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

Reforming US Public Health under RFK

 From James Howard Kunstler:

Dr. Chris Martenson, is an economic researcher and futurist specializing in energy and resource depletion, finance and banking, and the science and politics surrounding the Covid-19 affair. Before founding PeakProsperity.com, where he provides analysis, commentary, and actionable advice, Martenson worked as a Vice President at a Fortune 300 company and spent over a decade in corporate finance and strategic consulting. His academic background includes a PhD in neurotoxicology from Duke University and a post-doctoral program in the same field, followed by an MBA in Finance from Cornell University. (Read more.)

 

From The Vigilant Fox:

Calley Means just dropped a series of truth bombs at Politico’s Health Care Summit—and anti-MAHA lobbyists weren’t ready for it. Lighting up the stage, Means ripped into the federal health agencies and the medical establishment, calling them out for being captured by industry lobbyists. He said these agencies have “utterly failed” and blamed them for overseeing a decades-long decline in American health. The election of President Trump, he argued, wasn’t just political—it was a clear message from voters demanding deep reform at every level of these broken institutions.

When it came to food policy, Means didn’t hold back in calling out how lobbyists have corrupted the system. “One thing Bobby Kennedy is not going to do,” he told Politico’s Dasha Burns, “is entertain comments from food lobbyists using food prices as an excuse to continue poisoning children. That’s not going to work… We have 10,000 chemicals in our food that are not allowed in any other country.” (Read more.)

 

From Keto Mojo:

 Although research is still in its early stages, several small studies suggest that ketogenic diets may lead to promising outcomes in several mental health disorders.

Depression and anxiety:

• • A 2023 systematic review of case reports and observational studies concluded that ketogenic diets may provide benefits for individuals with mood and anxiety disorders, although further study is needed. (8)
  • In a case series, three patients with major depression and generalized anxiety disorder who followed an animal-based ketogenic diet for 7 to 12 weeks  experienced complete remission from their condition, along with improvements in quality of life, body composition, and metabolic health markers. In addition, the two patients with binge-eating disorder reported that they no longer binged or felt the urge to binge within days of starting ketogenic metabolic therapy. (9)

Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia:

• • Researchers conducted a 6-8 week pilot study of a ketogenic diet in 26 euthymic individuals with bipolar disorder.  Among the 20 participants who completed the trial, 91% of blood ketone (beta-hydroxybutyrate) measurements fell within the nutritional ketosis range, and the diet was generally well-tolerated with minimal side effects. (10) Daily beta-hydroxybutyrate levels were positively correlated with self-rated mood and energy levels and inversely associated with impulsivity and anxiety. (11) In addition, participants lost an average of 9.2 lbs (4.2 kg).
  • A retrospective analysis explored the effects of a ketogenic diet in 28 inpatient adults with treatment-resistant severe mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. All patients experienced improvement in symptoms, with nearly half achieving remission, and 64% were able to reduce or discontinue their psychotropic medications. (12)
  • In a pilot study, 23 individuals with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and metabolic abnormalities followed a ketogenic diet for four months. Schizophrenia patients saw a 32% reduction in symptoms, and 69% of those with bipolar disorder showed significant clinical improvement. Additionally, none of the participants met the criteria for metabolic syndrome by the end of the study, with adherent individuals experiencing significant reductions in waist circumference, insulin resistance, and triglyceride levels. (13)

Currently, several trials exploring the impact of KMT on mental health disorders are recruiting or already in progress. (Read more.)

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Rare Merlin and King Arthur Text Found

 From Popular Science:

Variations on the classic Merlin and King Arthur legends span hundreds, if not thousands, of retellings. Many are documented within handwritten medieval manuscripts dating back over a millenia—but some editions are far rarer than others. For example, less than 40 copies are known to exist of a once-popular sequel series, the Suite Vulgate du Merlin. In 2019, researchers at the University of Cambridge discovered fragments of one more copy in their collections, tucked inside the recycled binding of a wealthy family’s property record from the 16th century. But at the time of discovery, the text was impossible to read. Now after years of painstaking collaborative work with the university’s Cultural Heritage Imaging Laboratory (CHIL), archivists have finally been able to peer inside the obscured texts—without ever needing to physically handle the long-lost pages. (Read more.)

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Pets in Prison

Madame Royale in the Garden of the Temple Prison

From History Today:

The humanity with which Richard and his wife had behaved towards the queen during her first month at the Conciergerie, and the suspicion of their having collaborated in the Carnation Affair, had led to their being suspended. By the time they were reinstated in November 1793, Made Antoinette had perished on the guillotine. Given their previous acts of kindness they may well have taken pity on her pug, a breed to which she was famously attached. Whether this dog was the original Thisbee or the pet of another victim which she had adopted is impossible to gage.

The reticence of Madame Royale on the subject of her mother's dog at the Temple also applies to her own spaniel, Mignon, which her brother, the Dauphin, gave her before being finally separated from his sister on October 7th, 1793. In all probability he retained some of his earlier ambivalence towards dogs. The existence of Mignon is well documented: the eye-witness Hue, refers to 'a dog which was long the sole witness of her sorrows', and the dog features in many engravings of Madame Royale after her release on December 19th, 1795. When Mignon died in 1801, having fallen from a balcony of the Poniatowski Palace in Warsaw, Louis XVIII wrote to the poet Jacques Delille, then in England, asking for some lines to inscribe on the dog's tomb. In Malheur et Pitie, Delille incorporated an elegy to Mignon:

Be then the subject and the honour of my poems, Oh you! who consoling your royal mistress, Until your last breath proved to her your kindness, Who beguiled her misfortunes, enlivened her prison; Oh of the last farewell of a brother, unique and tragic gift ...

