Bellevue

Bellevue was a country estate originally built by Louis XV for Madame de Pompadour. It was on a hill overlooking the Seine and the forest of Meudon; the view was said to be truly magnificent. In 1775, after he had become king, Louis XVI gave Bellevue to his maiden aunts Adélaïde, Victoire, and Sophie, the surviving daughters of Louis XV, known as Mesdames Tantes. Madame Louise having already entered the Carmelite monastery, Louis thought it would be good for his other aunts to have a retreat from the court, a house they could call their own. For all their genuine piety, Mesdames Tantes had manipulated and gossiped about Marie-Antoinette in the early years of her marriage, coining the term L'Autrichienne, an epithet that would later be taken up by the Revolutionaries. It probably helped maintain the peace at court for Antoinette to be at her Trianon while the aunts were at their Bellevue.

According to the Comte d'Hézecques, who in his capacity as a page at Versailles witnessed the inner workings of the court:

The position of Mesdames at Court being obscure and unsatisfactory, they were seldom seen there. They spent the chief part of the year either at Bellevue, on that splendid height that commands the proud city and the charming country around it; or at the Hermitage, a little garden at the other end of Versailles, by the road leading to Marly.

Madame Adelaide and Madame Victoire were the only survivors of the four daughters of Louis XV who outlived their father. The third, Madame Sophie, had died two years before ; and the other, Madame Louise, had quitted the world in one of those sudden resolutions that can only be inspired by great religious fervour, or by a quick and ardent spirit that will not be satisfied by smaller sacrifices—resolutions that always cause astonishment to men of the world, whatever be their cause....

Mesdames the Aunts only came to Paris in the winter, as they had been able to stay at Bellevue up to the 5th of October. Seeing that they were of very little use to their nephew, unable to enjoy his confidence, and fearing measures opposed to their religious opinions, they at last decided on going to Rome. Possibly in their solitude, standing in a position whence they could form a better judgment of the course of events, theirs was the surer presentiment of all the trouble that hung over their family; therefore, they separated themselves from it for life, but they could not prevail on Madame Elizabeth to leave her brother and accompany them. . . . No doubt Mesdames did not find themselves happy at Rome. The news of the fall of the throne of their fathers and the sorrows of their family came to disturb the peace they might have enjoyed in the Eternal City. They could at least carry their tears and prayers for their guilty country to the foot of the altar, till the day when they were forced to quit the hospitable city that had received them, by conquests that the noble head of the Church could neither arrest nor foresee. So they left Rome to retire to Naples; and, after several changes of their place of refuge, Madame Adelaide had the sorrow of seeing her younger sister die at Trieste. Her own mournful existence was shortened by grief, and she soon died herself at Klagenfurth.—Recollections of a Page, by Comte d'Hézecques, pp. 79-82.

Here is furniture, originally from Bellevue, that once belonged to Madame Adélaïde.

Here is a view of the orangerie and formal terrace at Bellevue. The palace was looted during the Revolution. In 1823, it was demolished.

In the 1780's Mesdames Tantes had Mique create an English-style garden at Bellevue, complete with a tower, a lake, a mill, a dairy and a grotto, similar to what Marie-Antoinette had at Trianon. It is fascinating that they were so censorious of the Queen and yet imitated her in that for which she was greatly criticized, the creation of fanciful gardens. The tower and some other structures of the gardens of Bellevue survived well into the twentieth century; little is left of it today.



Here is a picture of the grotto of Mesdame Tantes, which is just about all that is left of the Bellevue estate. Sic transit gloria mundi.

(Photos from Le Boudoir de Marie-Antoinette) Share

Librarians Could Face Criminal Charges

From Todd Starnes:

“According to your library’s website, this event is a ‘queer-led story time with an LGBTQ+ theme’ which is directed to toddlers and preschoolers,” she wrote in the letter. She said local residents had contacted her office concerned about the event.

Hanaway said that furnishing any pornographic material to minors is a crime and so is displaying explicit sexual material in any location that may be readily seen.

“Protecting the safety and wellbeing of minors is one of my top priorities,” the attorney general wrote. “While your library has the right to determine its own programming, I am fully prepared to take appropriate action should any of these programs violate Missouri law. (Read more.)

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Has Hitler’s Order for the Holocaust Been Discovered?

