#Sofia rhone

[us3rnam3-r3dact3d]

Damien/Huxley post inversion snippet!!

The wonderful @romirola tagged me in a snippet game. I don’t have much of the next chapter of the firefighter au written yet, so I thought I’d share a bit from a post inversion character study I’ve had drafted for Damien!! It deals with his relationship with his mother and then how that translates to his relationship with Huxley. It’s definitely not canon compliant, but hey, that don’t bother me too much! Here’s a bit from Damien’s recovery in one of DAMN’s healing rooms after the attack from the shade. Hope y’all enjoy and here’s hoping I’ll have the whole thing ready to post soon!!

—

“Mother,” Damien couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips. His voice was thick and lazy on his tongue. “You flew back out?” She was sitting to his left, clad in a pressed, maroon suit. She looked for all the world to be perfectly put together, except that her bangs were mussed across her forehead. Except that there was a crease between her eyebrows that he had only seen in elementary school when he fell out of a tree on the playground and broke his humorous clean in half.

The silhouette of calm was there, but the details were off, and his mother was nothing if not detail-oriented.

She was worried. Very worried.

“My boy was trapped in a bubble with a bunch of monsters.” She shrugged and smoothed out a wrinkle in her skirt. “I took the first flight back.”

“Is it bad?” He asked softly. He pressed his hand to his chest. There wasn’t any gauze, no bandages, just a stiff hospital gown. He didn’t dare crane his neck to see, didn’t try to assess the damage himself. He felt small and scared.

“Healing magic is incredible stuff.” His mom tapped her phone impatiently, clearing a few text notifications from her lockscreen. It was a picture of the two of them from his high school graduation. “But you were badly cut.”

“Clawed,” He corrected. “Never thought I’d get clawed by something.”

“Yes, well,” his mom smiled softly, “my point stands. The… lacerations were deep and long. They healed the majority of the damage as soon as you got here, but you lost a good amount of blood, and you’ll need some more healing to mitigate the scarring.”

“I don’t care about the scaring.” He replied. If he had said that sentence a day ago, it would have been a lie. But it wasn’t. Not now. There was too much running rampant like smokey monsters in his mind to care about scars. He turned his head and caught sight of Huxley, his large frame pressed into a compact hospital recliner. He looked to have cleaned the dust and blood from his face. Somebody had given him a new t-shirt, and the gray fabric stretched snugly against his crossed arms. His forearms were scraped where they mostly covered the D.A.M.N. HEALING HONORS SOCIETY logo across his chest. He was still wearing the pants to his E&E Games tracksuit. Damien could see where the black material had gone stiff and dark with blood.

“He’s loud.” His mother said, shifting in her seat. “And he hovers like a lost puppy.”

“Leave him alone.” He replied, his voice barely above a whisper. “He’s perfect.”

“Hmm.” She hummed, inspecting her fingernails. Damien could tell before she opened her mouth that she was about to say something sharp and painful. He held his breath and braced for impact. “He’s leaving.” She said. “Going home. His mothers called while you were being stitched back together. So don’t get too used to the noise.”

[historyhermann]

"Against the hair of your professions": Fictional librarians and hair buns [Part 1]

12 librarians with hair buns in Western animation (Top row, from left to right: unnamed librarian in Futurama, unnamed librarian in DC Super Hero Girls, Ms. Hatchet in Kim Possible, Rita Book in Timon & Pumbaa, unnamed librarian in Rugrats. Bottom row, from left to right: Mrs. L in Dexter's Laboratory, unnamed librarian in Totally Spies!, unnamed librarian in We Bare Bears, Eztli in Victor and Valentino, Francis Clara Censordoll in Moral Orel, unnamed librarian in Big City Greens, Arlene in Phineas and Ferb, and Censordoll again) The last one is Censordoll again because she is a prominent bun-wearing librarian

Often librarians are portrayed as quiet, bookish people, who shush those who are noisy, and act in a stereotypical manner. However, librarians come in many types and kinds, either with an MLIS/MLS or not, and those stereotypes can be disrupted when a librarian changes professions as it changes audience expectations. Even so, librarians aren't united on what the image of librarians should be changed into in order to counter the stereotypes. Through all of this, many librarians are portrayed with hair buns, part of the oft-stereotype. [1] Today, I'll explore that, determining why this is the case, its significance in librarian portrayals, and what it means overall. As Swallow said in Act I of William Shakespeare's classic comedy play, The Mary Wives of Windsor, "if you should fight, you go against the hair of your professions," meaning that you are going against the grain.

Originally posted on Pop Culture Library Review on March 21, 2023.