 If the Dauphin was wary of dogs, he was unequivocal in his liking for birds. At the Tuileries in 1792 he took care of the aviary and of the ducks in the pond, he also raised rabbits. At the Temple in 1795, in response to the boy's entreaties, one of the towers was transformed into a pigeonry and his gaoler, Simon, had a birdcage built in one of the window-recesses, even removing a plank from the hoarded-up casement-window 'in order to provide the birds with light'. Bills for supplying 'bird-seed for the little Capet's pigeons' are still in evidence. The Commune baulked, how- ever, when presented with a demand for 300 livres from a clock-maker, Bourdier, whom Simon had commissioned to repair a very beautiful bird- cage which he had found in the furniture-repository of the Prince de Conti, the former proprietor of the Temple. Simon had undertaken to pay this sum out of his own pocket but, by the time the work was completed, he too had been guillotined. (Read entire post.)

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Britain’s MI6 Was Complicit in the COVID Coverup

 From The Rand Paul Review:

When it comes to COVID, keeping up with all the lies repeatedly fed to Americans is getting increasingly difficult.

The first lie was that “15 days to slow the spread” would be the extent of various restrictions on people working, going outside, and otherwise living their lives. Shortly thereafter, vaccine mandates emerged, with the promise that taking these jabs would eliminate the virus.

As we all know, the virus was not, in fact, eliminated.

Then, corrupt government bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci lied about the US government funding gain of research. Eventually, it came to light that the National Institutes of Health actually did fund this work; though Americans who suspected this “prematurely” were gaslit as conspiracy theorists.

Unfortunately, even years later, more lies and coverups continue coming to light. One of the latest deals with the United Kingdom’s MI6 and its knowledge about COVID. (Read more.)

 

Also from The Rand Paul Review:

Senator Paul is talking about the tendency for Democrats to display unbecoming behavior, even in the face of logic and reason. Trump Derangement Syndrome has apparently made these swap dwellers completely irrational. Do you wonder why?

It would seem logical for a political party comprised of humans with even an ounce of empathy to want to stop the drastic rise in autism that’s happened over the past several decades. In 2023, the CDC reported that one in 36 children were diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In the 1980’s only one in 2000 to 5000 children were diagnosed with autism, depending on the source you reference.

There have been numerous people pointing out that the rise in autism is highly correlative to a ramping up of the vaccine schedule for our nation’s children, not just RFK Jr.

Let’s look at why this might be so. . . (Read more.)

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St. John Paul II on the Personhood of Women

 It never occurred to me that there was any question about the personhood of women but it seems that in some circles there are. From Dr. Angela Franks in Church Life Journal:

Let us connect the dots. By the fact of their human nature, shared with men, women are also conscious, rational, creative, and free persons. Like all persons, they are structured to flourish through self-possession and self-governance, which leads to their self-formation through freely chosen virtuous action. Attempting to outsource this responsible and intelligent activity to someone else, even one’s husband, is not only bound to lead to disintegration, even mental illness. Such outsourcing is also impossible, because personhood is incommunicable. A human person cannot in fact uproot her self-determining personal structure.

This personal structure allows for and is perfected in the virtue of obedience, which is owed by all human beings to God and to legitimate human authorities. Yet a totalitarian imposition of arbitrariness or a denial of a person’s rationality, done in the name of hierarchical “obedience,” will taint the whole community. Such poorly conceived “obedience” leads to malformation and abuse, as too many recent examples in religious life testify. Indeed, a healthy community—explicitly including the family, as Wojtyła notes when speaking of parents—must allow for moments of healthy opposition.[16] A rigid conformism is not virtuous self-denial but instead rooted in the desire to avoid uncomfortable conflict; it actually selfish.

Right-wing power fetishists try to claim certain basic human actions as prerogatives of the male sex, such as thinking and arguing about the good, acting freely and creatively in moving toward that good, and possessing and governing oneself. Such actions, they argue, pertain properly only to the leadership and strength of men, and furthermore the wife is owned by the husband.[17] As a result, a wife should defer to her husband on all intellectual and practical matters. As one book’s chapter titles state, “The Basics: Do Whatever He Tells You,” which also means “Wear What He Likes, Do What He Likes.” On Wojtyła’s terms, this denial of the personalistic structure of women amounts to their dehumanization.

It should not need to be said that this is not how Jesus interacted with women, nor how he relates to his bride the Church, for whom he died: “Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25). Paul does not exhort husbands to rule over their wives or discipline them as though they were children. Rather, he insists that their primary job is not ruling at all but instead love:

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the Church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the Church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband (Eph 5:28-33).

The wife can only be loved like the body of the husband (echoes of the Church once more), and a husband can only love himself by loving his wife, if they are both equally and fully human. For Karol Wojtyła, the creative drama of the relations between the sexes requires nothing less. (Read more.)

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Life in the Temple Prison

In August 1792, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, their children, and Louis' sister Madame Elisabeth were incarcerated in the Temple Prison. Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte later described their experiences in her Memoirs:

The following is the way our family passed their days.

My father rose at seven, and was employed in his devotions till eight. Afterwards he dressed himself and my brother, and at nine came to breakfast with my mother. After breakfast, my father taught my brother his lessons till eleven. The child then played till twelve, at which hour the whole family was obliged to walk in the garden, whatever the weather might be; because the guard, which was relieved at the time, wished to see all the prisoners, and satisfy themselves that we were safe. The walk lasted till dinner, which was at two o'clock. After dinner my father and mother played at tric-trac or piquet, or, to speak more truly, pretended to play, that they might have an opportunity of saying a few words to one another. At four o'clock, my mother and we went up stairs and took my brother with us, as my father was accustomed to sleep a little at this hour. At six my brother went down again to my father to say his lessons, and to play till supper-time. After supper, at nine o'clock, my mother undressed him quickly, and put him to bed. We then went up to our own apartment again, and the King did not go to bed till eleven. My mother worked a good deal of tapestry: she directed my studies, and often made me read aloud. My aunt was frequently in prayer, and read every morning the divine service of the day. She read a good many religious books, and sometimes, at the Queen's request, would read aloud.

