The Affair of the Necklace

On August 15, 1785, the "Affair of the Necklace" broke upon France, just as Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were about to assist at the Mass of the Assumption, the patronal solemnity of the realm. Cardinal Louis de Rohan, who was supposed to offer the Mass, was publicly arrested in his pontifical robes for his part in the debacle. The Diamond Necklace scandal was one of the events which precipitated the French Revolution of 1789 and the fall of the monarchy. After perusing the internet I think it becomes necessary to affirm once again that Marie-Antoinette, according to several major biographers, was an innocent victim in one of the most sordid intrigues in history. She never sought to possess the necklace. For one thing, the necklace was not to her liking; she preferred light, aerial creations. A few scholars even doubt that Madame du Barry, whom the jewelers had in mind when they originally designed the huge, garish necklace, would have cared for it, her taste being not quite so grotesque as is generally assumed. Also, by 1785 Marie-Antoinette had cultivated simpler tastes; she was very much under the influence of Madame de Polignac, who never wore diamonds. It is known that when Boehmer tried to sell her the necklace, she remarked that France needed ships, not diamonds.

The fault of the King and Queen was in attempting to be too above board in the handling of the proceedings. Instead of trying to settle the disaster quietly, there was a public trial of the Cardinal, for whom Marie-Antoinette harbored resentments. Not only had Cardinal de Rohan rudely infiltrated one of her garden parties, but he had told ribald jokes about Marie-Antoinette's mother. He had many mistresses (including Bonnie Prince Charlie's daughter). He symbolized the worst decadence of the French nobility and the corrupt higher clergy. He was grand almoner of Versailles due to his ancestral prerogatives, but neither the king nor the queen had any use for him. The scandal rid them of him, but at a very high price. They could never have known at the onset the cast of bizarre characters with whom the Cardinal was involved, who were brought into the light of day. The Queen's name was dragged through the mud by being associated with such people in the gazettes, people who were complete strangers to her. Biographer Maxime de la Rocheterie believed that even if the king and queen had tried to suppress the scandal, the results would have been disastrous nevertheless.

How did it all come about? Through a woman who lied. Each lie told by Madame de la Motte was more outrageous than the last, yet individuals motivated by lust or ambition or greed believed her tales. She told people that she was an intimate friend of the Queen, who had never even heard of her. The swindle was tragic for all involved, especially for the innocent Marie-Antoinette, for it confirmed in the popular imagination all the salacious gossip which portrayed her as a loose, extravagant woman.

For details of the Diamond Necklace Scandal, read my book Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars.

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Welfare Fraud Racket

 From Tierney's Real News:

The 64-page report titled Wolves in White Coats: How Doctors and Hospitals Pushed and Profited from the Fraud of Gender Medicine reveals that more than 225 hospitals and health systems made more than $50 MILLION in profit by building pediatric gender programs nationwide and exploiting insurance billing codes. They used diagnoses like “endocrine disorder, unspecified” and “precocious puberty” to get coverage to perform these disgusting procedures in minors. In other words, they mutilated children for profit.

JD VANCE: “It turns out that convincing vulnerable children to reject their gender can create patients for life, earning hospitals tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue per child. For years now, some hospitals and healthcare providers have been subjecting children to horrific, experimental treatments in service of radical gender ideologies.

Today, thanks to the Wolves in White Coats report released by the HHS, we know why: profit. It turns out that convincing vulnerable children to reject their gender can create patients for life, earning hospitals tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue per child.

The report contains deeply disturbing allegations, and I encourage every American and every parent, to read it. More than just pushing these procedures on kids, hospitals and providers may have been defrauding Medicaid and private insurers by using misleading or fraudulent billing codes to get insurance to cover the costs.

People were getting wealthy by DOING these procedures on kids, LYING about medical implications, and collecting REWARDS!”

More than 225 hospitals and health systems built pediatric gender programs. Then they HID what they were doing to kids behind FALSE billing codes.

• $50 MILLION in puberty blockers were billed under E34.9 — “Endocrine Disorder, Unspecified”

• More than $11 MILLION found billed as “precocious puberty” for kids aged 13-17.

That’s not a paperwork error. That’s how you hide the abuse you inflicted on children.

These providers created lifelong patients (hormones, surgeries, follow-up care) - with average costs for such treatments far exceeding routine pediatric care (tens of thousands to over $100,000 per patient in some estimates cited). (Read more.)

