The Queen's Market

Marie-Antoinette is frequently associated with shopping, but how did she shop? It is often forgotten that Versailles, being open to the public, was a place of commerce; vendors set up their stalls in the courtyards and galleries of the palace. As for the Queen, she would usually receive tradesmen in the morning while her hair was being dressed. However, she always sought ways to celebrate the life of the ordinary French people, particularly the peasants whose industry fed the nation. In September, 1777 Marie-Antoinette had a farmers' market in the park at Trianon to inaugurate the opening of her new gardens. The Queen wore peasant attire and served at an outdoor "tavern." Pierre de Nolhac describes the market thus:

A market-place was set up on the lawn...where the baker, the confectioner, and the purveyor of charcuterie dispensed their wares...and even the cook's shop was busy in the open air. All these stalls were connected by a garland of roses....

There were shows of all sorts....Actors...gave several performances on an improvised stage....The avenues leading to Trianon were lined with the booths of Paris shopkeepers who had been engaged to come, their expenses being paid.
(Pierre de Nolhac's Marie-Antoinette, 1905, pp.226-227)

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Scandal ‘Million Times Worse Than Epstein’ Explodes

 From the Daily BS:

For years, Britain’s political and bureaucratic elite insisted critics were exaggerating, stereotyping, or simply stirring up trouble. Now, thanks to a bombshell citizen-funded investigation and a megaphone provided by Elon Musk, one of the darkest scandals in modern British history is back in the spotlight — and the questions are getting harder to ignore.

Musk lit the fuse this week when he blasted Britain’s handling of the grooming-gang scandal and called for consequences not just for the predators, but for the officials who allegedly stood by while vulnerable girls were abused.

“The politicians who turned a blind eye to the Rape of Britain must go to prison,” Musk wrote on X after the release of a sprawling independent report commissioned by Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe. (Read more.)

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Signs of the Times – the Handwriting of Richard III

 From The New Murrey and Blue Blog:

I have recently reread an interesting book about analysing handwriting and have had fun playing about with my friends’ writing and seeing if their handwriting matches their characters; it mainly does. So, being interested in Richard III, I thought I would (just for fun) have a go at analysing his writing at different times in his life and see if I could get any insight into the man.

I know there have been others who analysed his writing, one of which I know concluded that he suffered with depression. I have used what I learned in the book (link to follow) but also added some of my own thoughts. There are some aspects which puzzle me and I will leave these open for discussion. First of all, let me make it clear, once again, that this is purely for fun. Also, you will understand that, as mediaeval writing differs quite a bit from modern writing, there are some aspects which might be confused or difficult to interpret because of that. For example, the letters are generally written in a more angular way, in that the rounded letters (a, o, p, d, etc) are squarer. Perhaps this is because of the writing implements used, but interestingly, the more sharp and angular the writing the less soft and more aggressive the character is. Well, we all know what a generally violent and aggressive period of history it was; maybe their writing reflected that.

Looking at Richard’s writing, let us first examine his earliest known signature, written in about 1465, with the motto ‘Tant le Desiree’ in one of his books on chivalry. (Read more.)

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Marie-Antoinette à la Rose

From the time I first started to write about Queen Marie-Antoinette, I have received comments from devout people about the low-cut gowns that she wore. Let me explain once again that, in the decadent old world, it was etiquette in most of the courts of Europe for ladies' formal attire to include a plunging décolletage. It was considered perfectly correct as long as the proper corset was worn.

The gown which evoked some disapproval for Marie-Antoinette was not one of the low-cut court gowns (shown above) but the simple white linen dress which she favored for her leisure time at Petit Trianon. The portrait in which she is shown thus had to be withdrawn from the public gaze because people took offense at seeing their Queen painted in casual attire. Now to us, the white dress is perfectly modest, but to people of the eighteenth century, it looked as if she were in her chemise, without the stiff corset prescribed for ladies of the royal family. Furthermore, it was interpreted as being a pro-Austrian picture, since linen came from Flanders, one of the Habsburg territories, and the rose the Queen held was seen as a symbol of the House of Austria.

In order to quell the outrage, Madame Vigée-Lebrun had to quickly come up with another painting. In 1783 the artist completed the portrait above, called "Marie-Antoinette à la rose" showing the Queen appropriately garbed in a silk court gown and headdress, trimmed with lace, ribbons and plumes. She is wearing pearls, as befits a Queen, with hair powdered and face rouged, in accord with court etiquette. She looks as if she has just stepped into her garden on a summer evening, bathed in moonlight. The nocturnal quality of the portrait softens the formality of her attire, alluding to Marie-Antoinette's love of nature, and the fact that she was much more at ease in her gardens than she was in the Hall of Mirrors.
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The Mullahs and the Lefty-Left

 From James Howard Kunstler:

It would be distasteful most of all to the mass formation lunatics of America’s Lefty-left “Resistance.” Anything that advances our country’s actual interests is hateful to them. In fact, when you think of it, the Lefty-left is in thrall to the same sort of world-ending chaos as the mullahs and their IRGC henchmen. The mullahs have their vision of the post-apocalyptic Islamic utopia and the Lefty-left has its dream of a post-revolutionary socialist nirvana where everyone is equal (except those who are more equal — and get to boss around the rest of us.)

Yeah, it’s an old story here in Western Civ, this recurring drive to level the existing social hierarchy so as to abolish the tendency of some people to do better in life than others. It never works out. It always leads to mass slaughter of some kind. It always ends in rueful disappointment and a return to the free-for-all that is the human project. The outstanding question might be: why do so many in the West continue to believe it?

The current uprising comes out of the strange conversion of Liberalism to Lefty-left Democratic-Socialist Progressivism. Remember, liberalism was pure live-and-let-live, with an emphasis on minimal government intrusion in our affairs, especially economic affairs. The Liberals of Boomerdom — the campus nirvanas of the 1960s — were contemptuous of government generally, but especially the FBI and the CIA. And, of course, the hippie vanguard was socially and culturally all about the freedom to do your own thing. Freedom of speech was a leading concern. (Read more.)

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The Shaky Case For the Borderless Utopia

 From Splice Today:

There’s a utopian vision shared by a sizable number of people in Western nations (i.e. the nations that the people of the world want to emigrate to) that involves opening up the borders and letting everyone in—like a free concert in Central Park.

An episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast I listened to dealt with the question of whether or not nations have the right to keep people out. Sarah Fine, a professor of political philosophy at Kings College London, explained why they don’t have that right in the moral sense; they do obviously have the legal right to choose who crosses their borders.

