Louis XVI and American Independence

It is fairly well-known that without the military and financial aid given by Louis XVI to the American colonists in their struggle for independence from Great Britain, our nation may never have arisen. The King of France was reluctant to go to war, recoiling from both the expense and the shedding of blood; he did so only when convinced that it would benefit France in the long run. Marie-Antoinette was initially against assisting the Americans; she thought it set a dangerous precedent to help the colonists rebel against their king. Nevertheless, once war was declared, she did not hesitate to embrace the joint cause of France and America. According to Lafayette she once greeted him by saying: "Give me news of our good Americans, of our dear Republicans!"

Lafayette may have colored her words with his own enthusiasm for the cause. However, the general repartee in the French court over the American revolt is rather humorous, or at least it would be, had the consequences for France not been so tragic. When Marie-Antoinette's brother, Emperor Joseph II, was visiting Versailles, some pro-American French lady kept badgering him about the colonists' revolt. Finally, the Holy Roman Emperor curtly replied: "Madame, I am a royalist by profession." When Lafayette joined the followers of Mesmer, Louis XVI asked him, ironically: "What will Washington think when he hears that you have become the first apothecary of Mesmer?"

The King and Queen graciously received Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and other Americans at Versailles. Louis XVI was depicted in art with Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Sadly, the bankruptcy France incurred by the war caused the political crisis in France to escalate, leading to a bloody revolution and to the deaths of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. But Louis XVI did indeed show foresight in his decision to help the colonies. Twice the new nation would come to the aid of France when France was in dire need. I always have thought that in addition to saying "Lafayette, we are here," General Pershing should have said "Louis XVI, we are here" since without the King's help America may never have become a nation.

(Quotations from Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars)

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American Exceptionalism

 From Tierney's Real News:

Modern-day Communists like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zohran Mamdani, Abigail Spanberger, Karen Bass and Aurélie Chevalier often make the same broad claim: that America is inherently flawed and a country that's not worth saving. They say it’s an oligarchy, rigged by billionaires, with workers paying the price for a system that can’t be fixed. In their view, the Constitution and the Founding Fathers hardcoded racism and inequality into the nation from the very beginning, designing it to protect “white elites” through slavery, racial hierarchy, and concentrated property rights.

They believe America should be burned to the ground and rebuilt as a collectivist country, using "messianic" figures like Marx, Mao, Muhammad, Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, and Castro as our heroes. The Communists who want to destroy America are backed by our adversaries in the Red-Green axis of Communist China, Russia, Iran & North Korea who want Islamo-Communism to rule America and the world. While their arguments may sound emotional and confident, they are based on a lie. That lie is repeated by liberal teachers and professors in textbooks in public schools and colleges - where our children are being indoctrinated to hate God, hate America, hate themselves and love Communism - and through headlines and memes in the fake news day after day. (Read more.)

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Why the American Revolution Brought Liberty — And the French Revolution a Reign of Terror

 From The National Catholic Register:

People are wrong to compare the two revolutions,” historian Reynald Sécher, one of France’s foremost scholars of the counterrevolutionary movements and author of A French Genocide: the Vendée, told the Register. “The American Revolution had for its sole aim to free itself from the tutelage of the king of England — a tutelage that expressed itself almost exclusively through fiscal obligations. Fundamentally, the insurgents did not call into question the nature of society.”

France was a very different matter, Sécher said.

“The revolutionaries had a specific program,” he explained, “which consisted of destroying the divine right monarchy and the traditional, ordered society, to replace them with a new world, a new order, a new man.”

He argued, moreover, that the American Revolution was political in nature — aimed at breaking away from a distant crown that had overstepped its rights — while the French Revolution was purely ideological. In Sécher’s view, it was a project of fundamental transformation that targeted everything beyond its control, including the faith of ordinary people. (Read more.)

Why France helped America. From France 24:

French support for the American Revolution began well before the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. King Louis XVI saw the rebellion in North America as an opportunity to weaken his British rival and avenge past defeats. FRANCE 24 looks back at how European colonial rivalry and Enlightenment ideals forged a decisive alliance between the nascent United States and its "oldest ally".

On July 4, 1776, 13 British colonies in North America broke with the British Crown and declared their independence in a momentous act of rebellion that would change the course of history. As the United States celebrates its 250th birthday, FRANCE 24 looks back at France’s decisive – and often overlooked – role in the American Revolution.

Behind the fight for independence lies another story: that of a long-standing rivalry between Great Britain and France, the two great European powers at the time. When the Thirteen Colonies proclaimed their independence, they were still a long way from winning the war. Across the Atlantic, France watched the brewing rebellion with increasing interest. (Read more.)

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"Jeweled" Sèvres Vases

During a recent visit to the Walter's Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland I saw the vases above, part of the famous "jeweled" Sèvres collection ordered by Louis XVI.  According to the Walter's website:

Between 1778 and 1782, Sèvres manufactured for Louis XVI a series of vases with handles shaped as busts of infants, young women, and old men, hence the name "vases des âges." The Walters' examples, with the infants and a "bleu nouveau" ground color, bear classical scenes and an additional decoration of "jewels" composed of enamel drops over gold foil.

The classical scenes are derived from an illustrated edition of Télémaque, a romance set in antiquity written by Fénélon in 1699. These vases show Telemachus, the son of Ulysses, winning a chariot race and Minerva, disguised as an old man, persuading Telemachus to participate in a war against the Dauniens. These vases were designed by Jacques-François Deparis. The painting was by Antoine Caton, the gilding by Etienne-Henry Le Guay, and the jewels by Philippe Parpette.