~ Private Memoirs, by Madame Royale, Duchess of Angoulême, translated by John Wilson Croker. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1823, pp.183-185

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Reflections on the Counter-Revolution in America

 From Victor Davis Hanson:

In general, no Republican president of the past 50 years sought to radically reduce the size of government and balance the budget. None closed the border and began deportations. None avoided optional ground wars while solely hitting aggressors from the air. None led a cultural counter-revolution to reverse the left’s long march through our institutions.

Why?

Because to have done so would have constituted a veritable cultural counter-revolution that would incur an unacceptable level of hatred and resistance from the entrenched left—defined by the nexus of the media, bureaucracies, campuses, foundations, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and the Democratic Party. The latter were deemed just too formidable—and dangerous—to confront in a single term, if ever.

Or so it was felt by prior Republican administrations. So, most stayed clear and sought to deregulate, cut taxes, keep illegal immigration to about 30,000 or so a month, and use rhetoric to oppose the left’s cultural revolution.

Not so with Trump. The target of four years of lawfare in his wilderness years, he has now become a true counterrevolutionary determined not to slow down the progressive trajectory of the last 60 years but to end it and return the U.S. to the center—at least as now defined by a balanced budget, reciprocal fair trade, full use of all modes of energy, a closed border, legal only immigration, no optional ground wars abroad and a fierce effort to end the woke/DEI/ESG/Green New Deal leftwing orthodoxy.

Will it work?

The left’s revolution had become so deeply institutionalized that the once-bizarre had become the politically correct norm: three, not two, sexes; illegal aliens de facto not different from American citizens; a country without borders; massive debt and trade imbalances propped up for years by near-zero, de facto interest rates; and nation-building abroad as the country’s interior at home was hallowed out.

Trump is currently waging a 360-degree, 24/7 effort to undo at least the last 20 years of the most recent manifestation of the leftist cultural revolution inaugurated by Barack Obama. (Read more.)

Judge orders Trump officials to preserve Signal group chat records. From ArcaMax:

Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said he would enter the order in a lawsuit that alleges potential violations of the Federal Records Act, which requires agencies to retain records of their deliberations and decisions.

The order is set to last for two weeks and could be the start of further court action over whether Trump officials’ use of Signal or other messaging apps runs afoul of the records law.

During a hearing Thursday, the Justice Department said Trump officials were already taking steps to preserve the group chat, which apparently inadvertently included a journalist and had senior government officials discussing details of the attack in advance.

American Oversight, a watchdog group, filed the lawsuit against Secretary of State and acting National Archives and Records Administrator Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent seeking to preserve records of the chat.

The Atlantic earlier this week detailed a group chat that discussed details of the attack on Houthis in Yemen and apparently inadvertently included Jeffrey Goldberg, the outlet’s editor-in-chief. The group asked Boasberg to order the Trump administration to retain the records. (Read more.)

 

From James Howard Kunstler:

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is supposed to function like an immune system for the body politic, defending it against political sickness. The current organized action in the federal judiciary against the executive is a grave sickness induced by the Deep State that must be corrected by the SCOTUS. We await that corrective action — a sweeping decision in reply to 100-plus lawsuits — that the chief executive is in-charge of the executive department and that his prerogatives to manage the staffing and actions of the executive agencies can’t be arrogated by federal judges.

So far, obviously, the SCOTUS has not yet come to issue that decision. Many of you worry that they will fail to, because Chief Justice John Roberts appears to be somehow under the influence of the Deep State. Let’s have a look. Sheldon Snook is Special Assistant to Chief Justice Roberts, and is deeply involved in the day-to-day management of the SCOTUS. Sheldon Snook is married to Mary McCord. Ms. McCord has been a leading actor, via her various roles in the Deep State, in the seditious operations against President Trump since 2017.

As Acting Attorney General for National Security in 2017, Mary McCord, turned James Comey’s FBI jihad against National Security advisor Mike Flynn into a malicious and ultimately unsuccessful prosecution. (The DOJ dropped the charges, which Judge Emmet G. Sullivan refused to execute, thus necessitating a pardon from Mr. Trump.)

Mary McCord was instrumental in the DOJ’s dishonest FISA application to surveil Carter Page (when Judge James Boasberg sat on the FISA Court). Ms. McCord quit the DOJ to become a counsel to the committee in the first impeachment of Donald Trump. In that role, she assisted Norm Eisen, the Chief Counsel to committee Chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler. Norm Eisen has gone on since that time to become the chief coordinator of lawfare operations against Mr. Trump. Mary McCord remains a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council, sponsored by George and Alex Soros. Sheldon Snook remains at John Roberts’ right hand. (Read more.)

 

Biden's perjury. From The Reactionary:

If you recall, Special Counsel Hur was appointed after the disclosure that classified documents were found at President Biden’s homes and his office in Washington. Compared to the investigations of Trump, the Biden inquiry was, for lack of a better word, soft: searches were conducted without FBI monitors, Biden’s lawyers negotiated the terms of searches with a US Attorney appointed by Biden. (Our recap into the Biden classified documents saga goes into greater detail.)

The issue with Biden’s handling of classified materials wasn’t necessarily the possession of those materials, though that is a criminal offense. It’s that he lied about it to Special Counsel Hur. These written answers - first published in this article - are important in that they are made with thought and care, as compared to Biden’s rambling interview with Special Counsel Hur, where he was a bit slow and forgetful.

And these answers are provable deceit, though it would have been a near-impossible task to convince a DC jury to convict one of their own. Here are some examples of the lies. (Read more.)

The Signal flap. From Sharyl's Substack:

First, as far as the selective pearl-clutching over the Trump administration’s use of Signal, we can start with the example of James Comey, former FBI Director.