Fine came out of the gate limping. When the podcast host expressed skepticism about his guest’s opinion, Fine brought up the hypothetical of a country not allowing the spouse of a citizen to enter, suggesting that this scenario might make him feel differently about the issue. That was disingenuous, as she knows that opponents of open borders (the majority view in the U.S.) aren’t fixated on denying entry to spouses, unless they happen to be, for example, known terrorists or convicted pedophiles.

The professor said that the usual defense of the right to exclude is, “The state is the kind of entity that needs the right to exclude because it’s essential to the functions of the state.” Countering, Fine cited the fact that some states once claimed to have rights that’ve since been discredited, such as the right to control exit from the state and the right to control the movement of individuals within the state. She asked, “Why should we think that the right to exclude is one of those rights that states are able to still claim with impunity.”(Read more.)

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Rare Portraits of Marie-Antoinette

From Le Boudoir de Marie-Antoinette, HERE, HERE, and HERE. 

The Dauphine painted by Duplessis in 1773, for her mother the Empress.

And from around the web, it seems that one of the the popular "diary" novels written in the last twenty years was mistaken for a genuine diary of Marie-Antoinette by a researcher. From Anna Gibson:

Reminder to check the sources of your sources!

So an article by a fashion historian in a peer-reviewed journal thought that Kathryn Lasky’s The Royal Diaries novel was real and cited the information in it for an article about the evolution of the chemise dress. (Marie Antoinette had no diary, and she certainly didn’t somehow write in 1769 about dresses that start showing up in fashion journals in the late 1770s; nor did Rose Bertin time travel to meet Marie Antoinette when she was just an archduchess, or design her wedding dress, etc.)

So far I’ve uncovered two articles that cited this historian’s article while repeating the false information regarding Marie Antoinette’s diary and the robes à la créole. Completely understandable that these second writers would take this historian at their word because one would assume they know their stuff, but not understandable that the historian behind the original article found Lasky’s book, read the page in question, and then cited it as fact.(Read more.)

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The Karmelo Anthony Trial

 From Culturcidal:

Today, the Karmelo Anthony case is still in the news, and even before the trial, you wouldn’t have thought that it would be a particularly controversial case. Post-trial, where Anthony got 35 years in jail, we have an even fuller picture of what happened.

There was a track meet. Anthony went to another team’s tent, which he almost certainly knew he wasn’t supposed to do. He was asked to leave something like 12-15 times, nicely at first, but more insistently when he refused and became belligerent. Anthony began trying to goad Austin Metcalf into a fight. He dared him to touch him. He called the people in the tent “p*ssies” who couldn’t make him move. He challenged Metcalf to a fistfight, which Metcalf responded to by saying, “I’m not going to fight at a track meet.” Eventually, Anthony baited Metcalf into shoving him and immediately stabbed him, which killed him.

In other words, Anthony was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, he was asked many times to leave, and instead of doing so, he tried to start a fistfight, and then, when he finally got a reaction, he immediately responded with lethal force.

It all seems very clear-cut, right? Yet, what have we seen in this case?

Karmelo Anthony’s family raised 630k in a GiveSendGo (that was happily pulled after his murder conviction in accordance with their rules). Setting aside the fact that a large number of black Americans pretty clearly chipped in money just because Karmelo Anthony murdered a white guy, what happened to those funds is still a bit of a mystery. Anthony’s family has been staying in a 900k home in a gated community (this was apparently rented), and he had a public defender. (Read more.)

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The Bolshevik Sale of the Romanov Jewels

 From Nicholas II:

There is no greater example of such a large-scale criminal sale in history, than that of the jewels of the Russian Imperial Court – perhaps, the finest collection in the world. The Bolsheviks inherited an impressive legacy, and wasted little time in profiting from the sale of many pieces to eager buyers in the West during the 1920s.

Interesting testimonies have survived to this day about how the jewels were sorted and catalogued, and how the fate of these historically important treasures was determined. They are today preserved in the RGASPI (Russian State Archive of Social and Political History) in Moscow.

The Bolsheviks made their first attempt to sell the Romanov jewels in May 1918. Then, in New York, customs officers detained two visitors with jewels (worth 350 thousand rubles) that belonged to Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna (1882-1960), the youngest daughter of Emperor Alexander III.

The following year, the founding congress of the Third Communist International was held in Moscow. From that time, the agents of the Communist International (Comintern) regularly exported gold jewellery and precious stones from Moscow. At first, there was practically no control over the agents, so many items were stolen rather than helping to “finance a world revolution”. (Read more.)

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A 'Kempis' and a Book of Morals

An Italian translation of The Imitation of Christ (left) and Collection de Moralistes Anciene (right) were once owned by Marie-Antoinette.

A bookstore on the Strand has had books which belonged to Marie-Antoinette. To quote:

In a safe, Terpsopoulos and Sutherland keep a first edition of “Gone with the Wind,” priced to move at $15,000. On a nearby shelf is a 1784 collection of moralist stories from Plato and Socrates. It’s marked at $750 — with the same yellow discount stickers that are used downstairs.

Also under lock and key is perhaps the biggest rarety: “Commentary on the Psalms” dates back to 1480 — and remains a beautiful example of a Medieval manuscript (priced accordingly at $35,000).

Perhaps the greatest feature of the collection is not a rare book, but the room’s accessibility. Unlike other antique book dealers, the Strand’s historic library is open to anyone who heads upstairs. (Read more.)

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The Meaning of America’s Consecration to the Sacred Heart

 From NCR:

The first is that June 11 was the date in 1899 when Pope Leo XIII consecrated the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Exactly one century later, on June 11, 1999, St. John Paul II wrote, somewhat astonishingly, “The consecration of the human race in 1899 represents an extraordinarily important step on the Church's journey.”

Few Catholics today are aware of the consecration of the human race to the Sacred Heart 127 years ago. Few would consider that act, as John Paul II did, “an extraordinarily important step on the Church’s journey.” But John Paul II saw something that most historians and journalists, secular and Catholic, miss: the objective significance of an act of consecration.

Our prayer matters. Our entrusting ourselves and the world to God matters — just as Jesus’ consecration to the Father and self-offering on Calvary for our salvation matters, and matters a lot. (Read more.)