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Merciful Love through Mary

 From Vultus Christi:

Those familiar with the devotion of total consecration to Jesus through Mary will be familiar with all these ideas. Saint Louis de Montfort says that, through Mary, every little work becomes acceptable, and even its imperfections are entirely cleansed. He recommends Mary as merciful. He states that those who take other ways have more (not less) “obscure nights, combats, strange agonies, craggy mountains, cruel thorns, and frightful deserts.” But he affirms that “by the path of Mary, we pass more gently and more tranquilly.” And because the offering of ourselves is so little, he states that we do well to offer ourselves through Mary so that Mary will offer herself with us.

Perhaps the most remarkable similarity, though, is the way that both the Oblation to Merciful Love and Total Consecration to Mary involve the handing over of everything: all we are, have, and possess, such that we die and show up at the judgment seat with empty hands, without a single good work or spiritual treasure. And yet in the case of both, this engenders confidence. We are freed to do everything and give everything — no matter how small or imperfect — for love alone with confidence that, if we truly keep nothing for ourselves, neither farthing or penny, we will be clothed with riches that are not our own, the riches of Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother. With such similarities, the question naturally arises about the compatibility of the two. Is it merely the case that some are attracted to offering themselves to Merciful Love and others to Mary, or is there, perhaps, a way in which the two fit together into a single whole? This is the question we hope to explore over the coming days.

But first, let us take a closer look at true devotion and total consecration to Mary. (Read more.)

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Arrest of Cardinal de Rohan

It is tragic and ironic that the scandal that led to the fall of the French monarchy would explode on the patronal feast day of the kingdom, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was also the feast-day for the Queens of France, who in the days of the Bourbons were all named "Marie." It is an additional irony that a Cardinal of the Roman Church was instrumental in the culmination of the scandal through his own unworthy and imprudent conduct. Here is Madame Campan's account of the Cardinal's arrest:

On the following Sunday, the 15th of August, being the Assumption, at twelve o’clock, at the very moment when the Cardinal, dressed in his pontifical garments, was about to proceed to the chapel, he was sent for into the King’s closet, where the Queen then was.

The King said to him, “You have purchased diamonds of Boehmer?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“What have you done with them?”

“I thought they had been delivered to the Queen.”

“Who commissioned you?”

“A lady, called the Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois, who handed me a letter from the Queen; and I thought I was gratifying her Majesty by taking this business on myself.”

The Queen here interrupted him and said, “How, monsieur, could you believe that I should select you, to whom I have not spoken for eight years, to negotiate anything for me, and especially through the mediation of a woman whom I do not even know?”

“I see plainly,” said the Cardinal, “that I have been duped. I will pay for the necklace; my desire to please your Majesty blinded me; I suspected no trick in the affair, and I am sorry for it.”

He then took out of his pocket-book a letter from the Queen to Madame de Lamotte, giving him this commission. The King took it, and, holding it towards the Cardinal, said:

“This is neither written nor signed by the Queen. How could a Prince of the House of Rohan, and a Grand Almoner of France, ever think that the Queen would sign Marie Antoinette de France? Everybody knows that queens sign only by their baptismal names. But, monsieur,” pursued the King, handing him a copy of his letter to Baehmer, “have you ever written such a letter as this?”

Having glanced over it, the Cardinal said, “I do not remember having written it.”

“But what if the original, signed by yourself, were shown to you?”

“If the letter be signed by myself it is genuine.”

He was extremely confused, and repeated several times, “I have been deceived, Sire; I will pay for the necklace. I ask pardon of your Majesties.”

“Then explain to me,” resumed the King, “the whole of this enigma. I do not wish to find you guilty; I had rather you would justify yourself. Account for all the manoeuvres with Baehmer, these assurances and these letters.”

The Cardinal then, turning pale, and leaning against the table, said, “Sire, I am too much confused to answer your Majesty in a way–”

“Compose yourself, Cardinal, and go into my cabinet; you will there find paper, pens, and ink,–write what you have to say to me.”

The Cardinal went into the King’s cabinet, and returned a quarter of an hour afterwards with a document as confused as his verbal answers had been. The King then said, “Withdraw, monsieur.” The Cardinal left the King’s chamber, with the Baron de Breteuil, who gave him in custody to a lieutenant of the Body Guard, with orders to take him to his apartment. M. d’Agoult, aide-major of the Body Guard, afterwards took him into custody, and conducted him to his hotel, and thence to the Bastille....

