1918 and the End of Christendom

 From The Maistre Institute:

The charter of the modern state was signed at Westphalia in 1648 by exhausted men who wanted the killing to stop and were prepared to pay almost anything for it. What they agreed was that the religion of a territory would follow the conscience of its prince, and that no authority whatsoever stood above the sovereign to adjudicate the question. We remember this as the birth of toleration. It was also, and more consequentially, the moment the universal Church was subordinated to the territorial ruler as a matter of public law. Innocent X saw exactly what had been done and declared the settlement null and void insofar as it prejudiced the Catholic religion. Nobody listened. A pope proposing terms of peace would be disregarded again in 1917, on the same reasoning and by the same sort of men, though by then the disregard was so habitual that hardly anyone thought to remark on it.

After Westphalia the sovereign state acknowledged no superior on earth. Christendom, which had always meant something standing above the princes rather than beside them, survived mainly as a family inheritance maintained by one dynasty out of stubbornness and piety in roughly equal measure.

The Revolution then took what Westphalia had built and knocked out the last support. Sovereignty no longer descended from God to the prince. It rose from below, from the people, and it needed no warrant from heaven at all. Napoleon abolished the Holy Roman Empire outright in 1806, the title simply lapsing after eight hundred years, and the Habsburgs withdrew to the merely Austrian crown. Then came the nationalisms, lyrical in their poetry and homicidal in their politics, each teaching a people that its destiny required a state of its own. Then 1848. By the time Princip fired in Sarajevo the intellectual demolition was finished and had been for some while. Only the building was still standing, and buildings come down fast once the footings are gone. (Read more.)

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The Secrets of Elegance

One must subscribe to read the entire article but what is available is quite interesting. From The Habsburg Way:

It is a common error among the ambitious, or the self-conscious, to confuse elegance for luxury.

To assume that what looks expensive must look good, and conclude therefore that in order to look good, we must spend extravagantly. On the other hand, there are those who are fearful of their own status, and exaggerate roughness through language or clothing to signal that they are ‘one of the people’.

We all know tackiness or scruffiness when we see it, but how can we avoid both and actually embody elegance?

For the answer, we must turn to one of the most popular writers of 19th century France, who achieved the rare feat of being highly conservative, highly eccentric and highly charismatic all at once. In 1830, Honoré de Balzac indeed began his Treatise On Elegant Living to both lampoon the tackiness of post-revolutionary France’s new elites, while also reflecting on why they were getting this so wrong.

So, here is how to stop trying to look elegant, and start being elegant, from the father of ‘elegantology’ itself…(Read more.)

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No Winged Hussars This Time

From Unlicensed Punditry:

It is 2026 and the Ottoman Empire is still at the gates, only now, there are people who don’t care because they have no concept of what living in an Ottoman civilization (or under the Taliban’s interpretation of sharia law) looks like.

We should not believe it wasn’t this way before 9/11 because there have always been haters of this nation, not because it didn’t give them of its bounty, but because, in their opinion, it didn’t give them enough.

9/11 changed that – albeit temporarily.

For a while, the bitchers, whiners and anti-Americans were too afraid to be exposed as making common cause with 7^th Century savages who figured out how to use the very freedoms against us that the anti-Americans take for granted. They saw the anger that average Americans rightly focused on Islamic terrorists – and they also saw the fear in those who were not confident enough in America’s goodness to stand up.

That soon faded and America’s ADHD returned. Not only did the anger wane, it became tiresome, but the fear subsided as well. Twenty-five years ago, there were no marches to “free Palestine”, a state and a people who do not exist and protest featuring open hatred of Israel, a state and people who do exist.

Over the span of just a few years, we not only forgot who the enemy was, we hold seminars to protect Muslims from “Islamophobia” and openly import them while actively denying Islam’s role in the murder of thousands of people here in America and abroad. We even elect the radical among them to office.

The tolerance we have for Mamdani, Omar, El Sayed, Rashida Tlaib, and other agitators has eclipsed our outrage that we were attacked on our home soil on 9/11, that outrage has become performative. (Read more.)