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Femininity Used To Rule The World

 From Of Home and Womanhood:

Before this modern version of feminism that expects in all ways that women should be, work, talk, have sex, and act like men, before all of this, women used to inspire men not by being like them, we used to instead inspire men by being different from them. Women used to move men, not with these tired cringe slogans, not with shaming. Instead we did it with a force of feminine virtue, the kind that only a woman could ever possess, the kind that only a woman could understand.

Look at any civilization, men are driven by conquest, by power, by risk. This instinct that men carry is a lot of times raw, it is aggressive, and it is untamed, but as we all know, conquest alone does not civilize. What transformed this manly power into order, what gave it direction, what civilized men, was a woman. Men build civilizations, but women civilize men.

We see this all throughout history, and we see it even today. (Read more.)

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Gardening in French

The jardin français of Marie-Antoinette at Trianon

Some great ideas here, although Marie-Antoinette never pretended to be a milkmaid. Of course she would wear simple clothes and an apron when she visited the farm. From Frenchly:

The ‘French garden,” or jardin français, is a concept dating back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the Enlightenment was at its peak, and new discoveries in science and technology produced an ideology formatted around reason, above all else. Everything in nature could be bent to the human will, or so it was believed… including gardens.

While ‘English gardens’ of the time were treatises on romanticism, cobbled together from different themes to create a meandering experience left to each viewer’s interpretation, the French garden was formal, exacting, and precise. Picture Versailles from above: its distinctive curlicues and segmented pathways and flowerbeds and shrubberies, which must be meticulously maintained in order to retain their shape. (Though Versailles did have an English garden, the very one where Marie Antoinette built a miniature hamlet and pretended to be a milkmaid.) Louis XIV commissioned the gardens from André le Nôtre in 1661, personally overseeing every detail, in a process that took 40 years to complete, a fit comparison to the King’s ruling style. (Read more.)

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The Ukraine Biolab Collapses

From Stone Cold Truth:

For more than four years, Americans who questioned the true nature and scope of United States’ taxpayer funded biological laboratories in Ukraine were ridiculed, smeared, censored, and denounced as conspiracy theorists. Television pundits dismissed them. Corporate media outlets mocked them. Members of the political establishment insisted that any discussion of American involvement in Ukrainian biolaboratories was nothing more than Russian propaganda. Now, thanks to a sweeping declassification ordered by Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, the American people are finally learning that much of what they were told was false.

The newly released Intelligence Community (IC) documents reveal that American taxpayers funded and supported an enormous international biological research network consisting of more than 120 laboratories in over 30 countries. Among the most significant concentrations of those facilities were more than 40 laboratories located throughout Ukraine. According to the declassified material, approximately $200 million in American funding flowed into these facilities through the Department of Defense’s (now the Department of War) Biological Threat Reduction Program, an initiative that traces its origins to post-Soviet efforts to secure dangerous biological materials left behind after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The disclosure is remarkable not because it proves the existence of an active offensive biological weapons program. The documents do not establish that conclusion. Rather, the significance lies in the extraordinary gap between what the public was told and what government officials privately knew. (Read more.)

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Drive-Thru Intimacy

 From Of Home and Womanhood:

Fast food, we all know is crap nutrition for the most part, it fills you for a moment, satisfies a craving, scratches an itch, it is quick, it is cheap, it is accessible, engineered to be desirable, easy to consume, and it is everywhere.

But you can’t live on it, not really if you care about your long term wellbeing. You will be full but you’ll end up malnourished, and casual sex does the same thing to your soul.

It gives you the illusion of being wanted without any of the real substance that comes when you are actually loved. It gives warmth to the body, but it gives you no safety, it gives you attention, but it will never give you devotion, it can give you pleasure, but it will never give you sacrifice and meaning. It gives us the feeling of being chosen for a night only to wake up the next morning feeling like trash.

Sound familiar? Yeah. Sounds like all the fast food we eat out of convenience and hunger for something real, hoping it fills the need only to then feel even worse after.

This is the part that hurts to say, but women are hungry, and we are hungry because human being are hungry. As humans, we hunger to be known, to be desired, to be cherished, and loved. The problem is that our culture has taken this real hunger, this real desire, and handed women, and men, it has handed us the worst cheapest possible substitute. (Read more.)

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The New York City Unicorn Apartment

 

From Architectural Digest:

Many try their luck at finding the New York City unicorn apartment—the charming, affordable, off-market unit. And most fail. But interior designer Sam Masters achieved the unthinkable: a prewar, one-bedroom in the heart of the West Village. Of course, this wouldn’t be a true New York City fairy tale without a bit of drama. It took Masters 16 years and six apartments to land here. But when he did, it almost felt scripted: “When I first moved to Manhattan, my friends and I went out one night and walked down Bleecker Street. It was just so alive, and I looked up at these very windows and wondered who lived there.” Of course, like any true New Yorker, Masters is quick to temper that memory with the caveat that the Village has “become overrun and a little annoying.”

 But Masters isn’t afraid of leaning into the (well-earned) city cliché. “[My apartment] definitely has a very 2000s-ish New York City feel,” the designer says. “It’s got that Sex and the City vibe of the West Village, which I love, and it’s quirky—you know, crumbling plaster walls and paper-thin windows, so it’s loud.” Manhattan is, after all, an island of trade-offs. (Read more.)

 

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The Iran Deal

 From Tierney's Real News:

The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL. Our relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had. Unlike Obama’s Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in payments to them, including 1.7 Billion Dollars in green, cold cash, no money will exchange hands.

At the appropriate time, when all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust, buried deep under the powerful sunken granite mountains, thanks to our beautiful B-2 Bombers and their brilliant pilots, and downblend and destroy it, whether in Iran, or the United States. We look forward to working with Iran, and the entire Middle East, long into the future.

Hopefully, this process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly. If it doesn’t, we have the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again! Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!"

If you didn't know, the IRGC booby-trapped the openings to the nuclear dust - just like they booby-trapped the Hormuz Strait with mines - so it's not an easy one day mission to get the so-called “nuclear dust” as the fake news would have you believe. Even CNN admits that now:

CNN: Iran has 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐩𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 at its nuclear facility in Isfahan — the site where its cache of near-weapons-grade uranium is believed to be buried underground. The stockpile: 𝟒𝟒𝟎.𝟗 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝟔𝟎%-𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐮𝐦, the IAEA’s own figure as of June 11. Sixty percent enrichment is one technical step from weapons-grade. At that quantity, Iran holds 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟎 𝐧𝐮𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬. That entire cache is now locked inside collapsed tunnels beneath a mined facility.

