A Problem of Evil

So I watched the first three episodes of The Rings of Power, Season 2 and enjoyed it, although like many other people I was surprised by the glimpse of an orc mother holding an orc baby, being shown affection by an orc father. And thus the debate on the origin of orcs is now in full swing on the internet. From Joshua Trevino on Armas:

The orcs are J.R.R. Tolkien’s invention, originating mostly as “goblins” in The Hobbit and then emerging fully into themselves in The Lord of the Rings. They are the horde-infantry of evil, numerous and objects to be killed, the base tools of the Enemy. Like all the Enemy’s soldiers, they are perversions of things originally created good. The Wargs are fallen wolves. The balrogs are fallen Maiar, which is to say lesser angels in the Arda cosmology. The Nazgûl and the Easterlings are varieties of fallen Men. The orcs, then, are fallen or corrupted Elves — at least in Tolkien’s original telling. The point is that they, like all the servants of the Enemy — again in the Tolkien legendarium, originally Morgoth and then Sauron — illuminate a specifically Catholic perspective on creation, befitting the author’s own faith. Creation is good, and is corrupted, with death entering into it, only by the choice of the created themselves. Even Morgoth, originally Melkor, and Sauron the Maiar were once fair and beloved.

We have to understand the purpose of the characterization in this explicitly religious light. If this literature is tutelage, and it is, then the lesson here is one familiar to the well-catechized of most Christian denominations. The orcs — nearly undifferentiated, base, enslaved, antlike, and shackled to their appetites — are the consequence and endstate of corruption, of the choice for evil. This is true of all their companions in the Enemy’s armies. It is not that they are denied the opportunity for repentance, but the metaphor for their state is clear: they are in hell and the time when their nature would have allowed them that choice is gone. Tolkien does provide episodes where repentance is offered: to Boromir, who repents (of lust for the Ring) before death; and to Gríma Wormtongue, who is offered forgiveness (for serving the lesser Enemy in Saruman) and freely rejects it. It is also offered to Sméagol, who accepts it and then rejects it, thereby gaining and then losing his salvation, no doubt to the perplexity of a certain class of Protestants. Hell is not a sentence, but a choice, and this too is a Catholic (and Orthodox) lesson imparted by the tale.

These characterizations are tremendously important for the integrity and purpose of the work. Tolkien described The Lord of the Rings as a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision,” and the nature of the orcs — and all the freely fallen of Middle Earth — is tightly bound to this framework and concept. Without it, it is purposeless fantasy, and for all the beauty of its prose, not worth the read. Without it, crucially, it is not Tolkien, and any adaptation with that absence merely wears the skin of his work, much as Tolkien’s friend C.S. Lewis had Puzzle the Donkey wear the lion’s skin and pretend to be Aslan. The mere form of the thing was never salvific, nor even instructive: what is required is its nature and substance.

Literature is a conversation, not a mere transmission, and so the living have the opportunity to respond to the dead. At its best this is education and the elevation of the former in the latter’s light and tradition. At considerably less than its best we have the movement now, on more than one front, to rehabilitate the orcs and even issue apologetics for them. It seems an incredible thing to write, but also an inevitable thing: in an age with an accelerating normalization of all manner of real evils, from Hamas to brujería to polyamory, it should be no surprise that a fictional evil gets its own due-time reappraisal. The two major fronts for this are the venerable Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, which has nothing to do with Tolkien except that it lifted the concept of the orcs wholesale from his work; and the Amazon Prime series Rings of Power, now in its second season. (Read more.)

 

From Screen Rant:

 The origin of Orcs in Lord of the Rings is hotly contested among fans, and was only briefly touched on in the Peter Jackson films. Jackson’s depiction of Uruk-hai birthed in mud and slime came from one of Tolkien’s earliest Orc origin stories - seen in The Book of Lost Tales - which claimed that Orcs were “bred from the heats and slimes of the earth.” Tolkien never published this in his lifetime; instead, it was published by his son posthumously for literary interest. 

 Uruk-hai are a separate breed to Orcs, and not one that Rings of Power has tackled yet. Uruk-hai were later given a different origin story in Tolkien’s work, as were Orcs. It is one of these later origin stories for Orcs that Rings of Power is leaning into - the notion of Orcs as corrupted Elves. Rings of Power offers a more up-to-date version of the Orc origin story than Jackson. Judging from Hazeldine’s comments, season 2 may also specify the process of corruption that makes an Elf into an Orc. 

Peter Jackson’s version of the Orc origin story made sense for his films, providing family-friendly horror potential and drama, but Tolkien made this story darker. Tolkien later claimed that Orcs were corrupted Elves, which is the version of the story that Rings of Power uses, and that Tolkien’s son chose for The Silmarillion. Work that Tolkien published in his lifetime offered no certain conclusions on the topic, but Frodo made an interesting assertion on the subject of Orc origins in The Return of the King:

The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don't think it gave life to the Orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them; and if they are to live at all, they have to live like other living creatures.

 (Read more.)

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Warring Factions Behind the Scenes

Kamala's interview. From The Transom:

What struck me from the very start was how bad this shot looked. Bad lighting, bad makeup, messy hair, the color choice of gray, Walz's collar askew, a camera angle making Kamala look small, water cup center shot, pole splitting the center, a crowded background that makes it look like things are growing out of their heads, off the rack poorly fitting suits, Dana looking like the tallest person in frame... this whole thing just looks bad. One of the big things I’ve gotten wrong about this election post the shift to Kamala was an assumption that the production values would go way up considering her close association with California and Doug Emhoff’s Hollywood connections… this ain’t that.