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Habsburg Royal Jewels on Display in Canada

 From The Royal Watcher:

Last year, Archduke Karl von Habsburg revealed that the legendary Florentine Diamond and fifteen other historic Jewels of the House of Habsburg long thought sold, stolen or lost had been hidden for decades in a Bank Vault in Canada since the Second World War. Now, the legendary Jewels of the House of Habsburg have gone on display at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts in Quebec City.

Starting September 4, 2026, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) will be displaying prestigious jewels associated with the Habsburg family for the first time in Hidden Treasure: A Century of Mystery, revealing a story with a strong Québec connection.

After a century, the last Austrian Emperor´s family has announced plans to publicly display its personal jewelry, a collection that has been considered lost for decades. During their escape from persecution by the Nazi regime at the outbreak of the Second World War, members of the Habsburg family, one of the most influential and enduring dynasties of European history, managed to save important pieces of the family’s private jewelry and bring them to safety in Québec, Canada, in 1940. The items have been kept safe in the country ever since.

(Read more.)

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St. Joseph and Emperor Leopold I

Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I is shown kneeling before the Child Jesus, Who blesses him from the arms of His foster-father St. Joseph. (Via The World of the Habsburgs.) Leopold is known as the "Baroque Emperor" and was a first cousin of Louis XIV of France, as their mothers were sisters. He was also a former brother-in-law of Louis' Queen, Maria Teresa of Austria (Spain), for he had been married to her younger sister, the Infanta Margarita, painted by Velasquez. Also from The World of the Habsburgs:

Leopold I was a defining figure in the history of the Habsburg dynasty. His reign saw the consolidation of the Monarchy after the Thirty Years’ War and the decisive victories against the Ottoman Empire that enabled the Habsburg Monarchy to become one of the leading Great Powers in Europe.

Leopold himself was however a shy, indecisive character who effaced himself behind his imperial persona. He was not a ‘radiant’ monarch, being almost grotesquely ugly and afflicted with an extreme example of the Habsburg jaw. It is said that he had his physical deficits emphasized in portraits of himself out of humility. The emperor compensated for his personal shortcomings with the nimbus of his sublime office. Leopold’s adversary Louis XIV once remarked that it was not the emperor in person that he feared but his ‘miracle’.

Leopold was steeped in the majesty of imperial office, emphasizing its religious aspect above all else. The victory over the Ottoman Empire which had put a stop to its westward expansion served pro-Habsburg propaganda as an ideal instrument to stylize Emperor Leopold as the protector of Christendom. Thus as the donor of the Plague Column on the Graben in Vienna, Leopold is represented kneeling in humility as he recommends his realm to the heavenly powers. On another occasion the emperor referred to himself as the ‘least and most unworthy servant of the Holy Virgin Mary’.

[...]

One positive aspect of his personality was his pronounced artistic gifts, in particular for music. He was himself an enthusiastic musician and the author of several compositions, the quality of which should not be underestimated. Opera was his great passion. Important occasions at court were staged as allegorical Baroque spectacles with no expense spared. (Read more.)

More on Emperor Leopold's wives and children, HERE.

Marriage of Leopold I to his third wife Eleonore Magdalene of Neuburg

Eleonore Magdalene of Neuburg, Emperor Leopold's third wife, was very devout and had wanted to be a Carmelite nun. Instead she became the mother of seven children and a wife who helped her husband rule a great empire. She had her sons educated by the Jesuits. She was the grandmother of Empress Maria Theresa and great-grandmother of Marie-Antoinette. More about Empress Eleonore, HERE.

Eleonore and Leopold

 

Here is my book, in which I discuss the Habsburg patrimony in the life of Marie-Antoinette.