(Read more.)

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40 Things Every House in the 70s Had That No One Sees Today

Memories light the corners of my mind....From Country Living:

The 70s—it sure does seem like it was a more laid-back, dare we say more mellow, time, doesn't it? Disco was king, Jaws menaced moviegoers, and everybody was on roller skates. Houses were one-story ranch-style, or split level and filled with never-before seen design choices (most of which have been never seen again). But whether good, bad, or just plain tacky, home interiors were certainly unique. A little nostalgia is never a bad thing, so let's step inside the time machine and into a typical 70s pad. Just a warning—you might want to put on your sunglasses first! (Read more.)

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Garden Party at Trianon

 As has been described before on this blog, Marie-Antoinette loved gardens and nature. She wanted her domain at Petit Trianon to be like a natural landscape, albeit a fabricated one. As consort of the most powerful monarch in Europe, it was expected that the queen entertain foreign visitors in grand style. Entertaining heads of state was an expensive enterprise, however, even when they visited incognito, as did Emperor Joseph II and the Grand Duke Paul and Grand Duchess Maria of Russia. The French government was nearly bankrupt due to the help given by King Louis XVI to the American colonists in their war for independence from Britain. To save money, Marie-Antoinette would use her private gardens as the site of the entertainments by illuminating the gardens and having everyone wear white. She would have musicians playing amid the shrubbery, so that it seemed that the music was wafting through the gardens in an ethereal manner.

In May, 1782, the Russian Grand Duke and Grand Duchess visited as the "Comte and Comtesse du Nord." Madame Campan wrote of their visit in her Memoirs:

They were presented on the 20th of May, 1782. The Queen received them with grace and dignity. On the day of their arrival at Versailles they dined in private with the King and Queen.

The plain, unassuming appearance of Paul I. pleased Louis XVI. He spoke to him with more confidence and cheerfulness than he had spoken to Joseph II. The Comtesse du Nord was not at first so successful with the Queen. This lady was of a fine height, very fat for her age, with all the German stiffness, well informed, and perhaps displaying her acquirements with rather too much confidence. When the Comte and Comtesse du Nord were presented the Queen was exceedingly nervous. She withdrew into her closet before she went into the room where she was to dine with the illustrious travellers, and asked for a glass of water, confessing “she had just experienced how much more difficult it was to play the part of a queen in the presence of other sovereigns, or of princes born to become so, than before courtiers.” She soon recovered from her confusion, and reappeared with ease and confidence. The dinner was tolerably cheerful, and the conversation very animated.

Brilliant entertainments were given at Court in honour of the King of Sweden and the Comte du Nord. They were received in private by the King and Queen, but they were treated with much more ceremony than the Emperor, and their Majesties always appeared to me to be very cautious before these personages. However, the King one day asked the Russian Grand Duke if it were true that he could not rely on the fidelity of any one of those who accompanied him. The Prince answered him without hesitation, and before a considerable number of persons, that he should be very sorry to have with him even a poodle that was much attached to him, because his mother would take care to have it thrown into the Seine, with a stone round its neck, before he should leave Paris. This reply, which I myself heard, horrified me, whether it depicted the disposition of Catherine, or only expressed the Prince’s prejudice against her.

The Queen gave the Grand Duke a supper at Trianon, and had the gardens illuminated as they had been for the Emperor. The Cardinal de Rohan very indiscreetly ventured to introduce himself there without the Queen’s knowledge. Having been treated with the utmost coolness ever since his return from Vienna, he had not dared to ask her himself for permission to see the illumination; but he persuaded the porter of Trianon to admit him as soon as the Queen should have set off for Versailles, and his Eminence engaged to remain in the porter’s lodge until all the carriages should have left the chateau. He did not keep his word, and while the porter was busy in the discharge of his duty, the Cardinal, who wore his red stockings and had merely thrown on a greatcoat, went down into the garden, and, with an air of mystery, drew up in two different places to see the royal family and suite pass by.

Her Majesty was highly offended at this piece of boldness, and next day ordered the porter to be discharged. There was a general feeling of disgust at the Cardinal’s conduct, and of commiseration towards the porter for the loss of his place. Affected at the misfortune of the father of a family, I obtained his forgiveness; and since that time I have often regretted the feeling which induced me to interfere. The notoriety of the discharge of the porter of Trianon, and the odium that circumstance would have fixed upon the Cardinal, would have made the Queen’s dislike to him still more publicly known, and would probably have prevented the scandalous and notorious intrigue of the necklace.

In June of 1784, King Gustav III of Sweden arrived under the alias of the "Comte de Haga." Marie-Antoinette did not care for him, because of what she had heard concerning his private life. As Madame Campan relates:

The Queen, who was much prejudiced against the King of Sweden, received him very coldly.All that was said of the private character of that sovereign, his connection with the Comte de Vergennes, from the time of the Revolution of Sweden, in 1772, the character of his favourite Armfeldt, and the prejudices of the monarch himself against the Swedes who were well received at the Court of Versailles, formed the grounds of this dislike. He came one day uninvited and unexpected, and requested to dine with the Queen. The Queen received him in the little closet, and desired me to send for her clerk of the kitchen, that she might be informed whether there was a proper dinner to set before Comte d’Haga, and add to it if necessary. The King of Sweden assured her that there would be enough for him; and I could not help smiling when I thought of the length of the menu of the dinner of the King and Queen, not half of which would have made its appearance had they dined in private. The Queen looked significantly at me, and I withdrew. In the evening she asked me why I had seemed so astonished when she ordered me to add to her dinner, saying that I ought instantly to have seen that she was giving the King of Sweden a lesson for his presumption. I owned to her that the scene had appeared to me so much in the bourgeois style, that I involuntarily thought of the cutlets on the gridiron, and the omelette, which in families in humble circumstances serve to piece out short commons. She was highly diverted with my answer, and repeated it to the King, who also laughed heartily at it.

As Baroness Oberkirch relates in her Memoirs, the Swedish king was charmed with both Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, in spite of various misunderstandings. Especially he was enchanted by the illuminated gardens of Trianon, which he thought resembled the Elysian fields. A Swedish scholar once told me that the because of Louis and Antoinette, Gustav was seriously considering becoming a Catholic; I have not yet substantiated that information myself, but it would not surprise me. He certainly did all he could to save their lives, especially through his delegate, Count Fersen. Gustav said of the French king: "Louis XVI is the best and most benevolent prince in existence. His soul radiates serenity. I am filled with admiration."

