Music for the Coronation Mass of Louis XVI

 Contrary to the impression given in some novels about Marie-Antoinette, the music of Handel was not played at the coronation of Louis XVI but the music of the court composer François Giroust. It is a marvel that the music from that time has been preserved. For Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, it was a happy season in their lives, full of hope and popularity. According to the Gazette de France:

Friday, 16 June 1775

While traveling from Compiègne to Frismes—where His Majesty spent the night on 8 June–, the King received the most dazzling, the most sincere and already the most deserved proof of love from His Peoples. The King left Frismes on 9 June to go to the City of Reims, and He arrived there in a ceremonial coach, accompanied by Monsieur, Monseigneur the Count of Artois, the Duke of Orléans, the Duke of Chartres, and the Prince of Condé.

After the Duke of Bourbon, Governor of Champagne, gave him the keys of the city, the King entered Reims escorted by the troops of the royal household and made his way through a People intoxicated with joy—which did not decrease but rather intensified as the procession moved along. His Majesty entered the metropolitan church, where he was greeted by the Archbishop-Duke of Reims...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.

The Queen arrived accompanied by Madame [Elizabeth, the King's sister], and despite the fact that she remained incognito, she was delighted at the most vivid expressions of love the French Nation devoted to her. She attended all the august ceremonies of this sacred feast. A stand had been set up for Her, Madame Clotilde and Madame Elizabeth....

Monday, 19 June 1775

The day following the Coronation of His Majesty, the King attended Mass in the Room of the Archbishop's Castle. After the Mass, the Court Ladies had the honor to present their respects to him. In the afternoon, the Queen and Madame went a few miles away from the City and watched the Count of Esterhazy's regiment of hussars on maneuvers. The Counts of Artois and Provence, wearing cavalry uniforms, charged at the head of the company....
Then His Majesty attended the Mass at the Saint-Niçaise Abbey and, on his way back, he laid the foundation stone of the University of Reims. In the afternoon of the same day, the Knights, the Commanders, and the Officers of the Order of the Holy Spirit gathered at the King's—as he had ordered them—and His Majesty went to the Metropolitan Church in the ordinary walk, listened to Vespers, and with the greatest pomp became the Grand Master and Sovereign of the Order. When he returned, His Majesty delivered a speech and appointed the former Bishop of Limoges, the Archbishop of Narbonne, the Viscount of la Rochefoucault, the Count of Talleyrand, the Marquess of Rochechourat, the Marquess of Roche-Aymon, and the Viscount of Taladu, to be Knights of His Orders and to be Hostages of the Sainte-Ampoule. The Viscount of Taladu was also appointed to carry the rear of his coat, the day he became the Grand Master Sovereign of the order.

On June 14th, the King rode in a cavalcade to the Saint-Remi Abbey. His Majesty was accompanied by the Count of Provence, the Count of Artois, the Duke of Orléans, the Duke of Chartres, the Prince of Condé, the Duke of Bourbon and by many other Lords and great officers. He attended Mass in the Abbey and performed his Devotions through the Cardinal of la Roche-Aymon's hands. Then, in the Park of the Abbey, he touched 2,400 people who had the disease of scrofula and distributed charity to them. In the afternoon, the King took a walk in the park and from there went to the camp of the French and Swiss Guard units. The People, who were following His Majesty, showed their Master how delighted they were because of his presence.

The day of Corpus Christ, the King accompanied by the Count of Provence, the Count of Artois, and Princes of Royal Blood, followed the procession and attended the Great Mass and the salvation in the Metropolitan Church. The Queen, Madame, Madame Clotilde, Madame Elizabeth, the Duchess of Bourbon, and many Court Lords and Ladies were also present. (Read more.)

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Modern Knights

Andrew Cusack has photos of the "Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta,” still dedicated to serving the Church and the sick. Share

Grace Before Beauty

There is an exhibition in Rome on the life of Princess Grace of Monaco (Via Terry Nelson.) I never knew that her confirmation name was "Bernadette." According to art historian Elizabeth Lev:

The exhibit, however, lingers on the elaborate costumes she commissioned for her sophisticated balls and parties. This section, titled "The Queen of the Ephemeral" by curator Fredric Mitterand, the French minister of culture, dazzles with the vast selection of outfits and letters from the international jet-set scene.

Here, Grace seems reduced to an actress once again, wearing costumes for less important roles. Suddenly this woman of substance appears very superficial. But scattered among the notes lie testimonies to her staunch defense and friendship of black entertainer Josephine Baker and her caring concern for the troubled recluse Greta Garbo.

I saw the first incarnation of this exhibit in Montecarlo three years ago, where there were a great many images of the princess' work as the president of the Red Cross of Monaco. She not only arranged fundraisers, but Princess Grace volunteered her time and efforts, visiting sick and assisting refugees. The Monaco show also emphasized her foundation of AMADE, formed to protect the rights of children worldwide. Amade, named so as "to sound like amour," the French word for love, seeks to "to create, promote, coordinate and support initiatives that assist the most vulnerable children."