In August 2019, the DOJ Inspector General’s report, “Report of Investigation of Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey's Disclosure of Sensitive Investigative Information and Handling of Certain Memoranda,” found that Comey, fired by Trump in May 2017, wrongly took FBI memos about their interactions and kept them in his personal possession. Several of the documents contained classified info—“Secret” and “Confidential”—including anti-Trump material. The IG noted that Comey even shared these with his lawyers, and one of the documents was purposefully leaked to The New York Times in order to hurt then-President Trump.

The DOJ IG referred Comey for prosecution—a momentous referral that was downplayed in the news—but Comey avoided charges when the DOJ declined to bring them in August of 2019, citing insufficient evidence of ill intent. (I hope if I’m ever commit a bad crime I can convince prosecutors to forget about it all by telling them I meant no harm.)

Anyway, the Comey revelations flickered, then faded—a minor blip for the propaganda machine compared to today’s Signal frenzy.

Then there was Hillary Clinton’s saga. As Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, she improperly ran sensitive and classified State Department business through her private email server in violation of explicit security rules and record keeping laws.

The FBI’s July 2016 probe into Clinton’s actions found 110 emails with classified data—some “Top Secret”—on that unsecured system. FBI Director Comey’s July 5, 2016, statement about the breach warned that “hostile actors,” possibly Russia, might have accessed the material.

Yet, as The New York Times reported on July 6, 2016, Comey deemed Clinton’s behavior “extremely careless” but not criminal, and the DOJ followed suit deciding to file no charges. ‘After all, she meant no harm,’ they said. Backed by deep-pocketed allies.

Joe Biden’s turn came in February 2023. (Read more.)

 

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The Fall and Rise of Communism

 From Daniel McCarthy at Modern Age:

In the edited excerpt below, McCarthy and McMeekin discuss the ways in which Communism and its malign influence are not yet a thing of the past.

McCarthy: You say that communism, in some ways, is just getting started, and the final chapter of the book really lays out the ways in which the COVID lockdowns and the growth of the surveillance state within the West as a whole are following precedents set by Communist China and other Communist states. Tell us a little bit about the state of Communism today and why it’s something that should still concern Americans in the twenty-first century.

McMeekin: This is the part of the book that got a bit of attention and maybe riled a few people up, in part because most of us who are reasonably well-read in history have come to see that most of the Communist regimes of the twentieth century were economic failures, oppressed their people, committed all kinds of human rights abuses and violations, obviously piled up huge death counts, and so forth. But generally speaking though, I think most people, until pretty recently, thought that we could say goodbye to all that, thank goodness that’s over. That was the tone of a lot of the early books that came out in the post–Cold War years, whether about Soviet history or about Communism—“writing its obituary,” as I think Richard Pipes put it in his Short History of Communism, which came out a quarter century ago. It really did seem like Communism was finished.

There was a trial of sorts of the Communist Party and Richard Pipes, who was both a historian at Harvard and also an advisor of the first term of the first Reagan administration with a role in forming policy vis à vis Poland and the Solidarity movement, was actually called as an expert witness in that trial. I talk about it in the book because I think it was an important moment but not necessarily for the reasons people thought at the time. People thought it might be something of a Nuremberg for Communism, but that was a bit of a misconception. In fact, what had happened was that Yeltsin, after he came to power as president, tried to outlaw the Communist Party in Russia, and he was sued by the Communist Party. The part that most people don’t realize is that the Communist Party won—and they didn’t just win renewed legal status, their capacity to contest and fight elections, and become the largest or second largest party in Russia, which is to this day, of course, very influential. To some extent they also won back a little of their diminished luster and prestige. So I think that’s the first part of it: the story didn’t quite end as neatly as we maybe thought it did in either 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall or in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The other way in which I’m talking about Communism is as something that hasn’t quite vanished and maybe hasn’t finished with us yet—I suppose I might be channeling the Trotsky line, “you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you,” and you might say the same thing about Communism. I suppose what I’m getting at is that a lot of, to borrow a term from Marx, the “superstructure” of Communism—the central planning of the economy, the full state control and ownership of the means of production—has been jettisoned at least by the more clever, ambitious, and successful Communist regimes, for example in China, where there is a kind of hybrid system. But the part they haven’t abandoned in China, the part that concerns me because it is creeping into a lot of Western social political life particularly over the past decade or so, are the subtler forms of social control, for example a social credit system. It’s subtler now. In the Communist days of the Soviet Union or in Eastern Bloc countries or in China, you obviously had a very rigid party structure: party membership was necessary to get ahead, you had to be on good terms with the party or formal party members, etc. They had a social credit system but it was more explicit, blunt, and in your face. Now, we have varieties of censorship and social control, varieties of not always repression exactly but certainly of surveillance and monitoring and the constant hectoring and surveilling of the population that you saw in Communist regimes is a bit subtler now. But in some ways I think it’s more insidious in many Western countries because we’ve become more accustomed to it. COVID was only the most obvious manifestation of it.

(Read more.)

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A Hundred Marriages at Notre-Dame de Paris

At the birth of her first child in 1778, Marie-Antoinette personally provided for the dowries of a hundred poor girls, enabling them to marry. Encouraging marriage led to a decline of illegitimacy and abandoned children. From Rodama:

Marie-Antoinette refused the celebrations offered to her by the municipality of Paris and asked instead that the money be employed to provide dowries for a hundred deserving poor girls, who would be married en masse on the day of the Royal thanksgiving service in Notre-Dame.  Additional allowances were be paid when a first child was born, with a higher rate available for mothers who breastfed.  As a further celebration of family life,  an elderly couple would be chosen to renew their marriage vows in front of their "children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren".