 As I told Hugh, this wouldn’t be a big deal if this was just one of a dozen interviews. But the campaign isn’t doing a dozen interviews! Instead they invested way more importance in this one shot at a conversation, so the optics and tone took on more political weight. The campaign itself made it seem like Kamala Harris is scared to sit down even for softball questions that should be easily answered by any generic politician. Instead, Harris showed again her potential for deer-in-headlights incapability to handle the most basic, obvious questions. (Read more.)

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France’s Aristocrats

 Yes, there still are some. From The Spectator:

There were many criticisms of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris. Why has no one reported that made by the Comte de Sèze? As president of L’Association entraide de la Noblesse francaise, the count has written to President Macron. He expresses ‘a great deal of sorrow and surprise’ at a scene in the show where ‘in the windows of a blood-red Palais de la Cité, Marie-Antoinette or other noble women, decapitated, [were] singing the revolutionary tune “Ah, ça ira!”, while a ship carrying a radiant woman, raising her fist, passed on the Seine.’ In its reprise, the song uses the famous phrase ‘Aristocrats à la lanterne!’ The count wants to know ‘What would Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who initiated the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896, have said about this?’ and pointedly asks: ‘In a country that does so much to promote women’s rights, is it really normal to present the beheading of a woman in such a positive light?’ Besides, the kings of Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium and the sovereigns of Luxembourg and Monaco were all guests at the opening ceremony. What must they have thought of this celebration of a queen, ‘leur lointaine parente pour la plupart’, being beheaded? Look what happened next: ‘The results were not long in coming: while our members were expressing their amazement on social networks, many users were hurling insults and death threats at them. Despicable comments and dehumanising insults demonstrated the deeply racist nature of this hatred, which must be described as aristophobic.’ The noblesse ‘represent a great cultural, heritage and economic force’, but ‘we have been treated as if we no longer existed’. The count leaves Macron with a question: ‘On 26 July 2024, our country put on a show for the whole world to show that it was proud to have murdered its aristocrats. What can we say to the French people of aristocratic origin who have placed their trust in the Republic?’ So far as I know, the President has not replied, but surely de Sèze’s Burkean words deserve an answer. ‘Aristophobia’ is all the rage, rage being the right word. (Read more.)

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Countdown to 2029?

An interesting podcast from my friend Marianna Bartold about the Kings of France and the consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I believe that the Pope has consecrated Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as requested at Fatima and that the triumph of the Immaculate Heart is coming. But God does things in His own time.

 

Here is the Vow of Louis XVI. More HERE.

Last Communion of Marie-Antoinette, Conciergerie, October 1793

Last Mass of Louis XVI in Temple Prison, January 21, 1793

 

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RNC Files Voting-Related Lawsuits In 2 States: ‘Hiring 7 Times As Many Dems’

 From The Daily Wire:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has filed voting-related lawsuits in two different states, Michigan and North Carolina, in a matter of days.

The RNC, run by chairman Michael Whatley and co-chair Lara Trump, is suing the city of Detroit, over a “deliberate” refusal to hire an equal number of Republican election inspectors as Democrat election inspectors.

In a suit against the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE), the RNC is seeking to force the board to require identification to prove a potential voter’s citizenship. RNC officials say the suit is necessary to comply with federal law and keep non-citizens from voting.

The RNC said in a press release sent to The Daily Wire that Michigan law requires election officials to hire an “equal number, as nearly as possible,” of poll workers from each major political party. The GOP nominated 675 election inspectors, but Detroit only appointed 52 of them; in contrast, the city has hired over 2,300 Democrat election inspectors.

“A ratio of 7 Democrats to every one Republican inspector is not even close to equal,” the RNC release said. (Read more.)

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America’s ‘Melting Pot’ Problem

 From Modern Age:

Alexis de Tocqueville was bleakly realistic about America’s multicultural foundations. In a lengthy concluding chapter of the first volume of Democracy in America, he described the country’s situation regarding the ethnic fragmentation present from its outset. Three highly disparate groups with origins, respectively, in Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and North America have been in interaction here all along. And from the start, those interactions have been marked by perceived group differences of interest and conflict over those differences.

Later, when the country first began admitting significant numbers of immigrants of disparate ethnic backgrounds, assimilation to the dominant culture of the founding European groups was vigorously pursued. This assimilation was imperfect, but it achieved some success for about a century. From the mid-1960s onwards, though, the country has largely given up that assimilationist ethic, and conflicts have again become endemic and potentially lethal to the whole national project.

Tocqueville predicted it all. In that chapter in Democracy in America, he offered one solution to the problem of racial and ethnic difference in the United States. The different groups—Europeans, Africans, and indigenous Americans—must sufficiently intermarry and procreate together to make racial distinctions less apparent. Only this could produce enough dissolution of the boundaries separating them to perhaps eventually erode this source of American social disharmony. Tocqueville was not hopeful, though, that such a solution could be achieved.