 From It Can Always Get Worse:

To summarise briefly: why the Holocaust happened is straightforward—because Adolf Hitler wished it to—but how and when the decision was taken is debated. The debate turns largely on whether there was a Führer Order for the Holocaust. While no such document has ever been found, this is not surprising. There was extensive destruction of Nazi documentation, and Hitler routinely conveyed orders verbally anyway, so, if there was a Führer Order, it was almost certainly never written down in the first place. Accentuating the difficulties, the surviving records are written according to a euphemistic official Nazi discourse that leaves room for interpretation, and Hitler—like Lenin—deliberately cultivated uncertainty within the regime about his role in the worst crimes.1

Historians are broadly divided into two camps, those who argue for a moment between July and December 1941 when a Führer Order was issued, and those who argue there was no “moment”, but rather an iterative process between Hitler at the centre and various lower officials in the occupied territories, where the Führer endorsed, rather than originated, the escalatory steps of the Shoah.

In assessing the evidence historians are working with in coming to these divergent conclusions, one aspect I highlighted was:

SS operatives involved in implementing the Final Solution … have uniformly testified that their orders came directly from Hitler. There is no reason to doubt the SS men were substantially correct, that Hitler stood behind the fundamental decision for the Holocaust and every decision of significance as it escalated. But it does not settle the question of a Führer Order because none of the SS officials heard Hitler’s verbal instruction(s) personally; they all heard of Hitler’s will through [Heinrich] Himmler. And Himmler did not specify to his subordinates whether, during his increasingly frequent face-to-face meetings with Hitler from the summer of 1941 onwards, the Führer had approved or initiated genocidal measures. (Read more.)

 

Will there be another genocide? From Welcome to Absurdistan:

Fourteen years ago I published a book one chapter of which entirely dealt with the forests fires curently raging across Canada choking the lungs of Americans from Maine to Chicago. It was published by Harper Collins in New York, and received a good old fashioned push by their PR department.

I woke up at 4 am to get on drive time in Texas and Atlanta. I must have spoken to 30 million people - in theory - the PR kept me up on the numbers each radio host had, I spoke to the big names, including the sainted Dennis Prager which pleased HC no end. In each interview I hit the major highlight of the book - the most shocking crime against people and nature - outlining how “natural regulation” installed by the UN FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) had made the forests thick, desiccated: visualize a whole bunch of unthinned little trees leaching all the water from the soil, fire ladders growing up the trees, just waiting for a lightning strike or stupid “activist” kid to trigger conflagration.

All over the world, these policies, these regulations had been forced in a series of iniquitous meetings where entire nations were placed under the rule of weedy, stupid, vicious idiots who called themselves “scientists” employed in Turtle Bay, who had, courtesy of the Rockefellers and a bunch of other malignant families - basically the ones holding the debt of the New York Federal Reserve - crowned themselves Lords of Nature. And, as I began to understand, planned to take it all from us. (Read more.)

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The Six Loves of James I

 

 

In the last few decades some really amazing authors have begun writing about the Stuart dynasty. The abundance of Tudor biographies and novels have led to an interest in the family which succeeded them on the throne of England. While the Tudors were wily politicians, they were continually challenged when it came to male heirs. Because Margaret, the oldest daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, married James IV of Scotland, her Stuart descendants became the heirs of the Three Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland and of the principality of Wales. James VI of Scotland, son of the murdered Mary Stuart, was de facto heir of the last Tudor, Elizabeth I. He became James I of England. Gareth Russell's fascinating biography of this brilliant and complicated man is a must-read for anyone venturing into the upheavals and achievements of the seventeenth century. Mr. Russell is known for his painstaking research of primary sources as well as for his witty and entertaining prose. This must be at least the tenth work among his several books and plays that I have read.

James I was a series of contradictions. A peaceful man, he was haunted by violence from the womb, when a Scottish lord held a pistol to his mother's pregnant stomach during a palace coup. He survived the violent deaths of both his parents as well as attempts upon his own life, in addition to kidnappings. Yet what damaged him most was the harsh, unloving and even brutal treatment he received as a motherless child from those entrusted with his upbringing. When he finally had a his own wife and family, he loved his Anna, and saw to the thorough education of his children. He was nevertheless constantly becoming infatuated with a series of handsome young men. 