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Remembering the Battle of Mohács

A brilliant article which shows how the European powers' fears over the growth of Habsburg hegemony contributed to the triumph of Islam. From Chronicles:

Hungary’s defeat coincided with larger European developments. The Habsburgs were then emerging as a major European power, considered by many players—and most dishonorably by the French—to be more threatening than the 100,000-strong devastating Turkish host advancing up the Danube Valley. The Habsburgs were able to establish control over the westernmost fifth of Hungary, and from there, 150 years later under the leadership of their brilliant commander Eugene of Savoy, to advance steadily south to the Military Frontier established along the northern banks of the Sava and the Danube east of Belgrade. In the Hungarian heartland under Turkish rule, however, and in  autonomous Transylvania in the east,  because so many Catholic hierarchs and priests died at Mohács, the Hungarian Reformation consolidated its territorial hold.

In 1526 there was a structural imbalance between Europe’s acute political fragmentation, while the Ottomans, under Suleiman, had achieved an impressive level of administrative centralization and military efficiency. The Turkish edifice would start crumbling only decades after Suleiman’s death in 1566, but in the meantime Europe faced immense danger from the east. It loomed just as Europe engaged—during the Thirty Years’ War—in the most destructive episode of self immolation until that time. The Ottoman threat finally retreateed after the second siege of Vienna in 1683.

The battle lost in 1526 has had a defining role in forming Hungarian historical consciousness. The “Mohács Trauma” appeared in the public discourse soon after the battle, and eventually became synonymous with continuing Hungarian misfortune in the public mind. For a long time that trauma was restricted mainly to the upper social stratum. This was in contrast to Serbia and other Serb lands, where the epic saga of the Battle of Kosovo and its mystical transformation of military defeat into moral victory lived on even among illiterate peasants, indeed especially among them. (Read more.)

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What Does Marie-Antoinette Mean to Us Now?

 

Posthumous portrait of the Queen by Madame Lebrun

Many people are disgusted by the depiction of Marie-Antoinette in the BBC series. My piece for Catholic Answers:

I first visited Marie-Antoinette’s private retreat at Petit Trianon when I was seventeen years old. It was January, but the birds were singing in the gardens. Then and on successive trips, I experienced a strong sense of timelessness. Others have confided to me a similar feeling of enchantment when wandering through the gardens of Trianon.

People frequently ask me why I write about Marie-Antoinette. One of the reasons is that I keep encountering educated people who really think she said, “Let them eat cake.” I continue to encounter Christians who think Marie-Antoinette was killed as punishment for some egregious wickedness or, at least, for unforgivable stupidity. Having read books about her since childhood, I knew she was misunderstood; it was only after a great deal more research that I came to see how completely false are the common beliefs about her.

But the demonization of Marie-Antoinette in the popular mind is necessary to justify the excesses of the French Revolution. When people have a false and distorted view of history, it is difficult for them to grasp the present, and almost impossible to meet the future with any kind of preparedness.

The French Revolution was not necessary, simply because it is never necessary to murder tens of thousands of people. Reform certainly was needed, but reform can happen without mass murder.

Louis XVI was an intrepid reformer. He was not afraid to break with the past and abolish outdated customs while introducing new ways of doing things. Louis was not resistant to change, although that is how he is usually portrayed. The changes were slow but over time might have been effective, had the violent upheavals not swept everything away.

Too often, the violence is represented as a sad but unavoidable means of achieving freedom and democracy. But it is not only that the French Revolution overturned the social order; it was ultimately an attack on the Catholic Church. Many Catholics were killed, especially those peasants who did not want their religion taken away.

The French Revolution has been the blueprint for every totalitarian regime that has followed and has continued to be the model for those wishing not only to destroy the Catholic Church, but all Christian society. (Read more.)

The portrait above was painted posthumously by Madame Lebrun. Here is a letter from Marie-Thérèse Charlotte to the artist, who was a friend of the family:

 A letter written by Marie-Thérèse Charlotte to Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun on April 15th, 1800, regarding a portrait of Marie Antoinette, which was given to Marie-Thérèse by the comte de Cossé. The duchesse wrote that he gave her…

“…the portrait of my Mother that you had charged him to bring me. You give me the double satisfaction of seeing in a more beautiful work an image very dear to my heart. Judge therefore how grateful I am to you for having used your rare talents to give me this proof of your feelings and be convinced that I am more sensitive to it than I can express to you. You can count equally, Madame, on my feelings for you.”