Despite requests by Alfred Hitchcock and others to lure her back on screen, Princess Grace only returned in front of a camera shortly before her death for Family Theater, a production company founded in 1947 by an old friend, Holy Cross Father Patrick Peyton.

Princess Grace was filmed reciting the rosary in St. Peter's Basilica, a legacy greater than even her fabulous jewels exhibited in the show. Unfortunately, this work is not even mentioned by the curators, despite the fact that it was her first appearance on film in 25 years.

Photos of the Prince and Princess of Monaco with the Pope flank images of the couple visiting with the Kennedy's. But the show ignores the Catholic connection between Monaco and the Holy See, which have shared diplomatic relations since 1861.

Nor does it recount how in 1954, the 100th anniversary of the Immaculate Conception, Prince Rainier made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, to pray to Mary for a suitable wife. Several years later, Princess Grace revealed that her confirmation name was Bernadette, for the French girl to whom the Blessed Virgin appeared in Lourdes. On the 25th anniversary of the prince's pilgrimage, Princess Grace would also visit Lourdes in thanksgiving.

Princess Grace died in a car accident on Sept. 14, 1982, and was buried in the cathedral of San Nicola in Montecarlo (also dedicated to the Immaculate Conception), the same church that welcomed her for the "Wedding of the Century," 26 years earlier. The show evokes a sad nostalgia, not for the glamour queen of a modern fairy tale, but for an age when leaders remembered that noblesse oblige, and that a person's life was weighed in more than chiffon and jewels.

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The Churching of Women

A beautiful and ancient tradition that is slowly being revived. Share

Castellany

Since I have written a medieval novel, I was delighted to find an article on castles, a bit grim but interesting. (Via Richard) To quote:

A king, a duke, a count, or any mighty lord would have a household, a court, and various officials to assist him in ruling. The same men who ministered to the domestic needs of the household conducted the business of the fief and participated in warfare. The provost superintended the demesne and collected taxes and dues. In England the Anglo-Saxons kings appointed a shire-reeve or sheriff, a removable agent in each county. The chaplain heard confession and said mass in the chapel. Since the chaplain was a clerk, he did not fight, and, as he was often literate, he held the lord's written records. In time he was called chancellor and had other clerks under him who served as chaplains and secretaries. The chamberlain looked after the bed chamber, watched over the lord's valuables, jewels, and clothes as well as archives and charters, and he generally controlled access to the lord. The constable and the marshal were military officers that commanded the soldiers, were responsible for armor and weapons, and saw to the horses and, as such, had a high status in the feudal demesnes showing the importance of horses. The steward was the head of the administration; he was also responsible for the provisioning of the household. The steward was assisted by the butler, who procured the wine, and the dispenser, who supervised the issuance of wine.

Entertainment included solid meals and drinking and possibly more refined shows with minstrels displaying varied talents, storytellers with magnificent tales, tumblers, and dancing bears. Hunting and hawking were the feudal ruler caste's main pleasure, and the hunting grounds were guarded with jealousy against the depredations of poachers. Penalties for catching reserved animals- such as a deer - were severe and included flaying, mutilation, and even hanging. Hunting was regarded as a sign of great courage and an opportunity to exercise healthiness, knightly qualities, and a display of skill besides providing a valuable addition to the medieval diet. The chasse-a-courre consisted of pursuing on horseback stags, wild boars, deer, and wild cats with the help of a pack of hounddogs. Animals were put to death with spears or swords. Troublesome animals were also hunted - as much for pleasure as for the necessary extermination - including wolves, bears, lynx, elk, aurochs, and bison, which terrorized peasants, ruined their crops, and decimated their cattle. Wild animals could be hunted with bows and arrows. Game birds were hunted by hawking with a trained falcon. It developed into a great art, falconry. Hawks and falcons were valuable and sometimes given as prestigious gifts.

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Karl Marx as Religious Eschatologist

Marxism is a religion. According to Murray N. Rothbard:

Marxism is a religious creed. This statement has been common among critics of Marx, and since Marxism is an explicit enemy of religion, such a seeming paradox would offend many Marxists, since it clearly challenged the allegedly hard-headed scientific materialism on which Marxism rested. In the present day, oddly enough, an age of liberation theology and other flirtations between Marxism and the Church, Marxists themselves are often quick to make this same proclamation.

Certainly, one obvious way in which Marxism functions as a religion is the lengths to which Marxists will go to preserve their system against obvious errors or fallacies. Thus, when Marxian predictions fail even though they are allegedly derived from scientific laws of history, Marxists go to great lengths to change the terms of the original prediction.