It is hard to gauge what the municipal corporation might have thought about  this charitable effusion of Rousseauist sentiment.   No doubt the requirements were both expensive and troublesome to arrange.  The brunt of the organisation fell on the church. A 1923 article  in the Revue des études historiques, by Gabriel Vauthier, publishes a copy of the rather terse circular, dated 14th January 1779, from Archbishop Christophe de Beaumont to each of the curés of  Paris's forty-three parishes:

Monsieur,
It is the Queen's intention to endow with a dowry, one hundred girls to be chosen from the different parishes of Paris.  Each one will be furnished with the sum of five-hundred livres, as well as outfits and robes, to be delivered to her on the occasion of her marriage.  In addition,  Her Majesty wishes to pay ten livres per month for a year during the time that the baby is being nursed.  If the mother feeds her own baby, she will be payed fifteen livres a month and given a layette.

You should, Monsieur,  without delay, find the means to fulfill the charitable wishes of the Queen and bring about their speedy execution.  You must choose from among your parishioners,  individuals who are poor and of good moral character, worthy to be recipients of Her Majesty's kindness.  You must make your choice within eight to ten days.  The marriages will follow the ordinary order of precedence for the parishes of Paris.  Kindly come to the Archbishop's palace next Monday at five in the evening. You can inform me of the results of your research so far, and, if there are any difficulties, we will resolve them.

(Read more.)

Marie-Antoinette Giving Alms

 

 

 

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Washington Senate Passes Bill to Make Clergy Mandatory Reporters of Child Abuse

 From February in The Washington State Standard:

The state Senate passed a bill Friday afternoon to make religious leaders mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect. Supporters say the move is crucial to protecting children from harm, especially sexual abuse, while opponents argue the bill could end up doing more harm.

Senate Bill 5375 would make “members of the clergy” mandatory reporters like doctors, teachers and other people who work with kids. Under the law, religious leaders would be required to tell law enforcement or the Department of Children, Youth and Families if they suspect any harm has been done to a child. They must do so even if they learned that information during a confession or other penitential communication.

This is the third time in recent years that making clergy mandatory reporters has been attempted, with exemptions for reporting information learned in confession being a sticking point in the past.

Prime sponsor Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, said religious leaders should have a responsibility to report abuse so the state can step in and take action.

“Children need trusted adults,” the senator said. “They need to know that if they tell somebody they’re being abused, like I told my teacher in the fifth grade that I was being abused, that they can trust that that person will make it stop.”

While the bill compels clergy to report child neglect information learned in confession, Frame said their privilege to not be compelled to testify in a criminal proceeding remains intact.

According to Frame, Washington is only one of five states where clergy aren’t mandatory reporters. She believes that has to change in light of reports of churches covering up harm done to children.

“The state does not have to be complicit when religious communities who engage in the practice of covering up abuse and neglect choose to do so,” she said.

Republicans said they supported previous efforts to make clergy members mandatory reporters, but took issue this time as there was no exemption for information learned in confession.

They believe those committing harm may do more harm if they cannot freely confide in religious leaders.

“People who want to ask for forgiveness for their past sins, they will not come and ask for help,” said state Sen. Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake. (Read more.)

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Elizabeth de Burgh, the Captive Queen of Scots

From Sharon Bennett Connolly:

Elizabeth de Burgh was born around 1289. The daughter of Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster and Connaught, and his wife, Margaret, she was a god-daughter of England’s king, Edward I. At the age of 13 Elizabeth was married to Robert the Bruce, Earl of Carrick, in 1302; probably at his manor of Writtle, near Chelmsford in Essex. It is possible the marriage was arranged by Edward; he certainly encouraged it, as a way of keeping his young Scottish noble loyal to his cause.

However, events in Scotland would soon push the Bruce away from his English alliances; his murder of his greatest rival for the throne, John Comyn, in the Chapel of the Greyfriars in Dumfries. Aware that he would be excommunicated for his actions, Bruce raced to Scone to be crowned before a papal bull could be issued. 6 weeks later, on March 25th 1306, the Bruce was crowned King Robert I of Scotland, with Elizabeth by his side, by the Bishop of St Andrews, William Lamberton. They were crowned in a second ceremony the next day by Isabella MacDuff, Countess of Buchan, who had arrived too late to play her part in the ceremony on the 25th. As daughter of the Earl of Fife, Isabella claimed the hereditary right of the Clan MacDuff, to crown the King of Scots. Unfortunately the coronation was not the end of trouble for the Bruces. If anything, things were about to get much worse.

An ailing Edward I sent his loyal lieutenant, Aymer de Valence, north and he met and defeated Robert’s army at Methven in June of the same year. Robert sent his brother Neil and the Earl of Atholl to escort his wife to safety. They took the Queen, Princess Marjorie (Robert the Bruce’s daughter by his first marriage), sisters Mary and Christian and the countess of Buchan, north towards Orkney.

However, the English caught up with them at Kildrummy Castle and laid siege to it. The garrison was betrayed from within, the barns set alight and the Bruce women had barely time to escape with the Earl of Atholl before the castle was taken. Sir Neil Bruce and the entire garrison were executed; Neil was hung, drawn and quartered at Berwick in September 1306.

Queen Elizabeth and her companions made for Tain, in Easter Ross, possibly in the hope of finding a boat to take them onwards. However, they were captured by the Earl of Ross (a former adherent of the deposed King John Balliol), who took them from sanctuary at St Duthac and handed them over to the English. They were sent south, To Edward I at Lanercost Priory.

Elizabeth’s capture would have been a hard blow for Robert the Bruce. The new King of Scotland still lacked a male heir, and had no chance of getting one while his wife was in English hands. This made his hold on the throne even more precarious than it already was.

Edward I’s admirer, Sir Maurice Powicke said Edward treated his captives with a ‘peculiar ferocity’. He ordered that 24-year-old Mary Bruce and Isabella, the Countess of Buchan who performed Robert the Bruce’s coronation, should be imprisoned in specially constructed iron cages and suspended from the outside walls of castles; Mary at Roxburgh and Isabella at Berwick. Although it is more likely that the cages were in rooms within the castles, rather than exposed to the elements, they would be held in that way for 4 years, until Edward I’s successor, Edward II, ordered their removal to convents in 1310. (Read more.)