How much less likely is it now, when the number of groups and the extent of their differences are so much greater? It is true that rates of intermarriage across ethnic and racial boundaries have significantly increased since Tocqueville’s time. Yet the norm is still for the vast majority of members of all groups to marry others in their group. (Read more.)

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Marie-Antoinette Giving Alms

A 19th-century painting by an unknown artist. Please do listen to my podcast about Marie-Antoinette and her charities, HERE. Share

RFK Jr: Teaming up With Trump, Pavel Durov’s Arrest, CIA, and the Fall of the Democrat Party

 

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Young Catholic Women Bringing Back Veils

 From The Free Press:

Nicole Moore, 30, wears a veil to church every Sunday. Sometimes called a mantilla, these sheer head coverings are usually made of lace or silk; Nicole’s is gray, with a floral-like pattern. Worn by women throughout the Catholic church’s history, chapel veils fell out of favor during the late twentieth century, but in recent years there’s been “an explosion of veiling,” says Moore, who attends St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church in Manhattan.

Her pastor, Father Peter Martyr Yungwirth, 39, tells The Free Press he has also noticed an increase in veiling over the last two decades. Indeed, Veils by Lily, a website that sells mantillas, has gone from filling 30 to 60 orders per month to an average of 900 in the last ten years. And it seems to be young Catholics driving the trend. “I have definitely noticed an increase of women, especially young adult women, wearing veils,” says Father Roger Landry, 54, Catholic chaplain of Columbia University. He interprets the veiling trend “as an attempt to be maximally reverent to God at Mass and in receiving Holy Communion.”

That may be the ultimate reason for veiling, but it’s not the only one. To better understand what’s behind the boom, I reached out to over a dozen Catholic women, ranging in age from 19 to 42, who choose to wear a veil to church. (Read more.)

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Drawings by Marie-Antoinette

The Immaculate Conception by Marie-Antoinette, 1770

Angel by Marie-Antoinette

La Reina Adolecente offers some drawings attributed to Marie-Antoinette when she was a child and a teenager in Vienna. Drawings include an angel, her father Emperor Francis I, a wayside inn, one of her patron saints St. John the Baptist, and the Blessed Mother under her title of The Immaculate Conception. The Immaculate Conception was the patroness of the Habsburg Empire, as I mention in my book Daughter of the Caesars. As for the inn, Marie-Antoinette was always fascinated by the lives of ordinary people, and would later have a "tavern" at her open-air market at Trianon.

Inn

St. John the Baptist

Here is a holy card of St. John the Baptist, one of Marie-Antoinette's patron saints, which she gave to her main femme de chambre, Thérèse Durieux and her sister Barbe Durieux. The sisters were members of the Archduchess Antoine's entourage, who are mentioned in the letters of the Empress Maria Theresa to the Marquise d’Hennezel.  She was to leave the sisters behind in Austria. The card was given to them on the occasion of Antoine's marriage-by-proxy in April 1770 in Vienna in which she became the Dauphine of France. Her words to her maids are, in Latin and French:  

Auspice Deo / Soyez persuadée chere Durieu que je penserai toujours a vous et que ne n’oubliere jamais les peines que vous avez eu avec moi c’est dont vous assure / votre tres fidele / Antoine Archiduchesse

Auspice Deo literally translates "Under the auspices of God" which means not only having faith in God but to place oneself trustingly inside God's plan. A rough translation of the rest of the message reads:  "Be persuaded, dear Durieu, that I will think always of you and the pains you have taken with me, may this assure you. Your very faithful, Archduchess Antoine." One can only imagine the trouble the handmaid went through with her turbulent adolescent charge while preparing Antoine to leave her home forever and become a future Queen of France. Share

Zuckerberg BEGS FOR MERCY

 From Larry at Townhall.

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How RFK was Assassinated with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

 I never cared for Bill M. but #RFKjr is really interesting.

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The Farewell of Madame Elisabeth to Madame Royale

The day before her execution the sister of Louis XVI, Madame Elisabeth of France, was taken from the Temple prison to the Conciergerie. Madame Royale describes the sad moment in her Memoirs. (Via Vive la Reine.) To quote:

My aunt kissed me and told me to be calm for she would soon return. “No, citoyenne, you will not return,” they said to her; “take your cap and come down.” They loaded her then with insults and coarse speeches; she bore it all with patience, took her cap; kissed me again, and told me to have courage and firmness, to hope always in God, to practice the good principles of religion given me by my parents, and not to fail in the last instructions given to me by my father and by my mother.

–from the account of Marie-Thérèse Charlotte of France, on the departure of her aunt Elisabeth from the Temple, May 9th 1794 Share

Trump-RFK Alliance Terrifies Elites

 

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Moral Imagination

 From Modern Age:

"Moral imagination” is a term of humane letters and politics implying that men and women are moral beings and that the power of the imagination enables them to perceive, beyond mere appearances, a hierarchy of worth and certain enduring truths.

The term appears first to have been employed by Edmund Burke, in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Burke speaks of “that generous loyalty to rank and sex,” a “mixed system of opinion and sentiment” that “had its origin in the ancient chivalry.” He continues,

But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion.

In recent years, some popular writers have referred to man as “a naked ape.” That is precisely what man would become, Burke implies, were it not for the gift of the moral imagination. The “barbarous philosophy” of the Jacobins of the French Revolution, Burke declares, “is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings . . . as void of solid wisdom, as it is destitute of all taste and elegance. . . . In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.”