The moment the Cardinal’s arrest was known a universal clamour arose. Every memorial that appeared during the trial increased the outcry. On this occasion the clergy took that course which a little wisdom and the least knowledge of the spirit of such a body ought to have foreseen. The Rohans and the House of Conde, as well as the clergy, made their complaints heard everywhere. The King consented to having a legal judgment, and early in September he addressed letters-patent to the Parliament, in which he said that he was “filled with the most just indignation on seeing the means which, by the confession of his Eminence the Cardinal, had been employed in order to inculpate his most dear spouse and companion.”

Fatal moment! in which the Queen found herself, in consequence of this highly impolitic step, on trial with a subject, who ought to have been dealt with by the power of the King alone. The Princes and Princesses of the House of Conde, and of the Houses of Rohan, Soubise, and Guemenee, put on mourning, and were seen ranged in the way of the members of the Grand Chamber to salute them as they proceeded to the palace, on the days of the Cardinal’s trial; and Princes of the blood openly canvassed against the Queen of France.

Here is additional information about the Cardinal, who was tried but acquitted, and a line which I found interesting:

Rohan’s acquittal did not stop the king from banishing him to Chaise-Dieu. During the French Revolution, Rohan left France for Germany. His character improved and he spent the remains of his wealth providing for the poor clergy around him. The Rohan family spent decades paying off the debt of the diamond necklace–they were honor-bound to pay the 1.6 million francs owed for the necklace since Cardinal Rohan had been guarantor.

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Why Minnesota Is the Warning

 From Tierney's Real News:

There are roughly 1.3 million Democrat voters in Minnesota. Therefore turnout for Democrats was roughly 54%. There are roughly 1.4 million Republican voters in Minnesota. Therefore turnout for Republicans was roughly 29%. Would you pat the Minnesota Republican RINO party on the back for this result? I would not. THE MATH DOESN’T LIE.

In 2016, Trump got 1,322,951 votes in Minnesota while Hillary got 1,367,716. If you add in the Libertarian votes, the total conservative vote in Minnesota exceeded 1.5 MILLION. So, yes, there ARE that many Republican voters in Minnesota! I contend that the Minnesota Republican party is a bunch of RINOS and Koch Libertarians who confuse and fracture conservatives voters to reduce turnout and instill complacency and apathy - to help Democrats win!

The Minnesota GOP endorsed Kendall Qualls (in 3rd place) to split the conservative vote. Then, like clockwork, the Minnesota GOP RINOS came out with a bogus campaign accusing Mike of being for amnesty - just a few days before the election. In addition, DeMuth is the one who is actually for amnesty - she said so herself! Then she framed Mike for HER stance! RIGGED. (Read more.)

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The Hessians and the American Revolution

 I remember visiting the Hessian Barracks in Frederick, MD as a child. From Smithsonian:

On August 15, 1776, a flotilla of British ships arrived on Staten Island, New York, just south of Manhattan. On board the vessels were more than 8,600 foreign soldiers, the first major contingent of German troops to reach the American Colonies. (Another group had set up camp in Quebec several months earlier to reinforce British forces in Canada.) 

There was no mistaking the new arrivals. Unlike their British allies, who were famously known as the redcoats, the Hessians usually wore blue or green coats, sometimes accompanied by tall, pointy brass headgear called miter caps.

For more than a year, the British Army had been battling rebellious colonists intent on establishing an independent nation. In October 1775, a fed-up George III announced his intention to “put a speedy end to these disorders by the most decisive exertions.” The British king added that he had “received the most friendly offers of foreign assistance.” Despite vigorous objections from some lawmakers, Parliament backed George in taking up those offers, expecting that the added manpower would soon crush the rebellion once and for all.

The Germans apparently shared that optimism. “None of the soldiers that went to America in 1776 anticipated that the war would last more than a year or two,” writes Friederike Baer, a historian at Penn State Abington College, in her 2022 book, Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. (Read more.)