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Justice Kavanaugh’s Transgender Ruling and the Misogyny of the Left

 From Mark Judge at Chronicles:

In West Virginia v. B.P.J. the Supreme Court has just ruled against “transgender” athletes. Boys claiming to be girls can no longer destroy female sports and traumatize girls in locker rooms. 

The opinion was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. It is a reasonable ruling, although it doesn’t go far enough, in my opinion, because it’s missing something fundamental about what inspires the LGBTQ+ community to demand such things. What’s lurking behind the current transgender craze is the same thing that lurked behind the gay right movement for decades: hatred of women.

This phenomenon has been noticed not just by conservatives but by feminists and many honest gay people. In 2018, the videographer Monica Rodman published an article in the gay magazine The Advocate, in which she recalled working on the set of a film. (Read more.)

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Catholic Admiration for George Washington

 From The National Catholic Register

As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, George Washington has once again become a familiar point of reference for American Catholics. The connection is, at first glance, an unexpected one.

Washington was an Anglican, and there is no serious historical evidence that he ever sought reception into the Catholic Church (more on his supposed deathbed conversion later). Yet among American Catholics, no Founding Father has been more consistently admired — or more closely associated with the political conditions that made Catholic life possible in the early republic.

Before independence, Catholic life in much of the 13 colonies often remained hidden due to religious persecution. In many regions, the faith mostly survived through private devotion, household worship and the ministry of priests traveling between scattered communities.

Even where the law permitted restricted freedom of worship, Catholics were barred from holding public office and often viewed with suspicion inherited from England’s religious turmoil, where allegiance to Rome was frequently treated as incompatible with political loyalty. In colonies such as Pennsylvania, that limited permission allowed Mass at Old St. Joseph’s in Philadelphia but did not extend to full civic equality. (Read more.)

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Wedding of Marie of Edinburgh

 

The three wedding ceremonies of the future Queen of Romania. From Royal Musings:

The bridal party arrived at the Stadkirche at 4:30 p.m, for the first religious wedding, a Roman Catholic ceremony. The "picturesque church" was overflowing with guests.  Kaiser Wilhelm II, dressed as an imperial Field Marshal, entered first, escorting the bride's mother, the Duchess of Edinburgh.  They were followed by the Duke of Connaught  with the Princess of Hohenzollern, Grand Duke Alexis and the Duchess of Connaught,  Prince and Princess Leopold of Hohenzollern,  King Carol of Roumania, Crown Prince Ferdinand, and the bride and groom's brothers and sisters. Princess Marie and her father, the Duke of Edinburgh, were the last to enter the church.

The marriage was conducted by the parish priest, and the nuptial address was given by the Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery at Beuron. Crown Prince Ferdinand's "Ja" was "heard distinctly all over the church," but Princess Marie's answer was "quite inaudible to those placed at any distance from the chancel." After they had "exchanged rings and clasped hands, Prince Ferdinand and Princess Marie, "rose as man and wife to the strain of the beautiful chorale "Laus tibi Domine." (Read more.)

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Baby Boom

 From Tierney's Real News:

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against President Trump’s executive order that sought to end automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to illegal aliens and temporary visitors. The fake news media is celebrating as if this settles the issue forever, but that could not be further from the truth. This decision does not end the fight. It actually clarifies and strengthens the path forward.

What the fake news is not reporting is how we got here, where birthright citizenship came from to begin with, what prompted Trump’s EO against it, what the arguments were for and against, how honest leaders in America are reacting, what a doable workaround is, what are the next steps and if this means the fight is over or not.

So, let’s not join with the panicans and doomers who say the sky is falling - let’s look at the facts and make an informed decision. This is a complicated argument and there is no magic bullet.

I’m sure I’ll hear from some people who will tell me this newsletter is too long and they want me to cut it down to two paragraphs. Well, I can’t report all the facts in two paragraphs - that’s why the fake news is fake news. The TRUTH takes a little longer. So stay with me, please. (Read more.)

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I Think I Am Finally Beginning to Understand the Thirty Years War

 From Gruntled History Teacher:

Before the war, Germany was one of the richest and most developed regions of Europe, with an extraordinary medieval network of towns and trade networks that had grown up throughout the Middle Ages, and a convoluted constitutional system that defies explanation (then or now), but which actually worked better than is generally credited. But the Thirty Years War devastated large parts of the country so badly that, in German cultural memory, the 17th century is nearly as dark as the 20th.

It’s the war that tore Germany apart, and laid the seeds for later German national history, with all its accompanying baggage. But it also played a pivotal role in the nationalist histories of Germany, France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands. For the Enlightenment, it was the war that delegitimized Christendom and allowed science and reason to supplant religion. American religious freedom, pluralism, and toleration, have long been contrasted with the devastation of Europe’s wars of religion.

For military historians, the Thirty Years War has been the war that crystallized the military revolution and the rise of the fiscal-military state. International Relations theorists still describe the modern world as Westphalian, referring to the Peace of Westphalia that ended the war and established a system of sovereign states as the default international order. Catholic and Protestant historiographies naturally championed their respective sides, and all the major figures of the war have long been cast as heroes or villains according to whoever held the pen. The history of the Thirty Years War has been fought over and contested almost as much as the war itself. (Read more.)

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