(Sources: Vincent Cronin's Louis and Antoinette, Madame Campan's Memoirs, Nesta Webster's Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette before the Revolution, Baroness Oberkirch's Memoirs and Antonia Fraser's Marie-Antoinette:The Journey) Share

Data Centers Are Not Your Enemy

 From Tierney's Real News:

Jump on any social media site today or attend any town hall across rural or suburban America right now, and you’ll hear a terrifying script about data centers. You will be told they are monstrous energy hogs that will eat up prime farmland, drain local water supplies, blast disruptive noise, and spike your monthly utility bills. You will be told it is all a scheme by out-of-touch Big Tech elites to expand their power at your expense.

If you are already fed up with government overreach, corporate greed, and the destruction of our rural landscapes, these arguments sound completely reasonable. In fact, they sound patriotic. But there is a massive, dangerous piece of the puzzle being deliberately left out.

While we are told these facilities are just glorified warehouses hosting social media apps and streaming video, our adversaries see them for what they truly are: the foundational infrastructure of modern warfare. The hard truth is that America cannot defend the future with yesterday’s infrastructure. The debate over data centers is no longer a localized zoning dispute—it is a matter of national survival.

In fact, our enemies know just how important data centers are to our survival that they are paying digital “influencers” an average of $7,000 for every article they write bashing data centers in America, running as high as $20,000 for a single story. (Read more.)

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Little Social Etiquette Rules Everyone Should Follow

 From Country Living:

Etiquette is not just about which fork to use. It’s showing respect for yourself and everyone else in your little corner of the planet. In a world where rudeness often reigns, why not stand out for being polite and thoughtful? You don’t even have to go to charm school or binge-watch Downton Abbey to learn the rules! Here are 50 easy ways to share more kindness and less saltiness this year. (Read more.)

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Vow of Louis XVI

Here is an English translation of the Vow of Louis XVI made in the Tuileries palace in the spring of 1791:

Well dost Thou see, O my God, the great sadness that oppresses my heart, the grief that wounds it and the depth of the abyss into which I have been cast. I am assailed by countless evils from all sides. To the oppression of my soul, the horrible tragedies that have befallen me and my family add up to those that cover the whole extension of the realm. The clamoring of all the misfortunate and the moans of our oppressed religion reaches my ears, and an inner voice suggests to me that perhaps Thy justice holds me accountable for all these calamities for not having restrained, during the days of my power, their main causes, which are the people’s licentiousness and the spirit of irreligion, and for supplied heresy, now triumphant, its weapons by favoring it by laws that gave it redoubled strength and enough boldness to dare anything.
 
O Jesus-Christ! Divine Redeemer of all our iniquities, today I come to find relief for my soul in Thy Adorable Heart. I call to my aid the tender Heart of Mary, my august protectress and Mother, and the assistance of Saint Louis, my advocate and the most illustrious of my ancestors. Open Thyself, adorable Heart, through the most pure hands of my powerful intercessors, receive benignantly the vows of which confidence inspires me and that I offer Thee as the frank expression of my sentiments. If, as a consequence of Divine goodness, I were to recover my liberty, my crown and royal power, I solemnly promise:

1. To revoke at once all the laws that will be indicated to me by the Pope, or a Council, or by four of the more learned and virtuous bishops of my realm, as contrary to the purity and the integrity of the Faith, and contrary to the discipline and the special jurisdiction of the Holy, Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Church; and especially to revoke the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.

2. To take, within a year, all the necessary measures to establish, with the approval of the Pope and the episcopate of my realm, and in accordance with canonical standards, a solemn feast in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to be celebrated forevermore throughout all France on the first Friday immediately after the eight days following the Feast of Corpus Christi and to be always followed by a general procession. This feast will be celebrated in reparation for the outrages and desecrations perpetrated in our holy temples by schismatics, heretics and the bad Christians in these times of so great turmoil.

3. To go in person on a Sunday or a holy day within three months of the day of my deliverance to the Church of Notre Dame of Paris, or to any other principal church in the place where I will be at that time, to pronounce a solemn act of consecration of my person, my family and my realm to the Sacred Heart of Jesus next to the main altar after the Offertory of the Mass and through the hands of the priest, promising to give to all my vassals an example of the worship and the devotion due that adorable Heart.
4. To erect and adorn within a year of my release and at my own expense, in the church that I will choose, a chapel or an altar to be dedicated to the Sacred Heart, which will stand as a lasting monument of my recognition and limitless confidence in the infinite merits and inexhaustible treasures of grace that this Divine Heart contains. 

5. Finally, to renew every year, wherever I might be on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, the act of consecration stated in the third point and to participate in the general procession that will take place right after that day’s Mass.

 Now I cannot pronounce this pact except in secret, but I would sign it with my own blood if necessary; and the most beautiful day of my life will be when I will be able to proclaim it aloud in the Temple.

  O Adorable Heart of my Savior, may I neglect my right hand and my own being if I were to ignore Thy benefits these my promises, if I were to cease to love Thee and place all my trust and comfort in Thee! Amen.”
  
Louis XVI, King of France

 (Read more,)

 The original French version is HERE. In the spring of 1791, after signing the Civil Constitution of the Clergy a few months earlier, King Louis XVI fell ill at the Tuileries, where the royal family were living under house arrest. His illness was undoubtedly the result of the stress of the upheavals which he had tried to prevent, as well as the fact that his conscience was troubling him about signing the Catholic Church in France over to the revolutionary government, severing the ties with Rome. Louis had signed it under duress but deeply regretted his decision immediately.

According to biographer Bernard Fay, Louis made the Vow under the guidance of his non-juring confessor, a Eudist priest Fr. Hebert. In the 1600's a Visitation nun, Saint Margaret Mary, had claimed that Jesus had requested that the King of France consecrate France to His Sacred Heart. The consecration had never been performed. So, with the help of Fr. Hebert, Louis drafted the following Vow, which he sealed in the walls of his apartments.

The Vow was not found until the palace had been partially burned by the Commune and was being torn down in 1871. It was discovered still sealed in the wall of the king's room. Louis was a locksmith and was fascinated with construction, so building a hiding place for his papers would not have been beyond him. He was known for his penchant for secrecy and his hiding of private papers from prying eyes. The fact that the Vow was not discovered until the 1870's demolishes the claim of some that it was merely a product of pious forgery during the 1814-1830 Restoration. The methodical legality of the document is typical of Louis XVI, who as an amateur cartographer was characterized by his precision and attention to detail.
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Bishops Consecrate US to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

 From The Pillar:

Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, was the main celebrant at the Mass, which was held at the Basilica of Mary, Queen of the Universe.

Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, the first Catholic diocese in the United States, delivered the homily at the Mass.

“As we approach this great anniversary of our nation, we may be tempted towards nostalgia for the past or anxiety about the future,” he said.

“Today we choose something better: trust. Today we place the Church in the United States, and this nation we love, into the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Not because we have everything figured out, but because we know the One whose love endures forever. In his Heart, we find gratitude for the past, strength for the present, and hope for the future.”

He called for a recognition of both the successes and shortcomings of the past 250 years.

“There have been moments of extraordinary witness and holiness. But there have also been moments of failure, division, and sin,” he said.

“Consecration requires the humility to acknowledge both. We cannot come to the Heart of Christ while pretending we have no need of His mercy. To consecrate ourselves and our nation is to place our wounds, our shortcomings, and our sins before the One whose love is greater than all of them.”

The consecration of the nation is also a time for hope in the future, he said.

“It is a declaration that the future does not belong merely to political movements, economic forces, or human plans. The future belongs to God. And so we place into His Heart, not only ourselves but generations yet unborn, and all those who will inherit the Church and the nation we leave behind. Remaining in the Love of Christ in a culture that prizes independence and self-reliance, we gather publicly to acknowledge that our deepest identity and our truest hope come, not from ourselves but from the Lord.”

Lori emphasized that all Catholics must work together for the renewal of the Church.

“We consecrate our nation, not because it is perfect, but because it is beloved by God,” the archbishop said.

“We entrust to the Heart of Christ our achievements and failures, our hopes and anxiety, our present challenges and our future aspirations. We ask him to heal what is wounded, strengthen what is good, and guide us towards a future marked by justice, peace, freedom, and respect for the dignity of every human person.” (Read more.)

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Roger Scruton: Philosophical Christian and Scourge of Nihilism Par Excellence

 From The Public Discourse:

Carl R. Trueman has written yet another lucid and penetrating book that gets to the heart of our present cultural and spiritual discontent. Published earlier this year to critical acclaim, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity persuasively argues that the death of man is a necessary byproduct of the rejection of God, and that no decent or morally serious society can long survive the absence of Christian faith and theistic affirmation. Divorced from the truth that human beings are created “in the image and likeness of God,” human dignity cannot be credibly upheld. So far, so good.  

Trueman, however, goes further. He is convinced that anything less than a robust recognition of the imago dei is nihilistic, a rejection of man that flows from a “refusal of God-given obligations, the transgression of God-given limits, and the rejection of God-given ends.” We must therefore choose between the truth of Christ’s Gospel and nihilism tout court—there is, Trueman insists, no “middle path” available to us. This leads him to define nihilism in such a broad and capacious  way that many who self-consciously fight against, and indeed reject, the nihilist temptation nonetheless are, or would be, relegated to the camp of Nietzsche’s “Madman” (who thunderously declared that “God is dead,” modern man having killed him).   

There is something unjust and peremptory about Trueman’s all-or-nothing approach. For example, despite his own obvious indebtedness to the English conservative philosopher Roger Scruton (drawing freely as he does on Scruton’s accounts of desecration and pornography as “moral pollution” and his Goethe-inspired identification of Satanic evil with “the spirit that forever negates”), Trueman ultimately consigns his intellectual “hero,” as he once called him, to the camp of nihilism. Too many reviewers, moreover, have uncritically followed Trueman in this judgment. Here, I hope to set the record straight.   

For Trueman, Scruton’s evident sympathy for the Christian religion is reduced to an “instrumental” appreciation of it “as a profound source of cultural good.” Trueman thus reduces Scruton’s remarkably rich reflections on religion and the “sacred” to the rather crude view that neither of them is true, but they “are good things for the organization of society.” Even here one has to note: tertium non datur. That is, there are more options than these binaries. Indeed, one has to say that Trueman presents a caricature of the late English philosopher and man of letters as a defender of the “spiritual residue” of Christianity rather than the Christian faith itself. Because, in Trueman’s view, Scruton is insufficiently dogmatic (which one can acknowledge), he turns out to be a mere aesthete, a defender of “exalted and beautiful thoughts about truth, goodness, and beauty.” By pigeonholing Scruton as nothing but a Kantian philosopher, Trueman makes him appear nothing more than “a cultural Christian” who appeals to “the language of truth … to justify taste.”  

However, Scruton’s intellectual debts went well beyond the German philosopher of the noumenal and phenomenal distinction and were remarkably wide ranging. He drew on Plato’s as well as Jan Patočka’s rich conception of the “care of the soul”; Aristotle’s articulation of the cardinal virtues; Burke’s eloquent defense of tradition, prudence, and ordered liberty against ideological fanaticism; and Hegel’s account of the necessarily “situated” character of ethical community. To these, he added careful attention to the moral witness of those who struggled in the east of Europe against the totalitarian lie in the second half of the twentieth century, and, not least, the New Testament’s affirmation and highlighting of forgiveness and neighbor love in lives lived well, lives truly open to the manifold intimations of “eternity” in time. Moreover, one could argue that Scruton was more indebted to Kant’s refusal to reduce human persons to impersonal objects bereft of souls and lacking in moral responsibility or “mutual accountability.” None of this is remotely the thought of a nihilist. (Read more.)

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Coronation Robes

June 11, 1775. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in their coronation robes in an allegorical setting. Notice the monogram "LA" for "Louis and Antoinette." Via Vive la Reine.

 Vive la Reine quotes a contemporary account:

His Majesty entered the metropolitan church, where he was greeted by the Archbishop-Duke of Reims—who was at the head of his Chapter—and listened to the Te Deum. After the Benediction, the King withdrew to the archbishop’s palace where all the Nobles complimented Him. The next day, the King listened to the first Vespers in the Cathedral, and on Sunday, June 11th, around seven o’clock, His Majesty—with the greatest pomp—went back to the same Church and was crowned in the usual ways. (Read entire post.)

A post on the music for the coronation mass and the religious devotions that followed, HERE.

From Vive la Reine: "Detail from The Coronation of Louis XVI by Jean-Michel Moreau, 1775."