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The Holy Week Breviary Used by Marie-Antoinette in Prison

Even as people continue to scrutinize old letters under a microscope, searching for the least word or phrase that would indicate a love affair between Marie-Antoinette and Count von Fersen, evidence of the Queen's fervent Catholic faith continues to surface. Recently auctioned in Paris was the Office de la Semaine Sainte en Latin et en François à l'usage de Rome et de Paris. Dédié à la Reine pour l'usage de sa Maison. Paris, Veuve Mazières et J. B. Garnier, 1728. In English, it is translated as follows: Office of Holy Week in Latin and French According to the Usage of Rome and Paris. Dedicated to the Queen for Use in Her Household. La Reine mentioned in the title was Marie Leszczynska, the grandmother of Louis XVI and Madame Elisabeth; the volume bears her coat-of-arms. The book was bequeathed to Madame Elisabeth, whose cause for beatification has been introduced, when the old Queen died. The princess brought it with her to the Tuileries when the Royal Family were taken to Paris by force in October of 1789. Madame Elisabeth left it behind when fleeing from the palace in August of 1792 but later sent a secret communication to her lady-in-waiting, Madame de Sérent, to smuggle books to her in the Temple prison, including the Holy Week Office. The Royal Family made use of the book not only during Holy Week but throughout the year, reading aloud the words of the Mass every day. According to Beauchesne's biography of Madame Elisabeth, the Queen and Madame Elisabeth were sewing and listening to the fifteen-year-old Madame Royale read to them from the Office of Holy Week, when the guards came to take away the eight year-old Louis XVII. Later, when the Queen was taken to the Conciergerie for her final ordeals, the prayer book went with her. To this day the book opens easily to certain pages, including p. 310, which has the passage:

Scarcely is he [Jesus] raised to the sight of all these people, that he is insulted, and charged on all sides with curses and reproaches. In the end, he makes one last effort to raise his eyes to Heaven: My Father, he exclaims, forgive them, I pray you, because they know not what they do.

A guard at the Temple gained possession of the book after the Queen's death, and it later came to the great nephew of Louis XVI, Henri d'Artois, the Comte de Chambord. Read more, HERE.


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Of Canada and Greenland

 From Amuse on X:

To say that Canada is militarily helpless is not to indulge in hyperbole, but to confront a reality long obscured by diplomatic euphemism. The Canadian Armed Forces are not merely under-resourced; they are structurally incapacitated. The nation lacks the manpower, equipment, logistical depth, and political seriousness to defend its own vast territory, much less contribute meaningfully to the defense of NATO allies or embattled democracies like Ukraine. The Canadian military is, to borrow Hobbes, nasty, brutish, and short—in staffing, in supplies, and in strategic thinking.

Begin with manpower. The Canadian Armed Forces are authorized to field around 101,500 personnel. As of 2025, they are short by at least 16,000. This is not a minor discrepancy; it is a hemorrhage. Nearly 15% of the force exists only on paper. And even among those still wearing the uniform, a distressing number are functionally undeployable: overweight, undertrained, or shackled by bureaucratic delays that make a military posting resemble a Kafkaesque waiting room.

In some vital specialties—aviation technicians, naval crews, combat medics—the effective manning levels have dropped to less than half of what operational requirements demand. Training pipelines are slowed to a crawl. The few who do enlist find themselves waiting upwards of a year and a half for security clearances and medical screenings. And when they finally report for duty, the story turns tragicomic: in one recent deployment to Europe, Canadian troops reportedly had to borrow basic equipment—including helmets—from their American counterparts. Others bought their own kit from civilian retailers.

This is not merely inconvenient. It is existential. A military without the ability to equip and train its soldiers is not a military but a costume party at the edge of a battlefield. (Read more.)

 

From Tierney's Real News:

 Understand what JD Vance is saying. Notice how key Greenland is (geographically and strategically) to America for all the major arctic shipping routes for the world. It is also a strategic location for air and submarine surveillance in the northern hemisphere. If the US lets Russia & China control that - America is doomed. We will lose control of imports and exports, to our enemies, and also give them a military advantage - TO INVADE US - off our shores.

VP VANCE: "Our message is very simple. Yes, the people of Greenland are going to have self-determination. We hope that they choose to partner with the United States because we're the only nation on earth that will respect their sovereignty and respect their security - because their security is very much our security."

"We can't just bury our head in the sand — or, in Greenland, bury our head in the snow — and pretend that the Chinese are not interested in this very large landmass. We know that they are."

“Our message to Denmark (which currently rules over Greenland) is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under invested in the people of Greenland and you have under invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass."

"We want to have good relationships with everybody... but part of having good relations is showing your strength when you have to. And unfortunately, the story of Greenland over the past 20 years when it comes to security is that we've underinvested... that has to change." (Read more.)

 

From Sharyl's Substack:

1. U.S. Aspirations to Buy Greenland Date Back Nearly 160 Years

   President Andrew Johnson sought to purchase Greenland in 1867. Johnson’s Secretary of State William Seward explored buying Greenland alongside Alaska, per the U.S. State Department’s historical records. Only the Alaska deal went through.

2. Truman Tried to Buy Greenland
   In 1946, President Harry Truman proposed buying Greenland for $100 million in gold. The idea stemmed from Cold War fears about Soviet influence. Denmark rejected the offer.

3. Trump Talked About Greenland Takeover in First Term, Too
   During his first term, Donald Trump also floated the idea of the U.S. buying Greenland, sparking global headlines in August 2019. He called it a “large real estate deal” for national security. Denmark quickly dismissed the notion, with Greenland’s leaders asserting their autonomy.

4. A Cold Connection Dates Back to WWII
   The U.S. military first set foot in Greenland during World War II to prevent Nazi Germany from gaining a foothold.

