Chemise à la Reine vs. Grande Robe Française

This simple style was introduced by Marie-Antoinette and, although she did not wear such a low neckline as shown in the fashion plate above, it still upset many people. The Queen intended the dress for quiet times at Trianon. Via Tiny Librarian:

Chemise à la Reine with bound sleeves, the neckline trimmed with a frill, Marlborough Hat wrapped with a wide ribbon striped in black and colour. (1784)

“Chemises” belonged to the category of simple and comfortable dress which was in vogue from about 1781 overall due to Marie Antoinette.

At the time, one said that an upper-body garment was made en chemise when “the beginning of the sleeves ended in two pieces which were added” (Dictionary of the abbé Jaubert, 1778).  One frequently finds in the notes of Mlle Bertin mentions such as “a piece en chemise of Italian gauze”, “a fichu-chemise* of Italian gauze”, etc.  On the date of the appearance of the “chemises à la reine”, Bachaumont fixes it for us in writing about the portraits of the Queen and Madame, by Vigée-Lebrun, shown in 1783: “The two princesses are en chemise, a costume invented recently for women.”

And he added, “Many people have found it inappropriate that these august personages are offered to the public in a garment reserved for the interior of their palace.”

(Read entire post.)

This gown is an example of the most formal attire possible, which the Queen was trying to get away from. However, people were more displeased by her simple attire than by her grand formal costume. More HERE. Share

Dictators for Life

From Tierney's Real News:

For the past decade, the fake news and liberals in America have been proclaiming that President Trump is trying to be a dictator for life, a King that can never be removed. That is a lie. That is BS propaganda from our enemies. The truth is that the REAL dictators are on the left and part of the Islamo-Communist Red-Green axis and this newsletter will PROVE that.

On Sunday night, in Nicaragua, Communist President Daniel Ortega stood in front of thousands of Sandinista loyalists at the 47th anniversary of the 1979 revolution and said what everyone already knew was true: there will be no more elections in Nicaragua. He finally admitted out loud that Nicaragua is a Communist dictatorship!

 “There won’t be any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power. The days when parties backed by the Yankees and the Somocistas would return to power are over — never again.” (Read more.)

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Sacred Geometry and Gothic Rose Windows

 From  Laboratorio Fiore Scriptorium via Hilary White at The Sacred Images Project:

Geometry in the Middle Ages was not just calculation and measurement, but a sacred language capable of uniting heaven and earth, the visible and the invisible. Every line and proportion thus brought to life a prayer in stone, a tangible testimony of faith carved in numbers.

"Sacred Geometry and Gothic Rose Windows, from Architecture to Miniature": a course designed for those more comfortable with technical drawing than with hand-drawn. Originally offered a few years ago, it is now available again—upon request—for small groups of at least three people. (Read more.)

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"Beautiful Love Story"

Henrietta Maria with two of her Children

Charles I and Henrietta Maria with Charles Prince of Wales and Mary the Princess Royal

The Queen doing Penance at Tyburn

A glowing review from Pursuing Stacie:

I have a huge love for classics. Little Women, Jane Eyre, Anne of Green of Gables…I will reach for these novels again and again, and then sigh happily about 3, 428 times throughout the story. This was exactly my experience while reading My Queen, My Love: A Novel of Henrietta Maria. It just has that rare classic, cozy, wholesome feel. Mind you, there’s plenty of suspense and intrigue. But the story is just so good!

The author skillfully fleshes out the characters and story of Charles and Henrietta, allowing her readers to sink into the novel. When I was about three chapters in, I realized with a start that I had not only completely missed my bedtime, but had forgotten altogether that I was reading a book, so engrossed was I in the story. (Have you ever read a book that feels like a movie?) (You’re about to.)

While the author set a scene masterfully, she also brought these historical characters to life in rich detail. (Might I suggest Googling their names as you meet them, by the way? So fun to put a face to the new friend that you’ve just made.) I adored Henrietta and will carry her with me always. But truly, each character was dynamic and real. From the beautiful love story to the suspense that only villainy can bring, this novel is perfect from beginning to end. (Read more.)

Another review from History From A Woman's Perspective:

Because the two of them worked hard to make their marriage work, they ended up deeply in love with each other which made it satisfying. There is plenty of drama, politics, and courtly intrigue that will engage the reader to keep turning the page! I can’t wait to read the next book in the series to learn what comes next for Queen Henrietta Maria of England! I recommend this for fans of Jean Plaidy, Alison Weir, and Philippa Gregory! My Queen, My Love is a promising start to an enthralling series on one of England’s most tragic queens! (Read more.)

My Queen, My Love and Generalissima are available from Amazon.
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Trump Announces Plan to Replace Illegal Alien Truckers with American Veterans

 From The Western Journal:

President Donald Trump kicked off a new initiative on Thursday designed to fast-track veterans into truck driving jobs.

Trump called the program “Freedom Haulers.”

“We’re taking action to replace these unqualified, migrant drivers with highly qualified American veterans,” Trump said at the White House event, flanked by a military transport truck on one side and a civilian big rig on the other.

“Under our brand new Freedom Haulers initiative, any American who has driven a heavy truck for our military will automatically be eligible for a commercial driver’s license. And it’s good-paying jobs, too,” the president added.

“We’re going to make it as easy as possible for the veterans,” Trump said.

He also noted that those who did not drive trucks in the military will still be eligible to participate in the Freedom Haulers program.

They will receive the necessary training to drive trucks in a matter of weeks. (Read more.)

