Britain’s most preeminent Modernist sculptors. Get an intimate peek into her former home, studio and garden. Quite rightly the bronzes in the garden remain where she left them giving a unique insight into how she arranged her work. tate.org.uk (Read more.)

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Sunday, February 23, 2025

Kidnapping and Murder of the Bibas Family


"All thy enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they have hissed, and gnashed with the teeth, and have said: We will swallow her up: lo, this is the day which we looked for: we have found it, we have seen it."
Lamentations 2: 16
I watched the video of the capture of Shiri Bibas, an Israeli mother, and her two babies Ariel and Kfir, and cringed as I saw the attackers place their hands upon her. I will go to my death haunted by the horror. Then the monsters held back Shiri's body for unknown reasons. From The Free Press:

Shiri Bibas was seized from her home on October 7, 2023, along with her children Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months. Their remains were returned to Israel after 10 a.m. local time. With them was the body of Oded Lifshitz, a grandfather, journalist, and peace activist who was 83 when he was kidnapped from the same kibbutz, Nir Oz.

For Israelis, October 7 is a slow-release catastrophe. Hamas has bargained not just over every Israeli hostage and corpse, but also over scraps of information about their fate, meaning that the precise death toll from the war’s first day is still not clear. Some of those we hoped were still alive turn out to have been dead from the very beginning—like Shlomo Mantzour, a grandfather taken at age 85 and thought to be the oldest Israeli hostage until last week, when new information revealed he was killed 16 months ago.

No captives have focused public sentiment like the Bibas children, the youngest Israeli hostages. Footage from October 7 showed a terrified Shiri Bibas cradling a baby and a toddler as they were taken at gunpoint from their home. The two redheads quickly became symbols of the 250 Israelis taken hostage—icons not just of the inhumanity of the Palestinians who kidnapped and murdered civilians and celebrated this barbarism as a victory, but of the unthinkable weakness of the Israeli state that allowed this to happen.

After their capture, the Israeli military said Shiri and the children were in the hands of a small and previously unknown Gazan faction. Video footage showed the children’s father, Yarden, covered in blood on the back of a motorcycle, surrounded by dozens of men as he was taken away separately. He survived 15 months in captivity and was recently returned as part of the current ceasefire deal.

Later, another video surfaced showing Shiri and the children being herded into Gaza by a half-dozen men. This was the last glimpse of them. (Read more.)


How anyone can be triumphant about the killing of a terrified mother and her small children is beyond my comprehension but apparently it is cause for a holiday in Gaza. From Dissection of the War:

Following the completion of the forensic identification, the IDF representative informed the Bibas family that two of the bodies were indeed the babies Ariel and Kfir, who, according to the evidence, had been brutally murdered in captivity by Hamas in November 2023. Just around the time when they should have come home with the other women and children, but Hamas claimed at the time that they had “lost” them.

As if that wasn’t horrific enough, the assessment process determined that the body labeled as Shiri Bibas was not only NOT the boys’ mother, but not even one of the other hostages on record. It was in fact an anonymous unidentified body.

This is a violation of the utmost severity, and even I, who wish for nothing more than for all of the hostages to be returned to Israel, believe that this must be met with severe consequences. When will their actions since the October 7 Massacre be declared war crimes, when will they face justice?

To get some idea of the sickness in the soulless mind of Hamas, understand this.

On Thursday:

1. Photos from the handoff showed entire Gazan families, hundreds of “innocents” watching the sick ceremony, along with infants and toddlers. They murder our babies and from age zero, they educate their own children how to continue the cycle of hate and genocide. A Gazan woman interviewed on the ground said, “I feel so proud. We took their prisoners out of our house, whom we had guarded throughout the war.” At one point they invited all the young ones who had been brought to the area by the parents to come on stage, where they danced, spit on the coffins and cursed Jews, and behaved as if they were in the ball pit at Gymboree. I have seen the video, and it made me ill.

2. The banner on the stage featured a terrifying Vampire Netanyahu looming over the four hostages – who were, if you recall, dragged into Aza alive and were being returned dead, in boxes – smiling and happy, as if they had spent 503 days on vacation in Paradise. (Side question: Who the Hell is printing up these banners?) (Read more.)

 

Shiri Bibas was handed over at last to the Red Cross in the middle of the night and is now in Israel where her husband and what remains of her family can mourn for her and her beautiful little boys. From Break Free Media:

The IDF statement came hours after it was discovered that Hamas had not returned the body of the boys’ mother Shiri, sending instead the body of a Gazan woman and later claiming that there had been a mix-up with the bodies during an Israeli airstrike.

“The terrorists did not shoot the two young boys — they killed them with their bare hands. Afterward, they committed horrific acts to cover up these atrocities.”