In Burke’s rhetoric, the civilized being is distinguished from the savage by his possession of this moral imagination. Drawn from centuries of human experience and reflection, these concepts of the moral imagination are expressed afresh from age to age. 

Irving Babbitt, in his Democracy and Leadership (1924), contrasts with Burke’s “moral imagination” the “idyllic imagination” of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (whom Burke had called “the insane Socrates of the National Assembly”). Rousseau’s sort of imagination, Babbitt contended, fancies that man is by nature innocent and great-souled, if uncorrupted by church, state, and private property: a fatal delusion. (Read more.)

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This Sceptred Isle

 
From Joshua Trevino at Armas:

The end of Christian iconography in the old sites and realm of English Catholicism does not mean the end of iconography. Quite the opposite: the new religion clambers upon the ruined edifice of the old and apes its forms. Among the American misapprehensions of Britain is that it is becoming Islamic. That is in fact happening — it is notable that a mosque is the only religious structure seen on the train from London to Oxford — but it is consequence rather than cause. Islam did not eradicate Christian England: that was the work of the English themselves, who at some point in the twentieth century decided to adopt wholesale American-style propositionalism as the basis of the nation — even unto their own ruin — and thereby cut themselves off from all they had been and meant. Surrendering the past is surrendering the future for which past is prerequisite. 

Yet there is still iconography. The Anglo-Saxon England of one thousand years ago in which the small parish of St Benedict was erected, stone tower and all, was replete with iconography. Men and women alike encountered imagery of the saints, of the faith, of Christ as a matter of routine in their lives. Today the images remain, and today they are encountered daily, but they are of something else entirely. We walked through an Underground station whose long dirty white corridors were decorated with easily hundreds of images of London’s “queer” population. Each icon — let us use the word, for this was the intent — contained a headshot of some sort, with explanatory text below. One of them struck me and exemplified the rest: a man named Fotis, whose pronouns are Ve / Vir. Elsewhere in a train station, we encountered an image of two African women in passionate embrace: its caption reminded the passer-by that “loving who you choose” is what makes Britain Britain. Of course it does not, but it is a purposeful substitution of the new and confected nation for the old and rooted one. The new religion clambers upon the ruined edifice of the old and apes its forms

All this is tutelage, of course. The images of Fotis the Ve / Vir and the like pervade the public square in London for instructional purposes. They teach the English their new narrative, their new understanding of self, and their new permitted ambit of thought and belief. In Trafalagar Square, after telling my son about Nelson, I noted that the crossing lights throughout the busy intersections were not the usual green-and-red walking men. Instead they were sex symbols: literally so, two male symbols intertwined on some crossing lights, two female symbols interlocked on others, and (less common) a male symbol and a female one paired. The regime narrative is that this is intrinsically British, and therefore belongs in a quintessentially British space — never mind Nelson’s own fervent Christianity, which never encompassed whatever this is — and every other space besides. If you thought you were getting away from it while crossing a street, think again. The method is relentless and pervasive, and it works. At Bletchley Park, scene of some of the most intrepid intellectual work of the Second World War, an Englishwoman of a certain age asked me what I thought of it all — and then delivered an apologetic monologue for Britain’s treatment of Alan Turing, as if that was at all the centerpiece of the history there. Yet for her it was. I chose not to share my own view, which was that Alan Turing, whatever injustice done him, was dispensable to the survival of civilization, but the mores he transgressed were not. It is not that I mind the argument, but the argument is impossible: to paraphrase Rod Dreher, we have lost our reason and can no longer discern.

This too is a regime choice. 

J.R.R. Tolkien in his work has Galadriel say that “together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat,” and this is his England now. We entered the chapel at Oxford’s Exeter College to see the bust of Tolkien there. Though he never worshipped on the premises, it is not the first Anglican appropriation of Catholic glory. There, at the rear of the chapel, behind the golden crucifix, is a large LGBTQIA+ flag. Sir Steven Runciman, in his magisterial Crusading history, records that the Patriarch Sophronius, upon seeing the conquering Caliph Omar enter the Temple Mount, murmured through tears, “Behold the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet.” But the Patriarch was premature on the matter of the apocalypse, and neither Caliph Omar nor any Muslim has desecrated the church at Exeter College. The long defeat is a grappling with the enemies of the English who are the alienated sons of the English themselves. (Read more.)

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Leftist Strategy: Divide And Isolate Via Deceptive Labeling

 From Jan Greenhawk at The Easton Gazette:

It wasn't the first time it happened. As a Chapter Chair for Moms for Liberty in my county, I am proud to share who we are and what we do. We fight for parental rights to guide the educational, health, and social lives of their children. This means that parents have a right to both encourage their child's exposure to their family's values and at the same time shield their children from those ideas they find harmful or antithetical to family beliefs. It seems fairly simple.

Unfortunately, as the left often does when they wish to denigrate any organization that has conservative values that stand in the way of the progressive agenda, our organization has been unfairly tagged with many allegations such as book banners, anti-gay, racist, extremist, and any other label they feel will harm our credibility. Progressives have even gone so far as to accuse our local chapter of taking dark money from the Hungarian government. It's obvious they haven't seen our bank account.

The problem is that this strategy not only works with other leftist organizations, it seems to work with other Conservative groups as well.