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

 From Gruntled History Teacher:

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

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

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

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Petit Trianon and the Hamlet Revisited

 The grand salon at Petit Trianon from East of the Sun, West of the Moon.

 More pictures, HERE.

From the dining room at Petit Trianon

 The Queen's house at the hameau has been restored. It is interesting to me that Napoleon gave the hamlet to his second wife Marie-Louise, who was the Queen's great niece. He was really unabashed in his fascination with Marie-Antoinette. From France Today:

Left to rack and ruin for the best part of two centuries, the Maison de la Reine, Marie Antoinette’s country retreat on the fringes of the Château de Versailles, has finally been restored to its former glory, thanks to a major £326 million renovation. Built between 1783 and 1787 as the extravagant centrepiece of the Hameau de la Reine, a model ‘village’ and folly of epic scale complete with a (decorative) windmill, sheep trussed up in silk ribbons, a cluster of farmers’ cottages and working farm, the Queen’s House had lain empty since 1848 when the Dior Foundation stepped in three years ago intent on rescuing it from certain ruin and giving it the regal makeover it so begged for.

Secreted in the sprawling gardens of the Petit Trianon, away from fawning courtiers’ prying eyes, the Hameau was Marie Antoinette’s refuge from Versailles’s folderol – for the two short years she got to enjoy it – and only a handful of her closest confidantes were allowed in its inner sanctum, the Maison de la Reine. Conceived with little thought for longevity, the hamlet fared poorly in the post-Revolution years and was all but a crumbling heap when Napoleon ordered a full restoration in 1810. Never one for sentimentalism, the emperor had the most ramshackle structures summarily torn down. Another renovation followed in the 1930s, courtesy of John Rockefeller. Part of the complex was refurbished in the late 20th century and the farm rebuilt in 2006. (Read more.)

From the Queen's house at the hameau

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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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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 Great Feast: The Hapsburgs And Corpus Christi

 

From The War for Christendom:

 In 1264, Pope Urban IV issued the Papal Bull Transiturus de Hoc Mundo, promulgating to the Latin Rite the Solemn Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, to be celebrated on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday. Around this same time, Rudolf the eighth Count of Hapsburg aided and protected a priest bringing the Viaticum to a dying farmer, giving the priest his horse and guiding him across a raging torrent, walking bareheaded. The priest then prophesied that the humble Count and his descendents would receive the Imperium of the Holy Roman Empire.

This veneration of the Holy Eucharist was continued by all the descendants of the Noble House, and the Feast of Corpus Christi in the Hapsburg realms became second only to the Solemn Feasts of Easter and Christmas. The Family indeed owed all to Rudolf’s great devotion to the Holy Eucharist, and the special Eucharist blessing bestowed on him, thus it was most fitting that the Feast of Christ’s Body should become the greatest feast of the Empire. So long as the Family remained devoted to the Cross and the Eucharist, God would bless and protect them (and He still does, even though they have been cast from the throne).

First in the great procession in the Imperial City of Vienna came three priests in splendid vestments like heralds to the city. Then came the Court officials in full Court dress, and the Court Clergy vested in gold and white vestments, followed by dignitaries of every rank. Before the gilded canopy marched the Archdukes of the House, carrying candles, and the acolytes carrying forward the Cross, the golden banners swaying in the wind, the swinging thuribles sending into the air clouds of incense, and the ever ringing bells. The great canopy itself was carried by four noble chamberlains in Imperial livery, upheld over the Hofburg Parish Priest who held up in benediction the golden Monstrance with radiating rays like the sun, in which resided the truly present Most Sacred Body of the Son of God, while the Emperor of Christendom walked behind bareheaded and flanked by the Imperial Guard, humbly worshiping his Divine King. (Read more.)

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Legendary Crown Jewels

 

From Only Natural Diamonds:

According to Daughters, the Danish Crown Jewels came very close to taking the top spot because they are among the clearest examples of uninterrupted monarchical continuity in Europe. The collection remains remarkably intact and exceptionally well preserved, offering a rare glimpse into how royal regalia can survive centuries of political and cultural change while remaining deeply tied to national identity.