5. Norway Used to Own Greenland

   Denmark owns Greenland as a constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark. In 1814, after the Napoleonic Wars, Norway was forced to relinquish several territories when its alliance with Napoleonic France crumbled, according to the Norwegian Historical Association. Denmark, aligned with the victorious powers, gained Greenland and other territories. (Norway was transferred from Danish to Swedish control.) This wasn’t a voluntary handover but a consequence of wartime negotiations and territorial realignment dictated by the treaty’s terms. (Read more.)

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Some Liturgical Privileges of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

 From The Missive:

From A.D. 1816 to A.D. 1861, the island of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula comprised the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.  The origin of this uniquely and confusingly named kingdom, as it contained only one Sicily, goes back to A.D. 1130 when the Norman Roger II was recognized as the King of the Kingdom of Sicily, which included the island and the southern part of the peninsula.  Through the twists and turns of history, the Kingdom of Sicily was divided into two, with both parts still being called the Kingdom of Sicily.  So, there were, at this point, two Kingdoms of Sicily, one of which contained Sicily (with its capital at Palermo) and the other which was comprised of the peninsular lands (with its capital at Naples and which did not contain any Sicily).  When the two Kingdoms of Sicily were reunited in A.D. 1816, instead of the united kingdom simply being called the Kingdom of Sicily, it was dubbed the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.  In any case, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had, like other kingdoms, certain liturgical privileges granted to it.¹ (Read more.)

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St James’s Palace: The Two Chapels

Ceiling of Chapel Royal at St. James

 

The Queen's Chapel at St. James

One of the chapels was historically for the Catholic Stuart queens, beginning with Queen Henrietta Maria. From Living London History:

St James’s Palace was constructed on the orders of King Henry VIII from 1531-1536, on the site of what had once been a leper hospital, dedicated to St James the Less. The leper hospital was later converted into a convent and then dissolved by Henry as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. 

A significant proportion of Henry VIII’s original palace survives including the gatehouse, the chapel, turrets and various state rooms. Henry had the palace built as an escape from Whitehall, where he could spend time with his new bride Anne Boleyn. She never saw it completed however, as she was executed two years before it was finished. 

After much of Whitehall Palace burnt down in 1698, St James’s Palace became the official residence of the monarch. It remained so until 1837, when Queen Victoria moved into Buckingham Palace. St James’s Palace is, however, officially still the most senior royal palace. It is where the Accession Council meets to proclaim a new monarch and ambassadors/high commissioners in the UK are accredited to the Court of St James’s. (Read more.)

 

From Architectural Musings:

Under the protection of England’s three Catholic Queens, Catholics were able to practice their rites “collectively, publicly and theatrically” (Frances E. Dolan, “Gender and the ‘Lost’ Spaces of Catholicism”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. XXXII No. 4, Spring 2002, pp. 641-665). The Catholic Chapels Royal held what Simon Thurley has described as “a central position in the choreography of the Court” (Simon Thurley, “The Stuart Kings, Oliver Cromwell and the Chapel Royal 1618-1685” Architectural History, Vol. 45, 2002, pp. 238-274). To Catholics, such devotional spaces were saturated with meaning and their establishment at the centre of the Royal Court imbued them with a sense of hope that the political and social position of English Catholics could be restored. To the Protestant observer, however, the mere presence of Catholics at Court offered the threat that they might seek to displace the political status quo. The Catholic Chapels Royal were thus politically charged spaces. As a result, they became a primary nexus for Protestant hostility which was to spill over into the wider malaise felt towards Stuart rule and in the end they proved to be at the centre of what became an aesthetic undoing of the Stuart dynasty itself.  Of the three Catholic Chapels Royal constructed after 1620 at St James’s Palace, Somerset House and Whitehall, only the Queen’s Chapel at St James’s has survived largely intact.

The origins of the Chapel lie in that most farcical of abortive political alliances: the Spanish Match.  Upon his accession to the English Crown, James I was keen to bring an end to the Anglo-Spanish war which had doggedly persisted during the latter reign of Elizabeth I.  In addition to ending the financial drain of the war, James I was keen to characterise himself as a bringer of peace and prosperity to his newly united Kingdoms and, as heir to Mary Queen of Scots whose execution had provided the propagandised cause of the conflict, he was perfectly placed to offer terms.  Peace was secured under the terms of the Treaty of London signed at Somerset House in 1604.  Popular reaction to the peace can be fathomed by an examination of The Somerset House Conference, a painted record of the signing of the Treaty. (Read more.)

Queen Henrietta Maria

 

Many more pictures available from Unofficial  Royalty.

 

More on the Palace of St. James, HERE and HERE. A novel on Queen Henrietta Maria, HERE.

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Elon, DOGE & Fox

 From Tierney's Real News:

Elon & the DOGE team gave a great summary on Fox of what they are doing for us. It’s a must-see interview for all Americans - regardless of party. You’ll be shocked at what they have uncovered about our Government systems and you’ll be amazed at how savvy and determined they are.

Also, around the end of the video at the 36-minute mark, listen to Elon’s response to Bret Baier about the war. Look at his face and see his pain as he talks about all the senseless death. It’s very raw and comes from a deep place. I believe Elon is grieving the loss of his own son to what he calls the “woke mind virus.” That’s why I believe he is now so committed to MAGA and making sure it never happens again.

MUSK: "We should have empathy for the thousands of people dying everyday in the trenches. For no movement in the lines. For the past two years thousands of people have died every week for nothing."

"I take great offense at those who put the appearance of goodness over the reality of it. Those who virtue signal and say we can't give into Russia, but have no solution to stopping thousands of kids dying every day."

"I have contempt for such people and I want to make that clear. Because they're virtue signaling and their lack of a solution means that kids don't have a father. It means parents lost a son. For what? Nothing." (Read more.)