“This assessment is based on both forensic findings from the identification process and intelligence that supports these findings. We have shared these findings, intelligence and forensics with our partners around the world so they can verify it,” said Hagari. (Read more.)

 

 From Flashpoints and Frontlines:

On October 7, 2023, Kfir Bibas was nine months old. His brother, Ariel, was four. Their mother, Shiri, tried to shield them with her body. Their father, Yarden, was taken with them—only to be released to a world where his wife and sons were gone. I don’t know how a person survives that kind of grief.

I am a father of two young boys, almost exactly the same ages as Ariel and Kfir. I know what it’s like to scoop up my son when he cries in the night. I know the weight of my son’s body when he clambers into my lap, tucking his head into my chest, trusting that I will keep him safe. I know how they smell after a bath, how sweaty their heads get when they sleep, how their laughter echoes through my home.

I also know the terrifying weight of the responsibility that comes with loving them. Because the truth is, no matter how strong I think I am, no matter how fiercely I would fight for them, I can’t actually protect them from everything. No parent can. The Bibas family was just like mine. Just like yours. They put their boys to bed at night believing, like all of us do, that there were limits to how much suffering the world could inflict on the innocent. We were wrong.

That is why this moment matters. That is why we cannot look away.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the slaughter of a baby would have been a moment of universal mourning. A red line, beyond debate. But in the moral confusion of our era, we no longer live in that world. (Read more.)

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The Dobbs Leak

 From Amuse on X:

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization marked a turning point in American jurisprudence, but its judicial significance was overshadowed by an unprecedented event: the leak of a draft opinion weeks before the ruling was finalized. Never before had such a breach occurred in the modern history of the Court. The disclosure, which confirmed the Court’s intent to overturn Roe v. Wade, sent political shockwaves across the country and set off protests, security threats, and even an assassination attempt against Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Despite an extensive investigation, the identity of the leaker remains officially unknown. Yet, among the many names that have surfaced in speculation, one stands out for a conspicuous reason: Amit Jain. Unlike nearly every other Supreme Court clerk from that term, Jain has never publicly commented on the matter, a silence that raises more questions than it answers.

From the moment Politico published the leaked draft, speculation was rampant about who had facilitated such an extraordinary breach. Theories varied along ideological lines. Some believed a liberal insider leaked the opinion to ignite public backlash and pressure the Court to reconsider its decision before finalization. Others speculated that a conservative sympathizer may have released the document to lock in the five-justice majority. Yet, despite these competing narratives, Justice Samuel Alito, the author of the leaked opinion, has all but confirmed that the leak was politically motivated to harm the conservative bloc. In an interview, Alito stated that the leak “made us targets of assassination” and hinted that it was intended to intimidate the Court into preserving Roe. Given this context, the question persists: who stood to gain from such an act?

The Supreme Court conducted a formal investigation, interviewing nearly 100 individuals with access to the draft. The results, however, were inconclusive. The final report from the Marshal of the Court indicated that no definitive leaker could be identified. Yet, outside observers noted something peculiar: nearly all clerks and staff from the 2021-22 term were either publicly exonerated by implication or made statements denying involvement. All except for one: Amit Jain, a former clerk for Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Jain, a graduate of Yale Law School, had a history of progressive activism. As a student, he had openly opposed Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, signing a public letter condemning Yale for supporting Kavanaugh’s nomination. His background made him an obvious subject of speculation. More notably, Jain had a documented connection to Politico reporter Josh Gerstein, one of the two journalists who broke the Dobbs leak story. Years earlier, Gerstein had quoted Jain in an article regarding immigration policy. The connection was circumstantial but sufficient for some conservative commentators to consider him a potential suspect. (Read more.)

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500,000-year-old Fossils in Florida

 From Live Science:

Fossil collectors have discovered a prehistoric graveyard buried in Florida’s Steinhatchee River. The site has yielded a remarkable collection of more than 500 fossils dating back roughly half a million years. It was full of exceptionally well-preserved bones from ancient mammals, including horses, giant armadillos, sloths and possibly a new species of tapir.

These fossils remained hidden until 2022, when fossil collectors Robert Sinibaldi and Joseph Branin stumbled upon them during a routine diving expedition in the river’s murky waters. After Branin spotted horse teeth sticking out of the sediment, the pair uncovered a hoof core and a tapir skull, signaling a potential major discovery.

“It wasn’t just quantity, it was quality,” Sinibaldi said in a statement released on Feb. 12 by the Florida Museum of Natural History. “We knew we had an important site, but we didn’t know how important.”

The Florida Museum recognized the significance of the find and dated it to the middle of the Irvingtonian North American Land Mammal Age (1.6 million–250,000 years ago)—an evolutionary transition period with a sparse fossil record. (Read more.)

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