The other day, our group was participating in a meeting with two political actions committee reps on how best to fight a statewide ballot measure in November. It was a meeting that our group had initiated.

At some point in the meeting, the PACs solicited our group's help but added this caveat. It went something like this: "We'd love to have your help but we can't list your organization in our materials since the left has labeled you an extremist hate group."

At that point, we should have ended the meeting. Any discussion past that point was useless, since the PACs had clearly stated that they were going to let the left define our organization for them. Not only that, but their words also indicated that they were implicitly validating the left's label and promoting it. They were allowing the left to do exactly what they wanted to us, isolating and erasing us in Conservative initiatives.

The PACs, who I won't name here because I don't want to demean them like they did us, showed their true character. They defined the relationship they wanted as an "alliance "but it was really going to be exploitation. They wanted to use us and our members but didn't have the guts to defend us publicly.

This is not an isolated incident, but one fairly common in Conservative circles. As soon as the left calls a politician or a group a nasty, unfounded name, groups on the right run to cover and disavow that politician or group for fear they will be called the same name. They use the excuse that aligning with us will hurt them with certain other groups or constituencies. The Left knows that many Conservative groups want to protect their public image instead of doing the right thing. It's how the Left divides and neuters us. (Read more.)

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The Multiculturalists

 From Laura Crockett at The History Desk:

I like the Swiss because they were able to blend their citizens even though they speak four different languages; French, German, Italian, and the ancient tongue, Romansh. This is a testament that there can be different languages spoken, and still be Swiss because the other aspects of Western culture are accepted. The Swiss are for the Swiss. They have their standards, and the hell with anyone who doesn’t buy into their program. You cannot come and live among them unless you too want to be Swiss. And that includes being willing to keep your weapon ready to go in case of an invasion. Their politics are also different, so living in Switzerland is about the individual conforming to their system. One doesn’t hear of fake intellectuals talking about improving the Swiss system.

True, not all who live in that tiny country are there as citizens. Some are permanent guests, with money and prestige. They still had to pass muster to live there. Hungary is the other country that controls its borders. One can find a few celebrities living in that nation because it is safer. If only the other nations in the West would do the same, the world would be a better place. And perhaps the citizens of those other nations that produce many refugees, their citizens could learn to shoot their psychotic leaders instead of bowing to them. (Read more.)

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Dining in Public

Madame Campan describes how Marie-Antoinette found the custom of dining in public to be such a mortification:

One of the customs most disagreeable to the Queen was that of dining every day in public. Maria Leczinska had always submitted to this wearisome practice; Marie Antoinette followed it as long as she was Dauphiness. The Dauphin dined with her, and each branch of the family had its public dinner daily. The ushers suffered all decently dressed people to enter; the sight was the delight of persons from the country. At the dinner-hour there were none to be met upon the stairs but honest folks, who, after having seen the Dauphiness take her soup, went to see the Princes eat their bouilli, and then ran themselves out of breath to behold Mesdames at their dessert.

Very ancient usage, too, required that the Queens of France should appear in public surrounded only by women; even at meal-times no persons of the other sex attended to serve at table; and although the King ate publicly with the Queen, yet he himself was served by women with everything which was presented to him directly at table. The dame d’honneur, kneeling, for her own accommodation, upon a low stool, with a napkin upon her arm, and four women in full dress, presented the plates to the King and Queen. The dame d’honneur handed them drink. This service had formerly been the right of the maids of honour. The Queen, upon her accession to the throne, abolished the usage altogether. She also freed herself from the necessity of being followed in the Palace of Versailles by two of her women in Court dresses, during those hours of the day when the ladies-in- waiting were not with her. From that time she was accompanied only by a single valet de chambre and two footmen. All the changes made by Marie Antoinette were of the same description; a disposition gradually to substitute the simple customs of Vienna for those of Versailles was more injurious to her than she could possibly have imagined. ~Memoirs of the Court of Marie-Antoinette by Madame Campan

(Artwork courtesy of Trianon de la Reina) Share

Biden's Speech: Told by an Idiot, Full of Sound and Fury

From Ann Coulter at Unsafe:

 So what did the id of the Democratic Party have to say for itself the other night? Biden began with the lie he’s been repeating since announcing for president in 2019: that Donald Trump called neo-Nazis “very fine people.” This yarn has just surpassed "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as the most debunked hoax in all of recorded history. What Trump actually said is on videotape. Could somebody on Biden's staff look it up? For the 8 millionth time, Trump said:

“You had people -- and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.

“Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people. But you also had troublemakers ...”

Biden’s entire presidency is based on this lie. Despite having run for president about 47 times before, he says the only reason he ran in 2020 was because Trump called Nazis “very fine people.” What kind of sociopath repeats the same lie, in defiance of video evidence, for five years? The kind of sociopath whose followers know he's lying and don't care, also known as "joyous warriors." (Also, mere simpletons.) Biden boasted of the amazing things he's accomplished as president, starting with: “COVID no longer controls our lives.” You know who else can gloat about that exact same accomplishment? Russian President Vladimir Putin. North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Uganda’s president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa. This is like bragging that no hurricanes hit New York for the past four years because of your leadership.