Daughters notes that the Danish Crown Jewels are especially significant because of their extraordinary continuity and preservation. “The British and Danish crown jewels are perhaps the strongest examples of monarchical continuity in Europe,” he says. While Britain’s regalia reflects both continuity and reinvention following the destruction of the original Crown Jewels during the English Civil War, Denmark’s collection “has remained almost entirely intact,” creating what he describes as “a rare sense of unbroken cultural identity.”

He also explained that Denmark’s regalia functions differently than many other royal collections in Europe. “In Denmark, the regalia feels more closely tied to national heritage and cultural continuity, serving as an enduring public symbol of Danish history,” he says. That connection between the monarchy and national identity has helped transform the jewels from historical treasures into living cultural artefacts still woven into modern royal life. (Read more.)

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'Mariage de Louis XVI et Marie-Antoinette'

An April 1770 Austrian medal minted by Roettiers, on the marriage of Marie-Antoinette the "sister of Emperor Joseph II" by proxy with the future Louis XVI in the Augustinerkirche of Vienna. The actual, "second" wedding ceremony took place on May 16, 1770 at Versailles.

Here the young couple (who had not yet met) are shown at the altar of Vesta with goddesses representing their countries.

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Marie-Antoinette with a Portrait of Her Mother

Marie-Antoinette with a portrait of her mother Empress Maria Theresa, via Vive la Reine. The  portrait is being held by a female figure known as "Eugenia" or "Nobility" to whom the Queen of France is offering a statue of Minerva, the Roman goddess of Wisdom. "Eugenia" is holding a shield with the Habsburg imperial eagle. The Queen is wearing a crown of roses. It is interesting that there is a legend of a St. Eugenia who disguised herself as a man in order to join a monastery, similar to the Pope Joan story. But I do not know if any connection with St. Eugenia is intended by the female personage garbed as a soldier. The print is dated 1780, the year of the death of the great Maria Theresa, who had to assume the responsibilities of a male ruler throughout her adult life.

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How the Thirty Years’ War Ravaged Europe

 From The Collector:

The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. What began as a religious struggle in the Holy Roman Empire soon expanded into a continent-wide power struggle involving nearly every major state. Entire regions were depopulated, armies grew to unprecedented size, and the war changed how Europe understood sovereignty and statehood. By the time peace finally arrived in 1648, the war had not only shattered old medieval structures but helped lay the foundations of the modern nation-state.

The Holy Roman Empire in the early seventeenth century was a fragmented and decentralized political entity, composed of hundreds of independent kingdoms, principalities, bishoprics, free cities, and minor lordships. While these territories owed nominal loyalty to the Emperor, real power rested with local rulers, many of whom guarded their autonomy jealously.

This loose structure had endured for centuries, but it was placed under immense strain by the religious divisions unleashed by the Reformation. By 1600, the empire was split between Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist states. Although the Peace of Augsburg (1555) had attempted to stabilize relations by allowing rulers to choose between Catholicism and Lutheranism, it excluded Calvinists and failed to resolve underlying tensions.

Religious identity became closely tied to political authority, with rulers using confessional allegiance to assert independence from imperial control. The Habsburg emperors were staunch Catholics and increasingly sought to reverse Protestant gains and strengthen central authority within the empire.

These pressures erupted in Bohemia in 1618. Protestant nobles, alarmed by perceived Habsburg encroachments on their religious and political rights, threw imperial officials out of a castle window in Prague, in the Defenestration of Prague. The initial rebellion was against Habsburg rule rather than a purely religious uprising. Although framed in confessional terms, the conflict centred on resistance to imperial centralization. (Read more.)

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The Second Partition of Poland

 From Charles Coulombe:

THE First Partition of Poland was a dreadful blow, not just to Polish morale, but that of the Lithuanians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians with whom they shared the Commonwealth. The Allied Powers — Russia, Prussia, and Austria — that had undertaken the First Partition were watchful over any signs of independence that the Polish King and government might exert. Russia in particular supervised both the meeting of the Sejm and the Permanent Council made up of pro-Russian nobles and now deputed to carry on most of the business of governing. Stanislaus’ royal prerogative was restricted, so that he lost the right to confer noble titles, and military promotions and to appoint ministers and senators. Provincial Governorships, and Crown lands would be auctioned off. With the King reduced to seeming impotence, and the government firmly in pro-Russian hands, it seemed that the Commonwealth was now a complete puppet.