 

From Amuse on X:

 The dissolution of USAID—an institution long considered the crown jewel of American humanitarianism—has caused no small stir among the bureaucratic class, the global NGO ecosystem, and those for whom inertia passes as moral virtue. Yet such reforms, though disruptive, are not only justified—they are necessary. Under the leadership of Secretary Rubio and President Trump, with operational execution led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the United States has finally begun the long-overdue task of reconciling its foreign aid with its foreign policy.

That sentence may surprise some. Isn’t foreign aid a tool of foreign policy? Ideally, yes. But in practice, the two have long existed in a state of awkward cohabitation. USAID, created by executive order under President Kennedy in 1961, was intended to be nimble, responsive, and aligned with executive authority. Instead, over the past six decades, it became precisely the sort of permanent, self-perpetuating bureaucracy the Framers would have abhorred: expensive, redundant, and structurally unaccountable. Its agents abroad frequently contradicted presidential policy; its programs multiplied beyond oversight; and its purpose drifted into abstraction.

To be clear: the issue is not whether the United States should offer life-saving aid. It should, and it will. The issue is whether that aid should be aligned with coherent national interests, subjected to fiscal restraint, and delivered by a government apparatus capable of speaking with one voice. The answer, now decisively, is yes.

Consider, for a moment, what USAID had become. A foreign aid agency should be a tool of diplomacy, one that strengthens alliances, alleviates suffering, and advances national interests. Instead, USAID became an ideological export factory—shipping out cultural fashions under the pretense of humanitarianism, with a price tag courtesy of the American taxpayer. (Read more.)

From The Daily Wire:

In a Friday statement, USAID Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Lewin said the agency has strayed from its original mission to help stem the world’s “gravest crises and support allies in need.” 

“But the independent establishment of USAID has grown inefficient and unwieldy, too often contradicting rather than reinforcing the foreign policy of the President and nation,” he said.

“By bringing USAID’s core life-saving and strategic aid programs under the umbrella of the State Department, this Administration will significantly enhance the efficiency, accountability, uniformity, and strategic impact of foreign assistance programs – and ensure that our nation and President speaks with one voice in foreign affairs,” Lewin added. (Read more.)

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Medieval Female Scribes

A scholarly view. From Nature:

There are several studies into monastic scriptoria for women (Bischoff, 1966, Parkes, 1983, Robinson, 1997, Hamburger, 2016) starting with Bernhard Bischoff’s famous study of Chelles in France (Bischoff, 1966). The contributions of the Birgittine nuns of Vadstena alongside the brothers is explored in scholarly literature (Hedström, 2009, Dverstorp, 2010). Others cast a wider net to cover regions in selected centuries, from the eighth century to 1500 (McKitterick, 1992, Brown, 2001, Beach, 2004, Cyrus, 2009, Lifshitz, 2014). These studies together with a few, isolated pieces of evidence such as a contemporary illustration (Fig. 1) and archaeological finds (Radini, Trom et al. 2019) show that manuscript production in female religious institutions or female participation in lay workshops occurred in different periods and in different geographical areas. Women’s contributions as scribes are explored and attested in scholarly literature (Blanton et al. 2013; 2015; 2018; Saunders and Watts, 2023) as well as more popular essays and initiatives (e.g. Davis, 2018, Hudson, 2021). However, there is a knowledge gap: Despite the emerging field of quantitative codicology (Chandna et al. 2016), to date no study has tried to quantify the female scribe contribution. The role of female scribes in the Latin West during the Middle Ages has been defined within specific geographical or chronological delimitations only. This allows for in-depth analysis of the available source material, but not broad-scale conclusions. The aim of this paper is to address the research question: What was the quantitative contribution of female scribes based on available sources? How large was the fraction of the manuscripts copied by women? To provide a tentative answer to this question we conduct the to our knowledge first bibliometric analysis of the contribution of female scribes. We perform the study using colophons. (Read more.)

 

More HERE.

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A Converted Medieval Monastery in Somerset

 From Country Life:

Beyond its 16th-century oak front door — with the Abbot of Glastonbury’s coat of arms carved into the stone above — the beautiful Grade II*-listed manor house has seven bedrooms, plus a connected three-bedroom cottage, which needs 'some modernisation', according to the agents. So, 'quite a lot of modernisation', then. None of those rough edges or — ahem — 'bold' colour choices is to detract from the essential charm, however. Indeed, it probably adds to it — and buyers can come in knowing that this is a place ripe for them to put their own stamp on. (Read more.)

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Why DOGE and MAGA Aren’t Matter and Antimatter

 From Postliberal Order:

Vance pointed to two reasons why there is no real division between the two “tribes.” First, the on-shoring of manufacturing will reverse the baleful effects of deindustrialization—not only bringing a benefit for the working class who will gain better jobs, but improving the prospects for innovation. He pointed to the benefits of “network effects” when people in related industries can share best practices and improve productivity as a result.

Second, Vance spoke of the importation of cheap labor as a “crutch” that ended up stifling innovation even as it depressed the wages of ordinary workers. Essentially, cheap imported labor allowed companies to experience a brief sugar rush of increased profits due to decreased labor costs, short-circuiting the harder work of innovating their industries to increase productivity and infuse their businesses with greater creativity (or, inspire dissatisfied workers to do so, whether within their existing business or creating a new one).

Several times in the speech Vance speaks of a basic faith that innovation—especially in the area of AI—will not prove catastrophic for workers. This is, of course, a leap of faith, and he acknowledges that there are likely to be disruptions. But he speaks of confidence not merely as a matter of blind faith, but in light of the long-standing American experience in which innovation leads to improved material circumstances and more satisfying work over the long term. We will watch closely whether this confidence bears fruit, but what is most remarkable in these early days of the administration is to encounter such depth of thoughtful reflection about the future from a political figure, after decades of politicians who too often simply recite bromides and avoid confronting the most challenging dilemmas of our age. —PJD (Read more.)

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