 

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Meet The Press

 From Tierney's Real News:

President Trump just did what millions of Americans have been dreaming of seeing for years. President Trump stood up, dropped his microphone and crushed it under his feet and then walked out of an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker.

He told her that “elections are crooked and you’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked and so is ABC and CBS and CNN.” He was livid, Welker was befuddled and it was glorious!

Excellent! Many people don’t understand why Trump even gives interviews to NBC, and specifically Kristin Welker. Well, first of all NBC News has the highest ratings of all the networks. They reach more people than Fox, Newsmax, CNN and MSNBC combined. That’s reason number one.

Second, Trump worked with NBC for 12 years when he ran the Apprentice so I think he has a soft spot for NBC. I also think Trump believed that he might be able to use Kristin Welker to turn NBC around into the light. I think Trump sincerely liked Kristin Welker because she got married late in life and tried to have a baby late (44) and was infertile and struggling with having a child so she and her husband tried IVF for months and eventually had children using surrogates. She was very open about that and I think Trump cared about her journey.

I’m not saying this to defend her - I’m just telling you that her story pulled at the heartstrings of many Americans - including Trump - and he tried to help her. In return, she screwed him! (Read more.)

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Lost Remains of Maryland’s Second Governor

 From Maryland Matters:

Using a groundbreaking method, researchers have likely identified the lost remains of the second governor of the colony of Maryland.

They’ve also found 1.3 million genetic relatives of Maryland’s first colonists who are alive today.

“Then we have 9,000 people who are close enough that they’re very likely direct descendants or very close relatives,” Éadaoin Harney, a senior scientist at 23andMe Research Institute, told WTOP.

She is the lead author of a study published last month in the journal Current Biology. In addition to the genetic testing company 23andMe, the study involved scientists from the Smithsonian, Harvard University and St. Mary’s City.

Their work was built on previous studies and the discovery over decades of dozens of bodies in a graveyard in St. Mary’s City. Established in 1634 in what is now St. Mary’s County, it’s recognized as the first permanent English settlement in Maryland.

In 2016, through genetic testing, it was revealed that remains found in three lead coffins in the city’s Chapel Field cemetery belonged to the colony’s fifth governor Philip Calvert, his first wife and a son he had with his second wife.

The latest study was aimed at identifying the remains of 49 other people buried in the graveyard. (Read more.)

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Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in a Eucharistic Procession

Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in the Eucharistic procession that opened the Estates-General in the spring of 1789. (From Vive la Reine.)

On May 4, 1789, she put Louis-Joseph and his sister with Madame de Polignac on a balcony above the stables so they could watch the magnificent Eucharistic procession which marked the opening of the Estates-General. The procession wound from the Royal Chapel, across the vast courtyard of the palace, through the streets of the town of Versailles, to the Church of Saint Louis. The monstrance, in the hands of a bishop, was under a rich canopy carried by Provence, Artois, Berry, and Angoulême. Everyone held a candle, except for the standard bearers, with the fluttering silken banners, and the royal falconers, with falcons on their wrists, looking both noble and fierce. The King, with a lighted taper, walked directly behind the monstrance. He wore a cloth of gold mantle and a plumed hat with the famous Regent diamond. He was wildly applauded by the crowds that lined the route. But when Antoinette, who with her ladies followed the King’s household, passed by in her gown of gold and silver tissue, every tongue fell silent. She could almost taste the hatred. It frightened her. 

When passing beneath the balcony where her sick boy was lying, she glanced up to blow him a kiss. The cry “Long live Orléans!” resounded in her ears. The extent of the malice overwhelmed her. That someone could hate her so much that they would use her child’s suffering as an opportunity to humiliate her; that they would praise her known enemy at a moment when as a mother she was most vulnerable, within the hearing of her pain-wracked Dauphin, stunned her as much as if she had been whipped or burnt. She halted, dizzily, then turned to see who had insulted her. In doing so, she staggered, but before she lost her balance, Princesse de Lamballe took her arm and steadied her.

 ~ from Trianon by Elena Maria Vidal

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Media Shrug At Aborting Down Syndrome Baby

 From The Federalist:

When Sydney Sweeney showed off her “great genes jeans” in a series of playful American Eagle ads last summer, people — specifically the corporate media — feigned panic that the Euphoria actress’ tastefully clothed curves were a clandestine campaign to promote the “American eugenics movement” and white supremacy.

Nearly one year later, a real-life example of the selective breeding ideology the press tried to pin on Sweeney’s denim debuted in a viral post by a couple that aborted their unborn child after learning the baby might be born with Down Syndrome. Professional YouTube couple Jesse and Ashley Ridgway were more than halfway through their first pregnancy and had already bought baby clothes and designed a nursery when they decided birthing and raising a kid with Trisomy 21 would be too “rough.” Just one month after the “McJuggerNuggets” stars bragged about saving their dog with stage 4 kidney disease, they solicited an abortionist to tear their unborn baby apart limb by limb simply because that baby likely had an extra chromosome.

 Shortly after the abortion, Jesse turned to the Internet for sympathy over the “very difficult decision.” In his June 3 X post, Jesse rejected a Down Syndrome diagnosis as a “blessing,” instead calling it a “glitch” and “objectively shitty.” He concluded by teasing plans for a future pregnancy that would “hopefully have a better outcome.” (Read more.)

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The UN, Slavery, and History’s Selective Amnesia

 From The European Conservative:

In March 25th, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution describing the transatlantic slave trade and the enslavement of Africans as “the gravest crime against humanity.” The text was adopted by 123 votes to 3, with 52 states abstaining, including France, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and most European countries. The United States, Israel, and Argentina voted against.

The symbolic significance of this resolution is considerable. No one would dispute that the transatlantic slave trade constitutes one of the greatest tragedies in human history. For several centuries, millions of Africans were deported to the Americas under appalling conditions, reduced to the status of commodities, and integrated into an economic system based on their dehumanisation. The memory of this crime deserves to be acknowledged and passed on.

But it is precisely because the history of slavery is too grave to be exploited that we must question the ideological assumptions underlying this resolution. For the controversial nature of the text does not lie in its condemnation of the transatlantic slave trade but in what it omits.

By designating the transatlantic slave trade as ‘the gravest’ of crimes against humanity, the UN appears to be establishing a moral hierarchy among historical atrocities—as if certain sufferings could be considered superior to others and as if one could objectively measure the horror and declare that one crime surpasses all others. This wording partly explains the numerous European abstentions, for whom, for many years, the Holocaust has been held up as the ultimate benchmark of human barbarity. Regardless of the comparison with the Second World War, the motivations for which may be suspicious, several states argued that it was not for the UN to establish a hierarchy among crimes against humanity. Should we place Auschwitz and Kolyma, the Armenian genocide and the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda on a graduated scale, as if ranking the competitors in a macabre contest?