But King Stanislaus was a wily man. There was strong Conservative opposition to the Council, made up of nobility who feared loss of their own powers to a resurgent central government. The King became adept at playing the two sides off against each other and creating his own King’s party. Moreover, although his own powers had been severely clipped, his ability to influence and cajole became if anything ever stronger. He became very adept at mitigating or frustrating the worst of legislation that the Russians favoured. In secret, with trusted advisers, he created a reform programme. But while the King was able to slow the rate of decay, his opponents in the Sejm were able to block his reforms.

This standoff would continue for almost two decades. But on the wider world, things were happening. In 1781, Austria and Russia allied as a means of countering — and, they hoped, eventually conquering — the Ottomans (Catherine the Great had one of her grandsons named Constantine, in hopes that he would reign over a new Byzantine Empire). Stanislaus attempted to join this alliance, reasoning that it would strengthen Poland-Lithuania, and buy the country some independence. They were unable to agree on terms, but in 1787, the two Christian Empires went to war with the Muslim one. In response, Stanislaus convoked the “Great Sejm” the following year, which would sit for four years. Then in 1789, the revolution in France began, and that country created a constitution. (Read more.)

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Franz Joseph Washing the Feet of the Poor

In accord with the ancient custom.

In 1850, Franz Joseph participated for the first time as emperor in the second of the traditional Habsburg expressions of dynastic piety: the Holy Thursday foot-washing ceremony, part of the four-day court observance of Easter. The master of the staff and the court prelates chose twelve poor elderly men, transported them to the Hofburg, and positioned them in the ceremonial hall on a raised dais. There, before an invited audience observing the scene from tribunes, the emperor served the men a symbolic meal and archdukes cleared the dishes. As a priest read aloud in Latin the words of the New Testament (John 3:15), “And he began to wash the feet of the disciples,” Franz Joseph knelt and, without rising from his knees, washed the feet of the twelve old men in imitation of Christ. Finally, the emperor placed a bag of twenty silver coins around the necks of each before the men were led away and returned to their homes in imperial coaches.(Read more.)

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Blessed Karl, Clericalism and Lay Church Governance

 From Charles Coulombe at One Peter 5:

In many ways, Austro-Hungarian Emperor-King Franz Joseph epitomised the traditional relationship between the lay and clerical powers of the Church. As with the other Crowned Heads of Europe, he had inherited a particular style of Catholic devotion peculiar to his own dynasty – the Pietas Austriaca. Bound up with a veneration of the True Cross and the Passion, the Blessed Sacrament and the Sacred Heart, the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph (the family patron), this religiosity had led to the tremendous collection of relics at the Hofburg, the Imperial Palace in Vienna. The Maundy Thursday Footwashing and the Corpus Christi procession were highlights of court life in Vienna, and in 1898 Franz Joseph led the Imperial Family in observing the Consecration of All Mankind to the Sacred Heart, led by Leo XIII in Rome. In the canon of the Mass, the Good Friday Collects, and the Holy Saturday Exsultet, the Emperor was prayed for by name.

Franz Joseph was crowned and anointed King of Hungary in 1867. As Emperor-King he appointed the Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops, subject to Papal approval. Exempt from this were Salzburg and Olomouc, their metropolitans being elected by the cathedral chapters, and the former ‘Salzburg dioceses’ of Seckau, Lavant, and Gurk. The Archbishop of Salzburg had the right of appointment for Seckau and Lavant, the occupation of Gurk was regulated in a mixed manner, that is, the Emperor proposed two candidates, the subsequent nomination was made by the Archbishop of Salzburg. The Nuncio had to be consulted to make sure that the choice was not obnoxious to the Pope – either disapproval would derail the process; the separate Austrian and Hungarian ministries of Worship and Education would do the research, but it was Franz Joseph who had to approve the choices, both for Latin and Eastern Rite Catholic Bishops. Moreover, he had to bear in mind that some of his appointees would sit in one or more legislatures within the Monarchy.