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Isabel and Her Daughters

Queen Isabel of Castile was a conscientious and vigilant mother. To quote:

Isabel was highly preoccupied with her daughters’ moral and religious education and, if her library is a guide, they would have spent time studying the lives of saints and other devotional works. The Carro de las donas, by the Franciscan monk Francesc Eiximenis, was one of a number of “how to raise your daughters” manuals that sat on the royal bookshelf…

In Isabel’s fastidious court, men and women stayed apart. Catherine slept in Isabel’s chamber, along with her sisters. Doctors and other men were not allowed into the quarters until all of them, and the ladies-in-waiting who also slept there, were up and dressed. The women also ate apart in the intimacy of Isabel’s chambers. The infantas and their mother emerged from this feminine bunker only to eat with others when there were important visitors, in which case the full spectacle of the public court went into action…

Segregation did not mean that there was no fun to be had at her mother’s side. Tales of chivalry were told or sung after dinner with Isabel herself sighing at the tragic bits. Among other things, Catherine would have heard the retelling of old battles from the war in Granada. She must also have heard the famous romantic legends of the land she was destined to travel to. Arthur, the Round Table, the Holy Grail, Lancelot and Merlin were all characters in the rich chivalrous imagination of the Spanish court. They were there in Isabel’s books and on her tapestries too…

Board games, chess, word games and cards were played. There was music too, at the table. This may have been devoted to chivalry or courtly love when Isabel was there… Musicians were always on hand. They were, indeed, among the best-paid people at court. Spain already boasted a long tradition of troubadours and popular songs coming especially from north-west Galicia and the Moslem territories of al-Andalus. (Read more.)

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Another Trans Murder

 From The Post-Millennial:

The cause of death in the killing of William Evans-Ellis, the mentally handicapped 7-year-old allegedly murdered by his mother and two trans-identified males, has now been confirmed by the Hamilton County Coroner's Office. The 7-year-old from Oakley, Ohio was discovered dead last week after suffering extensive abuse.

William's mother, Kaitlin Evans, 39, has been charged with murder and child endangerment, as have trans-identified males Kirby Rankin, 33, and Nessa Keaney, 23. The transgender male lovers of Evans shared a home with her and the boy. Rankin was previously known as Nathan Rankin, while Keaney was previously known as Adamhnán Keaney.

Speaking to reporters on August 11, Hamilton County Coroner Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco explained that a blunt force injury to William's head was what killed him. The mother and trans lovers allegedly caused "bruises too numerous to count" on the boy's body, and Sammarco estimated he had been dead roughly a day by the time officers found him, per Cincinnati.com. Sammarco reflected on the difficulty of the case: "This is a hard case for everybody... We always say that we expect the worst, but sometimes we get it." (Read more.)

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The Duty of the Medieval Princess

 From Sharon Bennett Connolly:

From dutiful daughters to runaway nuns, from empresses to rebels. The life of a medieval princess was, perhaps, not as predictable as we have been led to believe. At times, it is true, they were married off to a foreign prince, never to see England or their family again. But we can count the number of girls that happened to on one hand. Which is quite remarkable, given the distances and pace of travel in medieval times, when a horse could cover around 20 miles a day and a horse litter, the popular form of travel for noble women, would cover far less than that.

Some princesses even visited home after they married or were visited by members of their family; some never even left England.

Marrying your daughter to a prince in a distant land and never hearing from her again was not the purpose of a royal marriage. It was never in the king’s interest to abandon his daughter, or sister, once she was married abroad. Royal daughters were raised to be a personal and diplomatic link to their homeland. They were the means of keeping communications open when all other options failed; private letters were used to warn against treachery or prevent a breakdown in diplomatic relations.

Some did escape this destiny. For instance, a number of William the Conqueror’s daughters became nuns. Cecilia had that life decided for her from a young age, but Adelida appears to have chosen this course after a number of failed marriage proposals. Perhaps she had had enough of the royal marriage market? King Stephen’s daughter, Mary, was also destined for the Church, with her parents even founding a religious house for her. Kidnapped for her royal blood, and forced into marriage, she would return to the convent after becoming a mother. The scandal was not of her making, unlike Gunhild, the daughter of King Harold II, who seems to have had a rather relaxed attitude to marriage and relationships; a woman before her time – by about 1,000 years! Gunhild had spent time in the convent, possibly having sought sanctuary after the Norman Conquest. There is uncertainty as to whether she ever took her vows; though the church seemed to believe she had and sought her return to the cloistered life. (Read more.)

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