A scholar of Hebrew and Greek, James presided over the translation of the Bible into the English, known as the "King James version." Famous for writing works of theology, he was also notorious for rowdy and boisterous banquets at which he became drunk, while making and laughing at coarse oaths. A persecutor of Catholics, he also insisted on the Anglican liturgy being uniform and dignified, with vestments and candles, which the Calvinists saw as papist. A prosecutor of witches, as a matter of conscience, he would then scandalize the court by showing public affection for his boyfriend of the moment. It was James I's elevation of his favorite, George Villiers, as Duke of Buckingham, while treating him practically as a member of the Royal Family, that prepared the way for Buckingham to be a fixture at the court of James' son, Charles I. Unfortunately, the role Buckingham played in the government of Charles, particularly as perceived by the people, weakened the royal authority.

From Folger Shakespeare Library:

“Elizabeth was king, now James is queen.” So went the joke circulating around London in the 17th century. While Elizabeth I became an icon for transgressing traditional gender roles, her successor is all too often overlooked or even mocked for the same reasons. Yet James I was a multifaceted ruler who led a fascinating life—and his personal relationships only add to that complexity.

For generations, historians avoided labeling the intimate relationships between James and his “favorites” as romantic. But after combing through James’s personal correspondence, historian and author Gareth Russell has uncovered compelling evidence of five significant love affairs with men. His award-winning book, The Six Loves of James I, reveals how these relationships—and his marriage to Queen Anna of Denmark*—guided the course of his life and reign.

James I’s story is a turbulent one, filled with assassination attempts, kidnapping, and witch hunts. It’s also a story of a man who loved “indiscreetly and obstinately,” for better or for worse. In this episode, Gareth Russell explores the untold history of a complicated king through the lens of the great loves of his life. (Read more.)

 

The Six Loves is available HERE.

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Catherine Herridge Uncovers Shocking Revelations About The Biden Family

 From Zero Hedge:

Herridge, a veteran Emmy-winning investigative reporter, has previously pursued stories on the Hunter Biden laptop, the Biden family's foreign business dealings, and related corruption allegations - reporting that put her at odds with CBS leadership and the broader media consensus.

In February 2024 she was among those laid off in a round of cuts. CBS then seized her reporting files, including materials involving confidential sources. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Herridge described the seizure in stark terms: "When my records were seized I felt it was a journalistic rape."

She added that "CBS News' decision to seize my reporting records crossed a red line that I believe should never be crossed by any media organization" and that "When the network of Walter Cronkite seizes your reporting files, including confidential source information, that is an attack on investigative journalism."

She has maintained that she simply "reported out the facts of the story. I called balls and strikes." The network eventually returned the files under pressure from the House Judiciary Committee and her union.

Earlier, during the 2020 campaign, the Biden team had already labeled her a "partisan, rightwing hack." Her treatment fits a pattern of institutional pushback against journalists who refused to look away from the Biden family's financial ties.

Those ties have been documented for years. House Oversight Committee investigations, led by Chairman James Comer, obtained bank records and witness accounts showing Chinese Communist Party-linked money flowing to Biden family members.

Comer stated that the documents demonstrated the family had received funds from CCP-connected entities and that family members "attempted to sell access & influence around the world." (Read more.)

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The Agony of The Odyssey

 From Paul du Quenoy at Chronicles:

“Hahaha. Very proud to say we got the Odyssey removed from the curriculum this year!” Lawrence, Massachusetts, high school teacher Heather Levine tweeted in 2020, responding to a post from a fellow “scholar-educator” who called Homer’s epic poem “trash.” The Wall Street Journal reported that the teachers were part of an online group of left-wing activist educators who tried to get Homer’s epic and other classics of Western literature banned from classrooms because of their supposedly racist, sexist, and ableist contents.

These undoubtedly enlightened purveyors of knowledge have yet to register any reaction to this summer’s blockbuster release of Sir Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of Homer’s epic. Nolan’s film, which he co-produced with his wife Emma Thomas and for which he wrote the script, debases The Odyssey so cheaply that Hellenophobic New England schoolmarms might well be pleased, assuming they are not too triggered to see the film.

Nolan was on tap to direct Troy, an adaptation of Homer’s Iliad executed more than two decades ago by Wolfgang Petersen, but the studio eased Nolan out of the project, giving him Batman Begins as a consolation prize. Nolan has said in interviews that at the time, he felt ill-prepared to tackle The Iliad. He only conceived his Odyssey project in 2024, after the stunning success of Oppenheimer, his disjointed biopic of the troubled atomic bomb scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, which won seven Academy Awards. According to interviews, Nolan kept the subject of his next film secret for nearly a year while he read several translations of Homer’s epic, along with various related media, apparently including comic book adaptations.