There were three national parliaments. In the Upper House – House of Lords (Herrenhaus) of the Austrian Parliament could be found the prince-archbishops of Vienna, Prague, Salzburg, Görz, and Olmütz, the archbishops of Lemberg and Zara, the Byzantine Catholic archbishop of Lemberg, the Armenian Catholic archbishop of Lemberg, and the Greek Orthodox archbishop of Czernowitz, as well as the prince-bishops of Brixen, Breslau (although located in what was then Germany, for the diocesan territory in Austrian Silesia), Krakau, Seckau, Trient, Laibach, Lavant, and Gurk. In the Hungarian Upper House, the Főrendiház or “House of Magnates,” had an even higher proportion of ecclesiastical members – although it was also more interfaith than Austria’s: forty-two dignitaries of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, including the Primate, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, and various other high officials, and thirteen representatives of the Protestant confessions. The annexation of Bosnia in 1908 presented a challenge in creating representative institutions for a region that had never known them. But while Bosnian diet (Sabor) would only one have one house, it would also have religious representatives appointed by the Monarch. These were, in deference to the Muslim majority, the Reis, who was the principal of Muslims’ granted lands, and the Muslims’ regional leader from Mostar; four Metropolitans and the president of the Orthodox community; the Catholic archbishop and two province members of Franciscan order of Bosnia and Herzegovina; and the Sephardic rabbi of the higher order. The various provincial diets in the Austrian half of the Monarchy also numbered the local Catholic bishops in their number.

Another religious duty that Franz Joseph took very seriously was that of funding missions – even though Austria-Hungary had no colonies. The Catholic Church in Scandinavia, Albania, and Bulgaria (Latin and Byzantine in that case) was heavily funded by the Emperor, as was the Church in the Holy Land and Egypt (the Coptic Catholic Church was funded from its beginning thereby, and Franz Joseph paid for the building of the Latin Catholic Cathedral of St. Catherine in Alexandria, where, ironically, the remains of  his wartime enemy King Victor Emmanuel III would rest until their recent repatriation to Italy). But since 1826, very largely out of funds given by both Franz Joseph and his two immediate predecessors, a large amount of this largesse went to the Church in the United States. Through an organisation called the Leopoldinenstiftung – the “Leopoldine Foundation” – the Habsburgs and many of their subjects poured millions of dollars into the American Church, founding 400 parishes, subsidising wholly or partly 300 missionaries (such as St. John Neumann and Ven. Bishop Baraga), and sending an endless flow of vestments, statues, stained glass, liturgical implements, and the like. A great deal of dynastic money went to Eastern Rite churches in the United States as well. Unfortunately, the outbreak of war in 1914 ended the flow of generosity – which, of course, would be repaid by Woodrow Wilson’s insistence of the deposition of Franz Jospeh’s successor, his exile, and the partition of his domains. (Read more.)

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Marie-Antoinette's Gambling Addiction

I have many times been accused of making Marie-Antoinette into a saint. Just because I believe, as most of the evidence indicates, that Marie-Antoinette was faithful to her husband, does not mean I think she was the Little Flower. Endeavoring to observe the sixth commandment is a basic duty which does not mean automatic sanctity. We all know many faithful spouses who are not saints (at least, not yet.) The New Advent article presents a fairly balanced view of Marie-Antoinette:

In her private life, Marie Antoinette may justly be blamed for her prodigality, for having, between 1774 and 1777 -- by certain notorious escapades (sleigh racing, opera balls, hunting in the Bois de Boulogne, gambling) and by her amusements at the Trianon -- given occasion for calumnious reports. But she confessed to Mercy that she indulged in this dissipation to console herself for having no children; and the tales of Besenval, Lauzun, and Soulavie, about the amours of Marie Antoinette, cannot stand against the testimony of the Prince de Ligne: "Her pretended gallantry was never any more than a very deep friendship for one or two individuals, and the ordinary coquetry of a woman, or a queen, trying to please everyone." De Goltz, the Prussian minister, also wrote that though a malicious person might interpret the queen's conduct unfavourably there was nothing in it beyond a desire to please everybody. Besides, the queen continued to give edification by her regular practice of her religious duties....