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The Lamp that Burns Forever

 From Public Discourse:

In one of his most underrated but magisterial works, Perictione in Colophon: Reflections on the Aesthetic Way of Life (2000), Roger Scruton provides a blueprint of what constitutes true and timeless architecture. This is not a book of conventional philosophy, but a literary masterpiece that, in fictional form, describes the world in which we now live. Elsewhere, he describes that world as one of “normal nihilism.” Who, gazing around our city streets, would not agree with him? We have, as it were, normalized nihilism to the point where alienation from the world has become the rule for most people.  

There are many reasons for this, but one of the primary causes, according to Scruton, is that we have forgotten how to build in accordance with time-honored values. He goes further, arguing that we must understand the human urge to build in religious rather than in secular terms. That is because, as he writes:  

The stone of the temple is the earthly translation of God’s immortality, which is in turn the symbol of a community and its will to live. The temple, like the liturgy, is forever, and the community contains not the living only, but also the dead and the unborn. And the dead are protected by the temple, which immortalises them in stone. This is what you understand instinctively when you see religious architecture. And it is the sentiment from which cities grow—the tribe’s will to permanence. 

In glaring contrast, architectural functionalism “hurts both the eye and the soul, for it speaks not of us and our right of dwelling.” Hence, functional buildings “are perceived as a desecration: nothing of the sacred remains in them.” Scruton’s point is that the way we build has consequences far beyond those of conflicting tastes. Whereas innovation in music, painting, and poetry does not directly affect how we live, architecture most certainly does. It is very much a public art centrally bound up with our self-understanding. Put simply, change the way you build, and you change the self-image and values of a people.   (Read more.)

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The Sword in the Stone: A Medieval Latin Account

 

From Medievalists:

At the Abbey of Saint Denis-en-France, the Benedictine monk and chronicler Guillaume de Nangis (d. 1300) wrote a Latin World Chronicle from Creation to AD 1300. The text contains an account of the reign of King Arthur of Britain that includes the celebrated Sword in the Stone Episode. This iconic scene was not traditionally part of the ‘historical’ account of King Arthur’s biography.

The pseudo-historical Brut chronicle story of King Arthur, which originates with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae [History of the Kings of Britain] (c. 1136), has Arthur, aged fifteen, succeed to the throne of Britain without contest. Geoffrey’s Historia implies that Arthur was widely known to have been King Uther Pendragon’s son and heir apparent. The prose redaction of the Estoire de Merlin [Story of Merlin] (c. 1210), an Old French romance attributed to Robert de Boron (fl. 1191–1212), contains the earliest known attestation of the Sword in the Stone Episode, and it is built around an alternative history of Arthur’s childhood. According to it, Merlin compels King Uther Pendragon and Queen Ygraine to give up their son (Arthur) as a newborn. The enchanter sees to it that the child is baptized ‘Arthur’ and adopted by the worthy knight Sir Antor and his wife. The couple raise Arthur as their own alongside their biological son Kay. (Read more.)

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Penn State Law Dean Resigns

 From The Washington Free Beacon:

The dean of Penn State Dickinson Law resigned on Friday after a former student testified before Congress about the school’s mandatory anti-racism class, which required all first-year students to “acknowledge the reality of systemic racism.”

The school announced that Danielle Conway, who also leads the Association of American Law Schools, was stepping down as dean “effective immediately.” The move came two days after David Blackman, a Texas military veteran, said at a congressional hearing that he had left the law school over his objections to the course, which Conway created in 2020. She will remain on the law school’s faculty.

In a short press release on Friday, Penn State declined to thank Conway for her service. University provost Fotis Sotiropoulos said the school “remains fully committed to continuing to provide our law students with an excellent legal education.”

For his part, Blackman is taking a victory lap, telling the Washington Free Beacon that Conway’s departure is “a necessary acknowledgment” of the damage she caused.

“The law school shifted away from traditional, objective legal training in favor of forced ideological orthodoxy,” Blackman said. “This erosion of professional neutrality hurts the legal academy, the bar, and every student forced to comply.”

He added that Penn State should “take the logical next step” and eliminate the required course. (Read more.)

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'The Sun Also Rises' at 100

 From First Things:

The Sun Also Rises shows men and women trying to salvage a life they can call “good” from the wreckage of their own hopes, and the ruin of an entire civilization. Those aureate obscenities now proscribed had meant a great deal before Verdun and the Somme and Passchendaele. They had defined the things men owed to Caesar and to their comrades and to themselves, and decreed what was worth killing and dying for. After the war’s pointless carnage, the vocabulary of the moral life shrank to the bare essentials.  

Hemingway offers his own definition of the good under the new dispensation—the word that his narrator, Jake Barnes, uses dozens of times to connote the union of physical pleasure and moral rightness: You feel what is good, you know it without thinking about it, as though simple sensation were the only guide to right living. “It felt good to be warm and in bed”; “It was a good dinner. Food had an excellent place in the count’s values. So did wine. The count was in fine form during the meal. So was Brett. It was a good party”; “You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into enough things that I liked, so that I had a good time.” A good time, for this expatriate crowd attending the fiesta in the Spanish town of Pamplona, means good fishing, good bullfighting, a good hotel room, a good meal, lots of good drink, and good drinking companions.

What it emphatically doesn’t mean, at least for Jake, is good loving. The beautiful Brett, Lady Ashley, loves Jake, and Jake loves her; but Jake suffered a war wound that disqualifies him from sexual pleasure, so she takes up with several perfectly wrong men one after the other, including a superb matador fifteen years younger than she, who takes a bad beating from a previous lover of hers adept with his fists. (This jilted and jealous lover, once the middleweight boxing champion of Princeton, is an anti-Semite’s dream so odious that the poisonous caricature nearly spoils the novel.) Brett is feeling quite virtuous, between spasms of self-hatred, after she decides to leave the love-besotted torero for his own good. “You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch,” she says. “It’s sort of what we have instead of God.” “Some people have God,” Jake replies. “Quite a lot.”  (Read more.)

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