But the main difficulty lies elsewhere. This resolution completely ignores the existence of other slave systems which have nevertheless shaped the history of Africa and the world for over a millennium. (Read more.)

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The Desolation of Madame Royale

Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France alone in prison. She was haunted by the fate of her Aunt Elisabeth, saying:

I remained in great desolation when I felt myself parted from my aunt; I did not know what had become of her, and no one would tell me. I passed a very cruel night: and yet, though I was very uneasy about her fate, I was far from thinking I should lose her in a few hours. Sometimes I persuaded myself that they would send her out of France; then, when I recalled the manner in which they had taken her away, my fears revived.

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Republicans Supported Gay Marriage ‘Rights’ Until They Saw It Destroy Children’s Rights

 From The Federalist:

The reason is simple: Republicans were told that supporting same-sex marriage meant supporting their gay brother, daughter, coworker, or friend. They were told that opposing it meant they hated gay people, and many bought it. If supporting same-sex marriage was simply the price of treating loved ones with dignity and respect, they were willing to pay it.

What they were not told was that same-sex marriage would victimize kids. No sooner had gay marriage been achieved on the grounds that marriage had nothing to do with children than activists, judges, and lawmakers turned around and demanded parenthood too.

Republicans have no interest in persecuting their gay friends and family members. What they reject is the claim that adult equality requires making children lose their mother or father. And after a decade of watching the consequences unfold, it has become obvious that “equal marriage” was never just about adult “rights.” It was about parenthood and children. (Read more.)

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1,300 Years of History Preserved in Ancient Parchments

From Archaeology News:

The study appeared in the journal Manuscript Studies. Researchers examined 91 parchment manuscripts preserved at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. The collection included religious texts, scrolls, legal records, fragments, and manuscripts written in several languages. The documents came from England, different parts of Europe, the Middle East, and northeastern Africa.

For more than a thousand years, parchment served as the main writing material across Europe and much of the Mediterranean region. Unlike paper, parchment came from animal hides, usually sheep, goats, or cattle. Millions of parchment documents still survive in libraries and museums today. Researchers involved in the study describe those collections as a large biological archive preserved across centuries.

Scientists faced a major obstacle for years. Traditional ancient DNA studies often require researchers to cut, scrape, or drill into material samples. Archivists and conservation experts rarely allow such methods on rare manuscripts because even small damage matters when dealing with cultural heritage objects.

The team used a different technique. Researchers gently rubbed the parchment with small cytology brushes, the same type often used in medical testing. The brushes collected tiny traces of cells from the surface without leaving visible damage.

After sampling, scientists extracted DNA from the brushes and analyzed the material with next-generation sequencing technology. These sequencing methods work well with old and fragmented DNA, which often survives in poor condition inside ancient material. (Read more.)

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Louis XVII: The Pretenders

The Dauphin Louis-Charles (Louis XVII) and his sister Madame Royale.

 
Marie-Antoinette's younger son, her chou d'amour. 

The prince is probably three or four in this picture.

                                                     Dauphin Louis-Charles a couple of years later, at six or seven. 

                                                     Small boys wore pink in those days.

Louis XVII, the eight-year-old imprisoned monarch, was removed from his mother Marie-Antoinette in August 1792. He was abused and forced to testify against her. After his mother and aunt were killed, he was was ill and locked up. His sister Marie-Thérèse, who was upstairs, was never allowed to see him, even when he was dying. He died on June 8, 1795. Marie-Thérèse was not allowed to see his body, either, but was kept locked in her room in the Temple Prison until his body was removed.  From Ancient Origins:

By the time Marie-Thérèse was released in December 1795, rumors had already begun about the fate of Louis XVII. In what has been dubbed “the fauxdauphinomanie of the early nineteenth century,” dozens of fraudsters attempted to adopt the identity of the lost dauphin over the coming decades. While some of their stories were ludicrous, the hounding she suffered must have been unbearable.

The most successful amongst them was Jean-Marie Hervagault, who, inspired by a book published in 1800 entitled Le Cimetière de la Madeleine , copied the plot and claimed to be the lost boy-king rescued from the Temple. Meanwhile, Karl Wilhelm Naundorff claimed to have been smuggled out in a basket. His tomb in Delft was inscribed Louis XVII, roi de France et de Navarre . There were even allegations that the young king had been rescued during a royalist plot and was living in the New World. To that end Reverend Eleazer Williams, a missionary of Native American descent in Wisconsin, somehow convinced several people that he was in fact the lost king. (Read more.)

When Louis XVII died in the Temple Prison, there was no public funeral and his body was not publicly displayed. Not even his sister, who was kept in the same prison, was allowed to see him. From History:

“There is no real and legal certainty that the son of Louis XVI is dead,” wrote the Austrian diplomat, Baron von Thugut. “His death, up to now, has no other proof than the announcement in the Moniteur, along with a report drawn up on the orders of the brigands of the Convention and by people whose deposition is based on the fact that they were presented with the body of a dead child who they were told was the son of Louis Capet.”

According to Cadbury, the mystery surrounding the “orphan of the tower” led to 500 books on the subject and an Edwardian-era monthly journal. The first book, a fictional account called The Cemetery of Madeline, about Louis-Charles’s supposed escape from the tower, came out only a few years after his death. Memoirs were also written by claimants themselves, including the Historical Account of the Life of Louis XVII, dictated by an illiterate, drunken vagabond named Charles de Navarre. Even Mark Twain got into the act, writing of a transient pretending to be “the little boy dolphin” in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The first claimant appeared in Châlons-sur-Marne only three years after the Dauphin’s death. The charming, handsome teenager had been found wandering the countryside and put in the local prison. For months he refused to say who he was, and then said he was a member of a non-existent ducal house. Enamored villagers became convinced the seemingly aristocratic young man was Louis-Charles, and the teen did not disabuse them of this notion. (Read more.)

 

Portrait of Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France, later known as Louis XVII.  Several years ago, some scientists have found a DNA link between the little king and the descendants of the claimant Naundorff. We discussed it on the Tea at Trianon Forum, HERE. The historical background of the mystery is explored in the novel Madame Royale.

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