Her historian, M. de la Rocheterie, says of her: "She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr."

 The "notorious" escapades of sleigh-riding, going incognito to the opera ball, hunting and watching the horse races in the Bois de Boulogne, were fairly innocent past-times for a twenty year old queen. The gambling, however, became a serious addiction. It must be kept in mind, however, that she was not the not the only one. Gambling was an entrenched part of court life from the days of Louis XIV. As scholar Ross Hamilton describes it:

Gambling obsessed all levels of French society during the Enlightenment. Louis XIV held appartements du roi given over to gambling three times a week at Versailles, the queen hosted a nightly game, and courtiers scheduled additional occasions for play. Hosts so frequently acted as bankers for games to entertain their guests that satirists, chroniclers, and moralists complained that compulsive gambling had destroyed other forms of social entertainment. In Paris ten authorized maisons de jeux operated games involving some degree of skill (jeux de commerce) but essentially they served as fronts for more lucrative chance-driven games (jeux de hasard). Gambling also took place at the two great Paris fairs during almost four months of the year, all year long at foreign embassies, and eventually at gambling houses at the Hotel de Gesvres and later at the Hotel de Soissons. In addition to these legal venues, the large number of clandestine Parisian gaming rooms, lighted by tripots, made one visitor comment that "flaming pots set Paris ablaze," and gambling was by no means restricted to Paris. (2) The "Age des Lumieres" was lighted by gambling. Although official prohibitions referred to both religious and sociological dangers from gambling, within the context of the period, risking large sums at play became an analogy for risking one's life in battle. Having the courage to risk and winning or losing with equal equanimity demonstrated indifference to material gain and thus served as a means of displaying hereditary status.

 Author Lisa Hilton in the biography Athenais (Back Bay, 2004) explains how gambling was one of the only "honorable" ways in which the often cash-strapped aristocrats, who were forbidden to engage in trade, could make money. It also replaced the thrill of war. As Hilton says:

Psychologically, gambling can be seen as a rebellion against logic, intelligence, moderation and renunciation, amorally appealing to those who in some way feel their lives constricted, and yet containing its own penance from the guilt it provokes from the losses it entails.

It required a certain amount of discipline to gamble well; one had to have mastery over facial expressions so as not to reveal one's thoughts about winning or losing, or one's strategy. A noble had to be able to lose with grace and promptly pay debts.

Marie-Antoinette had been taught as a child by her own mother to gamble, because the Empress knew that a princess who could not play well would soon be separated from her money. Futhermore, the stakes at the court of Austria were much higher than at the court of France, which made Antoinette an intrepid player. As a teenager, she became inordinately attached to the practice. As she began to have gambling debts, Louis XVI, who was trying to save the government finances and give an example of thrift, forbade her to play anymore games of chance. She begged her husband to let her have one last game. He gave permission, and naughty Antoinette made sure the game went on for three days. Louis was disgusted.

Gambling in France did not disappear with the fall of the monarchy. The revolutionaries who replaced Louis and Antoinette had their own share of gambling debts. According to historian Russell T. Barnhart:

The mania for gambling had been transferred from defunct, monarchical Versailles to the thriving, bourgeois Palais Royal, where the five main gaming clubs throbbed from noon till midnight. During the Revolution, Prince Talleyrand won 30,000 francs at one club, and after Waterloo in 1815, Marshal Blucher lost 1,500,000 francs in one night at another. To bring the situation under control and raise taxes for the state, in 1806 Napoleon legalized the main clubs, which from 1819 to 1837 grossed an enormous 137 million francs.

Gambling took up only a short period of Marie-Antoinette's life, and yet it is something for which she is remembered, even before her numerous charities. In order for the excesses of the Revolution to be justified, the failings of a teenage queen are held up for posterity.

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