In a surprise move, Biden claimed, “We’re providing affordable high-speed internet for every American no matter where they live, unlike, not unlike what Roosevelt did with electricity.” Oops! Despite allocating $42 billion to the project, the Biden administration has not connected one single home to the internet. Did the Biden Presidency Committee read his speech before wheelbarrowing him onto the convention stage? Maybe ix-nay on the ighspeed-hay internet-way.

Delusionally, Biden said, “Trump continues to lie about crime in America like everything else. Guess what? On his watch, the murder rate went up 30%, the biggest increase in history.” Yes -- entirely because of the hell unleashed on the country after the death of George Floyd, Peace Be Upon Him. Which party was inciting the BLM riots, again? Take all the time you need.(Read  more.)

From The Transom:

One of the underlying storylines of this convention was the Democrats who are urging caution at odds with those who are talking “landslide” — really. Those who I spoke with who were waving the sword of joy and victory were overwhelmingly focused on vibes, while those who were pumping the brakes were focused on basic polling data. As Politico notes: “Officials with the top pro-Harris super PAC said their polling ‘is much less rosy’ than public surveys. Other Democratic pollsters noted that — even if their polling is right — Trump still maintains a lot of advantages... A poll commissioned by the Democratic messaging firm Navigator Research and unveiled during the convention showed Harris and Trump essentially tied across the swing-state map. And the candidate characteristics that are best correlated with voters’ preferences — whether a candidate is up to the job, has the right vision and is a strong leader — generally favored Trump in the survey.” (Read more.)

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Flags And Formalities: The Start of Civil War in England

 

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Louis XVI and Tuberculosis

Louis-Auguste, Duc de Berry, the future Louis XVI, was born on August 23, 1754. August 25, the feast of St. Louis of France, was his name-day, and kept with special festivity after he became king in 1774. A few years ago on Catherine Delors' blog many interesting points were brought up in the comment box about the childhood traumas of Louis-Auguste and how those later affected his reactions to the events of the Revolution.

Louis contracted tuberculosis when he was six by being made to sit at the bedside of his dying older brother, the Duc de Bourgogne. It was a traumatic experience in many ways for a small boy, especially since he himself became quite ill. Louis-Auguste was generally regarded as unhealthy and not likely to live to adulthood. Several members of the French royal family, including Louis' parents and brother, had already died of consumption. Louis managed to survive with the proper care. Nevertheless, tuberculosis is a disease which can remain inactive for many years but can later recur. It can have many side effects, including depression.

Provence and Berry

The tuberculosis would come back to haunt him, infecting his baby daughter Sophie and his oldest son. I think seeing Louis-Joseph die just as he had watched his older brother die long ago revived a lot of the childhood trauma. Death from tuberculosis is not pretty to watch. I am of the opinion that since the death of his oldest son, which coincided with the beginning of the Revolution in 1789, Louis XVI was suffering from clinical depression. In the past, he had acted with much more energy and decision. This is one of the reasons Marie-Antoinette had to become more involved in the political arena during the Revolution.

I think Louis struggled with "melancholy" at various times throughout his life, perhaps due to the childhood infection with tuberculosis. Louis was a man accustomed to strenuous exercise, especially hunting and riding, not to mention his labors as a locksmith. It is my belief that he needed the fresh air and the exertion for both his mental and physical health. With the regimen of exercise and his strictly adhered to routine he was able to keep melancholy from overwhelming him. He was deprived of much of his riding after October 1789 and it had a devastating effect upon his health and state of mind. Losing two of his children, his authority, his home, seeing his people and family suffer, and being deprived of the exercise and fresh air vital to his health, left him in a very bad condition.

If we consider the courage with which Louis XVI faced the worst moments of crisis, including his death, then he is to be admired, especially in the light of everything else. The Queen is to be admired as well, for she could have slipped out of the country with her surviving children and left Louis to his doom (there were many plans for her escape) but she refused to budge from Louis' side. She would not leave him to face the disasters alone.

Happy Birthday to Louis XVI!

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Vermont Allows Illegal Aliens to Vote

 From The Right Flank:

Vermont is giving illegal immigrants the right to vote.  Even a single vote from an illegal immigrant constitutes foreign interference in domestic elections.  To be more specific, the Vermont cities of Burlington, Montpelier and Winooski allow illegal aliens to vote.   

Burlington is the largest city in the state.  Concerned citizens are worried that allowing illegal aliens to vote on school board elections and also on city education budgets will warp outcomes.  Though some illegal aliens have kids enrolled in the city school systems, others do not.

This is a matter of right versus wrong.  Foreigners who have not gone through the proper legal channels to obtain United States citizenship should not have the power to decide local elections or federal elections.  The nation and many cities are evenly split down the middle, 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats. 

A single vote has the potential to cause the power pendulum to swing firmly to the political right or left. (Read more.)

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750 Years of the Habsburg Dynasty

 From St. Georgs-Orden:

In October 1273, Rudolf I, the first Habsburg, was elected and crowned king. Our Grand Master actually wanted to commemorate the 750th anniversary of this historic event last autumn, but then he was diagnosed with cancer… Thankfully, he overcame this and was able to invite guests to a very special evening at the Palais Ferstel in Vienna on 13 June 2024. It was very important to Archduke Karl to use this event to create a link between Austria, Europe and the world. This combination of a certain value-based timelessness with an internationality deeply rooted in Austria still characterises the Habsburg-Lothringen family today and was reflected in the programme – both in terms of content and music. (Read more.)

