The Tympanum Player

Marie-Antoinette's android.

This famous android was a collaborative effort by two Germans. Clockmaker Peter Kintzing created the mechanism and joiner David Roentgen crafted the cabinet; the dress dates from the 19th century. Automatons were in circulation and aroused much curiosity. Roentgen probably sent the tympanum to the French court and Marie-Antoinette bought it in 1784. The queen, aware of its perfection and scientific interest, had it deposited in the Academy of Sciences cabinet in 1785. The tympanum is a musical instrument that plays eight tunes when the female android strikes the 46 strings with two little hammers. Tradition has it that she is a depiction of Marie-Antoinette.

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Pumpkin Seeds

A wonderful autumn snack. Share

Chartres

The consecration of the cathedral is commemorated. Share

The Greatest City in the Americas

Mexico City. Andrew Cusack reports. (Via The Western Confucian) Share

Our Meeting with Archduke Imre

Every once in awhile life offers surprises when the impossible becomes a reality. On the Vigil of All Saints we had the joy of meeting His Imperial and Royal Highness Imre of Habsburg-Lorraine, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary and Bohemia (on the right). Mr. Michael Drake of the TFP emailed me with an invitation to meet the Archduke at a TFP event and I gladly accepted. The Archduke possessed a most friendly manner; we were put completely at ease and found ourselves speaking quite freely. I told the Archduke how I have always loved his family, especially his great aunt Marie-Antoinette. I described my experience of praying in the Capuchin crypt at his great grandmother Empress Zita's tomb and at Empress Maria Theresa's tomb and finding the inspiration to write Trianon.

 I hoped to the Archduke that his great grandfather Blessed Emperor Karl could be returned to rest in Vienna in the Capuchin crypt with the rest of the family. But Archduke Imre said no, he thought it was better for Blessed Karl to be buried in Madeira, in a remote place which captures the spirit of the Holy Emperor's poverty, suffering, exile and rejection by his own. It was amazing to talk about a saint with one of the saint's own great grandchildren. Archduke Imre is also the nephew of the courageous Grand Duke Henri de Luxembourg who has taken such a strong pro-life stand.

Here are 2008 photos of the Archduke's family at the wedding of his sister, Her Imperial Highness Archduchess Marie Christine.

Later in the day, I met His Imperial and Royal Highness Prince Bertrand of Orléans-Braganza. Slightly bent with age and walking with  a cane, Prince Bertrand nevertheless emanated great dignity. His Imperial Highness had the kindest, most gentle face, with black eyes that pierce the soul. He is not only a prince but a mystic, I think. I addressed His Imperial Highness in French but it turned out that his command of English is better than mine of French. (It was a good thing that Mr. Robert Ritchie, who introduced me to the Prince, is fluent in French and was able to rescue me.) The Prince graciously received my books and told me he had just read a biography of Madame Elisabeth of France.

As for the TFP members hosting the event, they treated us royally, with the utmost kindness and deference, making for an especially lovely day. Michael Drake showed me around the campus, which had been the estate of wealthy industrialists. The main house is an old Tudor revival, utterly magnificent, now a beautiful place for study, prayer and cheerful gatherings. Mr. Drake introduced me to everyone we met and I had many delightful conversations. My husband listened to a lecture which he found gratifying both spiritually and intellectually. It is good to know that there is such a movement of faith and culture in Pennsylvania. Share

Prague

A Bohemian romance. Share

The Green Fields of France

 One of my favorite Irish ballads. Here are the lyrics:

 How do you do young Willie Mcbride,
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the great fall-in in 1916
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or young Willie Mcbride was it slow and obscene.

Did they beat the drum slowly did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
Although you died back in 1916
In that faithful heart are you forever 19
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed then forever behind a glass frame
In an old photograph torn, battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.

Did they beat the drum slowly did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France....

To quote from an article on the Irish soldiers of World War One: 

Here are the facts about the Irish soldiers of WWI. More than 35,000 of them perished. Of the thousands who survived and came home, they found a country in violent upheaval, fiercely fighting its own great battle between north and south.

Many of the soldiers were victimized either physically or economically. Between 1919 and 1922, at least 200 were murdered because they had joined the British army. Economically, the 1919 unemployment ratio of ex-servicemen was 46% in Ireland compared to just 10% in Britain.

 More on the Irish regiments, HERE and HERE.
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France's Brilliance in 1500

A new exhibit at the Grand Palais.

After the end of the Hundred Years' War, during the reigns of Charles VIII (1483–98), Louis XI (1498–1515) and Anne de Bretagne, who was wife to both, France was already a meeting ground for the most important artistic currents of the North and South—realism and oil painting techniques from Picardy, Flanders and the Brabant; innovations in perspective and the influence of newly rediscovered antiquity in Italy. Along with the two kings and their queen, there were nobles, prelates and rich merchants also commissioning artists and architects. Among the most important was Good King René, a bon vivant who reigned in Provence with a slew of titles including King of Naples and Sicily, and filled his court with artists, musicians, poets and scholars.

The show brings together more than 200 works—paintings, sculptures, tapestries, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, coins, medal and precious objects—of such exceptional quality that the impact is breathtaking. The immediate impression is the brilliance of color—ruby reds, sapphire blues, emerald and lime greens, sunflower yellow—not only in the paintings and stained glass but also in the scores of illuminations in manuscripts and early printed books, from small Books of Hours to desk-sized tomes, that are one of the show's strong points.

Aside from Leonardo da Vinci, with "La Belle Ferronière" (c.1495-97), most of the artists here are unfamiliar to the general public, but this is the place to meet them—Jean Fouquet, Nicolas Froment, Jean Poyer, Girolamo Pacchiarotti) (known as Jérôme Pacherot), the Master of Moulins, now almost unanimously identified as Jean Hey, and many others.

The Master of Chaource (probably Jacques Bachot), working in Champagne, is credited with the stunning lifesized stone figure of Saint Martha (c. 1510–15), whose slender face and delicate hands seem almost miraculously real. The very young, almost impossibly lovely "Notre Dame de Grasse" (c. 1470), looking away from the infant on her knee who so closely resembles her, is an anonymous work from the Languedoc region, as is the young Madonna (c. 1500) whose child is touching her cheek in a quintessential infant's gesture perfectly captured in stone.

Attributed to Pacherot and the atelier of Michel Colombe in Tours, the marble tomb of the young children of Charles VIII is a masterpiece of elaborate ornamentation, with putti, dolphins, mythological scenes and imaginary creatures surrounding the small sleeping figures of the toddler princes who died in 1495 and 1496, aged three and one.

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A New Knighthood

We are all called to be soldiers of Christ. Archbishop Chaput says:

There is no neutral ground. C. S. Lewis once said that Christianity is a "fighting religion." He meant that Christian discipleship has always been -- and remains -- a struggle against the evil within and outside ourselves. This is why the early Church Fathers described Christian life as "spiritual combat." It's why they called faithful Christians the "Church Militant" and "soldiers of Christ" in the Sacrament of Confirmation.

The Church needs men and women of courage and Godliness today more than at any time in her history. So does this extraordinary country we call home in this world; a nation that still has an immense reservoir of virtue, decency, and people of good will. This is why the Catholic ideal of knighthood, with its demands of radical discipleship, is still alive and still needed. The essence of Christian knighthood remains the same: sacrificial service rooted in a living Catholic faith.

A new "spirit of knighthood" is what we need now -- unselfish, tireless, devoted disciples willing to face derision and persecution for Jesus Christ. We serve our nation best by serving God first, and by proving our faith with the example of our lives.

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