Perhaps naturally, Nolan contextualized The Odyssey within his larger oeuvre of feature films, many of which, including Memento, Interstellar, and his Batman trilogy, relate existential quests involving emotionally tortured men who suffer from familial loss. From that perspective, Homer’s epic—a hero’s 10-year voyage home from a distant battlefield to a faithful but beleaguered family—may have seemed a natural fit. Nolan had the time, money, and opportunity to make a stirring and searching literary adaptation of great significance, if for no other reason than that a serious film adaptation of The Odyssey hasn’t been undertaken since Italian director Mario Camerini’s flawed 1954 attempt in technicolor, Ulysses, starring Kirk Douglas. (Read more.)

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Narrative Icons

 

From Hilary White at The Sacred Images Project:

One of the most useful distinctions made by people who analyse art is between an image that simply presents something, and an image that tells a story. A portrait of a king, a still life of a bowl of fruit, a simple landscape, or an icon of Christ Pantocrator asks us to contemplate a single subject. They are essentially static images, like a single object in a dark room under a spotlight. Nothing is happening, and nothing is about to happen. It’s just Him and you.

But iconography is about making a visual statement about some eternal reality, even when the image itself is a story being told. We are all familiar with the single-figure icons of course, but there are narrative icons as well. The Nativity icon is a good example of this, where a single image will have several elements of a story presented as if they’re all happening at the same visual “time”1. The format here is to have the most important thing - the Nativity itself - in the centre, with all the side adventures going on around it.

This is called “continuous narrative,” in which the same characters appear multiple times within a single image to depict successive moments in a story. Time is compressed into one pictorial space. But instead of reading left-to-right like a comic strip, the viewer follows the action throughout the composition.

This technique goes back to classical Roman art (for example, Trajan’s Column) and was taken east by Byzantine artists, where it became especially common in manuscript illumination, fresco cycles, and some icons. (Read more.)

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Blame Democrats, Not ICE, for Recent Deadly Shootings

 From Chronicles:

In the wake of recent shootings in Texas and Maine, President Trump’s mass deportation campaign hit another wall. Over the past week, two men, one from Mexico and another from Colombia, were killed during encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during traffic stops.

ICE says that both of the two men, Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas, were in the country illegally, but that they were not the intended targets of ICE’s operations. Critics have used these cases of mistaken identity to impugn ICE and Trump’s efforts to secure the nation’s interior. In response, ICE temporarily paused vehicle stops across the country.

However, President Trump on Wednesday used TruthSocial to reverse that policy, writing, “[W]e must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!”

Fatal shootings by ICE, while unfortunate, are rare. Considering the scale of ICE’s operations, the number of fatalities during these inherently dangerous operations has been very low. ICE agents have been making hundreds of arrests each day across the nation for the last 18 months, and ramped up to 2,000 arrests per day in June. Despite the intensity of its operations and the fierce public backlash, there have been only 11 deaths related to ICE enforcement operations during Trump’s second term beginning January 2025. That is compared an average of 800 people killed in the U.S. every year by police and other law enforcement officers. And yet, left-wing newspapers like The Guardian quote pro-immigrant activists about “terrifying new levels” of ICE violence. (Read more.)

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Cholera in the Mid-1800's

We recall the death of Charles X from cholera as told in the novel Madame Royale. From Geri Walton:

These 22 rules were then summed up by the author:

“By timely adoption of simple means such as these, Cholera or any other epidemic will be made to lose its venom; so true is it that ‘internal sanatory arrangements, and not quarantine and sanatory lines, are the safeguards of nations.'”

While Victorians may have thought this good advice, the bacterium responsible for Cholera was not isolated until 1854 by an Italian anatomist. Even then its exact nature was still unknown. Ultimately, attempts at understanding cholera fell upon the shoulders of a German physician and pioneering microbiologist named Robert Koch. Koch determined in 1884 that the causative agent of cholera was Vibrio cholerae. Despite his discovery and despite Cholera inoculations for humans occurring in 1885 and a Cholera vaccine being developed in July of 1892, Cholera pandemics continued to exist into the early twentieth century. (Read more.)

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