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The Sisters Who Would be Queen

Author Stephanie Mann shares her thoughts on Leanda de Lisle's new book about the Grey sisters. According to Mrs. Mann:

Along with her first book: After Elizabeth (and its very long subtitle), Leanda de Lisle has written this book, focused on the Grey sisters to explore the complex issues of succession in the Tudor Dynasty. After all, so many of Henry VIII's decisions and actions were all directed at ensuring orderly succession after his death. When the only surviving child of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was a daughter, he feared rebellion and civil war if Mary succeeded him. Therefore, he turned heaven and earth upside down to marry Anne Boleyn, young and promising a son, separating England from the universal Catholic Church and the authority of the Pope, risking war with the Holy Roman Empire, and incurring excommunication.

Once he had his son (having to get rid of another disappointing wife), he then violated the principle of primogeniture and settled the succession, with Parliament's consent on the heirs of, not his eldest sister, Margaret, but his favorite sister Mary: the Greys, who would follow his son and daughters if they died without issue. Ironically, this left only women to succeed Edward VI if he died without issue: his sisters Mary and Elizabeth and their relatives Frances, Jane, Katherine and Mary. Then both Edward VI and Elizabeth I contravened Henry's will: Edward by naming Jane Grey his heir and Elizabeth by naming Mary, Queen of Scots as hers. (Mary I regretted the inevitability of Elizabeth's succession but did not try to thwart it.) Edward made his decision based on religious principle, since Jane was an Evangelical like him. Elizabeth made her decision based on primogeniture and Mary's royal person, since Mary, Queen of Scots, after all, was a Catholic--and many in her court dreaded another queen and a Catholic on the throne.

Leanda de Lisle traces this sometimes confusing web of succession, with the plots of attempted coups and subterfuges of secret marriages as clearly as possible (with name changes and so many Mary's and Catherine's). She corrects many erroneous interpretations (of Lady Jane Grey as victim or of her mother Frances as an evil woman, etc) effectively, and demonstrates Elizabeth I's cruelty to Katherine and Mary, imprisoning and separating them from their well-beloved husbands and Katherine from one of her sons. The book is very well illustrated too, with excellent family trees for the Tudors and the Greys, et al. One irony of the family trees in my copy was that Jane's name was nearly always in the gutter of the spread!

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Theology in the 12th Century

Here is a brief lesson from Our Holy Father Pope Benedict (Via Blog by-the-Sea):

Today I pause to reflect on an interesting page of history, regarding the flowering of Latin theology in the 12th century, which came about by a providential series of coincidences. In the countries of Western Europe there reigned then a relative peace, which assured society of economic development and the consolidation of political structures, and fostered a lively cultural activity thanks also to contacts with the East. Perceived within the Church were the benefits of the vast action known as the "Gregorian reform," which, vigorously promoted in the preceding century, brought greater evangelical purity to the life of the ecclesial community, above all of the clergy, and restored to the Church and the papacy genuine liberty of action. Moreover, a vast spiritual renewal was spreading, sustained by the exuberant development of consecrated life: New religious orders were being born and spreading, while those already existing experienced a promising renewal.

Theology was also flourishing, acquiring greater awareness of its own nature: It refined its method, addressed new problems, advanced in the contemplation of the mysteries of God, produced fundamental works, inspired important initiatives of culture -- from art to literature -- and prepared the masterpieces of the next century, the century of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure of Bagnoregio.

There were two realms in which this fervid theological activity developed: the monasteries and the town schools, the scholae, some of which very soon gave life to the universities, which constituted one of the typical "inventions" of the Christian Middle Ages. In fact from these two realms, the monasteries and the scholae, one can speak of two different models of theology: "monastic theology" and "scholastic theology." The representatives of monastic theology were monks, in general, abbots, gifted with wisdom and evangelical fervor, dedicated essentially to arousing and nourishing a loving desire for God. The representatives of scholastic theology were cultured men, passionate about research; magistri wishing to show the reasonableness and soundness of the mysteries of God and of man, believed in with faith, of course, but understood also by reason. The contrasting objectives explain the differences in their method and their way of doing theology.

In the monasteries of the 12th century the theological method was linked primarily to the explanation of sacred Scripture, of the sacra pagina, to express ourselves as the authors of that period did. Biblical theololy was particularly widespread. The monks, in fact, were all devoted listeners and readers of sacred Scripture, and one of their main occupations consisted in lectio divina, namely, prayerful reading of the Bible. For them the simple reading of the sacred text was not enough to perceive the profound meaning, the interior unity and the transcendent message. Therefore, they had to practice a "spiritual reading," leading in docility to the Holy Spirit. Thus, in the school of the Fathers, the Bible was interpreted allegorically, to discover in every page, of the Old as well as the New Testament, what is said about Christ and his work of salvation.

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Count Roland

In the medieval times Roland, the kinsman of Charlemagne, was seen as the epitome of the Christian knight. Share