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'Face of Jesus' on the Shroud of Turin

 From Express:

Artificial intelligence has recreated the "face of Jesus Christ" from a piece of cloth some believe was used to wrap him after his Crucifixion. The Shroud of Turin has divided opinion for centuries, with some claiming an outline of Christ's face can even be seen in the material. Others routinely dismiss it as a forgery but new technology used by Italian scientists suggests that the 14ft linen sheet may indeed date back to the time of Christ. And now, AI has been used to reinterpret the enigmatic holy relic to reveal the “true face of Jesus”. The Daily Express used cutting-edge AI imager Midjourney to create a simulation of the face behind the shroud. The images appear to show Christ with long flowing hair and a beard – much like many classical depictions of him. There appears to be cuts and grazes around his face and body, pointing to the fact he had just been killed. (Read more.)

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Texas Rancher Sues Biden-Harris Government Over Influx of Illegal Immigrants

 From The National Pulse:

A Texas rancher, Michael Vickers, and Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe have filed a lawsuit against Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The lawsuit, filed by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), claims that current border policies have resulted in record numbers of illegal immigrants entering the United States, causing significant harm to Vickers’s ranch and other areas in Texas.

Michael Vickers, who owns a 1,000-acre ranch in Brooks County, says that the Biden-Harris government’s immigration policies have led to extensive damage to his property. According to the lawsuit, Vickers has incurred over $50,000 in fence and gate repairs due to the influx of migrants crossing his land. The complaint also mentions the environmental damage caused by trash and litter left by illegal immigrants, which has negatively impacted the food and water sources for Vickers’s livestock. (Read more.)

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The Maryland Project

 From Justine Brown.

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Female Agents Behind Enemy Lines

 From historical fiction author Kathryn Gauci:

Nancy Wake, aka ‘Madame Andrée‘ and the ‘Witch’, was codenamed ‘White Mouse’ by the Germans. She was the most decorated servicewoman of World War II.

Before the outbreak of WWII, Nancy, who was born in New Zealand in 1912, moved to London where she worked as a journalist and was posted to Paris in the 1920’s eventually marrying the wealthy industrialist, Henri Fiocca, who died after being tortured by the Gestapo in Marseille where the couple lived, for not revealing the whereabouts of his wife.

It was while on an assignment in Vienna that Nancy developed her hatred of Fascism after viewing the brutality of the Nazi regime. The SS had tied several Jews to a wheel and were whipping them.

Nancy’s first involvement with the Resistance was in France in 1940 helping people escape over the Pyrenees, a route she would be forced to use herself after her network was blown. (Read more.)

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Child Protection Emergency

 From The Chesapeake Observer:

Ballot Question # 1 for Maryland voters in the upcoming November general election will terminate, if passed, parental rights. Drafters of this Constitutional Amendment hid this fact by calling it the “Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment.” This amendment does nothing to expand, protect, or improve any reproductive rights or treatments for adults. What this amendment actually does is empower the government to override parental rights and to do “gender transitions” on young children without parent knowledge or consent. By clever design this constitutional amendment avoids using the word “adult” and uses the word” individual” so that this specifically targets children of any age and is designed to destroy parent rights.

If we voters do not vote against and defeat Ballot Question # 1, then any anxious, stressed, or confused child could mention to a “provider” questions about their gender and that “provider” (who does not need to be a doctor or psychologist and does not even need to be licensed) could then activate the “gender transition” process without parental notification or consent. Children who currently cannot legally be given aspirins or vitamins without their parents’ consent would be able to get “sex change” drugs and permanent “sex change” genital mutilation surgeries initiated through school clinics or any “provider” without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

There will be nothing that a parent can do to stop it. Parents, Families or others who risk rescuing children from this fate will be considered criminals. Parents can lose custody of their children because they will be violating this new right. Similar anti-parent laws are now the law in California, Michigan, Ohio and Vermont, and 10 other states are proposing similar legislation. This crisis is not hypothetical, parents who opposed government’s and provider’s decision to “gender transition” their children are currently losing custody of their children. (Read more.)

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Modernity and Postmodernity

 From Peter A. Lawler at Modern Age:

Thinkers usually regarded as conservative, from Leo Strauss to Jacques Maritain, trace the beginning of modern thought to Niccolo Machiavelli. The Machiavellian innovation was to devote human beings to the conquest of nature, to turn human efforts toward the acquisition in freedom in this world of what God had promised in the next. Machiavelli redefined human virtue as whatever works in transforming the world in the name of human security. He reduced religion to a useful tool in achieving political goals. Machiavelli even deprived philosophy of its high and independent status of contemplating the truth about nature and God by holding that the truth is that we only know what we make. Every human claim for wisdom must be tested practically; we can only know the world by changing it.

Thus, moral and political life in modern times no longer aims to cultivate human souls but to protect human bodies. The attempt to use political means to elevate the soul turned out to be ineffective and needlessly cruel. We cannot make human beings good through an appeal to moral and religious motives, but we can make them act as if they were good by using fear to predictably control their bodies. So the modern premise is that human beings are free individuals with no duties given to them by God or nature; their only duty is to obey those contracts, ultimately based in fear, which they have made with other individuals.

Characteristically, modern government uses strong political institutions—such as the separation of powers and checks and balances—to limit and direct human action. The main goal is to protect human beings from the tyranny of unlimited government without expecting too much of either rulers or ruled. Modern government, in fact, is to be limited but strong; free human beings consent to be ruled in order for their bodies to be more secure and comfortable. But they would not consent to be needlessly afraid of government or to have their souls cruelly tortured. So the American Constitution, for example, creates a strong presidency that is limited both by Congress and by the necessity of securing reelection.

This moderate and modern form of government must be praised for its effectiveness, for its protection of human security and liberty, and for providing a context for unprecedented human prosperity. But conservatives would add that no decent modern government has been wholly modern. Decent modern governments have relied heavily on their premodern inheritances, including respect for tradition, religion, and various kinds of uncalculating virtue. Strong institutions are not enough for a free society to work; good government always depends also on the existence of free and responsible citizens, and these do not just happen. Modern society, conservatives add, erodes its premodern capital. It sows the seeds of its own destruction. (Read more.)

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The Royal Family at the Foundling Hospital, 1790

Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette contributed a great deal throughout their reign to the care of orphans and foundlings. They patronized foundling hospitals, which the Queen often visited with her children. Above is a picture of an occasion in February, 1790, after their removal to Paris, when the king, the queen and their children toured such a facility, where the nuns cared for abandoned babies and little children. As is reported by Maxime de la Rocheterie, the young Dauphin, soon to be an orphan himself, was particularly drawn to the foundlings and gave all of his small savings to aid them.



(Pictures from L'Affaire Madame Royale) Share

Mel K & Peter Navarro | The New MAGA Deal: Strategic

 Worth a listen.

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When Did Humans Start Cooking Food?

 From Live Science:

Cooking is important — in fact, some researchers believe it's what allowed our human ancestors to unlock the extra calories needed to grow larger brains. So when was cooking invented? The timing is uncertain, but evidence suggests people were cooking food at least 50,000 years ago and as early as 2 million years ago. This evidence comes from two fields: archaeology and biology.

One piece of archaeological evidence for cooking is cooked starch grains found in dental calculus, or hardened dental plaque. "People can find it in teeth that are 50,000 years old," said Richard Wrangham, a retired professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University and the author of "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" (Basic Books, 2009) (Read more.)

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The Queen's Agony

Her neck never stopped aching from the vise-like grip with which his short arms had locked around her, refusing to let go, as the commissaries began to drag him from her arms. His cries of "Maman! Maman!" echoed within her still. Her heart was not broken, it was gone. ~from Trianon by Elena Maria Vidal, Chapter Seven: "The Sacrifice"

On July 3, 1793, eight year old Louis XVII was forcibly removed from his mother the Queen. His sister Madame Royale later described the scene thus:

On the 3d of July, they read to us a decree of the Convention, that my brother should be separated from us, and placed in the most secure apartment of the tower. As p223soon as he heard this sentence pronounced, he threw himself into the arms of my mother, and entreated, with violent cries, than to be separated from her. My mother was stricken to the earth by this cruel order; she would not part with her son, and she actually defended, against the efforts of the officers, the bed in which she had placed him. But these men would have him, and threatened to call up the guard, and use violence. My mother exclaimed, that they had better kill her than tear the child from her. An hour was spent in resistance on her part, and in prayers and tears on the part of all of us.

At last they threatened even the lives of both him and me, and my mother's maternal tenderness at length forced her to this sacrifice. My aunt and I dressed the child, for my poor mother had no longer strength for any thing. Nevertheless, when he was dressed, she took him and delivered him herself into the hands of the officers, bathing him with her tears, foreseeing that she was never to see him again. The poor little fellow embraced us all tenderly, and was carried off in a flood of tears. My mother charged the officers to ask the council-general for permission to see her son, were it only at meals. They engaged to do so. She was overwhelmed with the sorrow of parting with him, but her horror was extreme when she heard that one Simon62 (a shoemaker by trade, whom she had seen as a municipal officer in the Temple), was the person to whom her unhappy child was confided. She asked continually to be allowed to see him, but in vain. He, on his side, cried for two whole days, and begged without intermission to be permitted to see us.

~Private Memoirs, by Madame Royale, Duchess of Angoulême, translated by John Wilson Croker. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1823, pp 223-225.

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The ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ Racket Is Collapsing In Front Of Our Eyes

 From Matt Walsh.

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In Socialist Seattle Crime DOES Pay, And It Pays Well

 From Right Flank:

The head of the King County Public Defenders came up with the harebrained cash payments scheme in an attempt to reduce the number of felony prosecutions.  Violent crime has increased in unison with inflation, the cost of living and unemployment.

Instead of paying criminals to prevent crime, the left should reconsider its border policy.  The southern border should be completely closed until the nation has enough housing to accommodate its current taxpayers at reasonable prices.  The problem with paying criminals to avoid arrest is that you eventually run out of taxpayer dollars to keep the peace. 

Media outlets obtained a letter to the King County prosecuting attorney that highlighted how to significantly decrease misdemeanor and felony caseloads assigned to public using a numerical cap. 

If such a cap were put on public defender caseloads, it would inevitably lead to those being suspected of crimes walking free instead of being charged.  Moreover, the local budget funds allocated to hiring additional public defenders would also be strained, creating an indefinite shortage of legal representatives. (Read more.)

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