Fictional librarians are often shown with so-called "traditional" outfits, looks, and hairstyles, including hair buns, which are symbolic in research around stereotypes themselves. This has even cropped up in webcomics. This is in part because styling one's hair can be "highly politicized" and complicated, especially for people of color, who experience microaggressions when people want to "touch" their hair or question it entirely. Some have even argued that different hair styles can be empowering and resist stereotypes, even as a library can be a "very conservative" place to work, although this may not be as strict in university library environments. Hair can also be an opportunity to communicate change, while serving as an intricate part of the identity and responsibility of the profession itself, with different hair styles having the potential to dispel stereotypes. [2]

In Western animation, this is clear as librarians of color, like Clara Rhone in Welcome to the Wayne, and Mira in Mira, Royal Detective episode ("The Case of the Missing Library Book") don't wear hair buns. Neither does Ms. Herrera in a Archie's Weird Mysteries episode ("The Haunting of Riverdale"). However, the unnamed librarian in a We Bare Bears episode ("The Library") prominently wears a hair bun, and serves as the only librarian of color that I know of, in Western animation, that does so. This could be a function of her role in the library and set rules which may establish that she dresses to "impress" in a semi-formal outfit. So, it could be a consequence of that, as other librarians I've mentioned may work in environments which are more open with their rules around self-expression or care little about how people look.

When it comes to White female librarians in animation, it is a different story. Apart from Kaisa in Hilda, the unnamed librarian in a Steven Universe episode ("Buddy's Book"), the librarian in the first Zevo-3 episode, Mrs. Higgins in a Sofia the First episode ("The Princess Test"), and Amity Blight in The Owl House, who briefly wears her hair in a pony trail, which became a sensation among fans of the series, to give a few examples, many of the other librarians wear hair buns. [3] This includes the librarian characters, who are effectively one-episode-wonders or only appear very briefly, in episodes of Futurama, DC Super Hero Girls, Rugrats, Kim Possible, Timon & Pumbaa, Dexter's Laboratory, Totally Spies, Phineas & Ferb, and The Simpsons, to name a few shows.

Also, Francis Clara Censorsdoll in Moral Orel wears a hair bun. Even, the blue-glasses wearing librarian in The Flintstones episode "The Hit Songwriter" wears a hair bun. At times, it appears that librarians with hair buns are meant to symbolize social conservative and prudish people, like the librarian in an episode of Beavis and Butt-Head ("Cyber-Butt"), who faints when she sees a nude image on a computer screen. Although she doesn't wear a hair bun, what she symbolizes is similar to how some librarians are portrayed in Western animation.

Others have declared that the perception of librarians with hair buns or lace collars should be discarded, as librarians are highly active and high tech now. While someone can easily agree with this, it is harder to push away the image of a spinster librarian with a hair bun, with some wearing buns and braids while working in the library. There is the further point that many librarians may not have enough hair to put into a bun in the first place. At one point, librarians adopted the hair bun style at one time, giving life to what became the stereotype and cliche. However, nowadays many younger librarians have different hair styles, and some might even have better eyesight than anyone else as they don't need glasses! [4] Still, tropes like the"Prim and Proper Bun" remain, with those with this hairstyle said to be in charge or be respected. This is somewhat countered with the "Loony Librarian" trope, which is said to describe a librarian who's let "their profession mess with their mind a little."

Continued in part 2!

© 2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

------------------

Notes

[1] Matthew Wood. "10 Most Awesome Librarians in Pop Culture," Comic Book Resources, Aug. 22, 2019; Stephen Walker, V. Lonnie Lawson. "The Librarian Stereotype and the Movies," MC Journal: The Journal of Academic Media Librarianship, 1, no. 1 (1993): 16-28; Dana Vinke. "Unconventional Librarians," Image of Libraries in Popular Culture, Fall 2001, accessed May 27, 2022; Sadie Trombetta. "11 Of The Coolest Librarians From Pop Culture," Bustle, Mar. 2, 2015. For additional resources, see Ashanti White's Not Your Ordinary Librarian: Debunking the Popular Perceptions of Librarians, Nicole Pagowsky's The Librarian Stereotype: Deconstructing Perceptions and Presentations of Information Work, to mention two books. There are librarians like Lani in Diner Dash and Myrna Bookbottom in Freaky Flyers who both embody librarian stereotypes, but there are others that buck these stereotypes.

[2] Raymond Pun and Jesus Lau, "Hair and Hairstyles as Metaphors for Librarians," IFLA WLIC 2018, pp. 1-5.

[3] Amity is beloved by fans since she is a somewhat prominent recurring character and she is a lesbian who is in a romantic relationship with the show's protagonist, Luz Noceda.

[4] Christine Sharbrough, "What Does a Librarian Do All Day?," BellaOnline, 2013; DarLynn Nemitz, "Male Librarians: Stereotypes and Role Models," Image of Librarians in Popular Culture, Fall 2001; Amy P., "Librarian Who Hadn't Updated Her Look In 8 Years Underwent An Extreme Head-To-Toe Makeover," LittleThings, May 12, 2022; "So, what does a librarian do all day?," Iowa State University University Library, Apr. 11, 2007; UNH Library, "The Top 10 Misconceptions about Libraries and Librarians," The Charger Bulletin, Nov. 14, 2012; David Levy, "Reel Librarians: Images and Stereotypes of Librarians and Libraries in film and literature," Proceedings of the 53rd Annual Conference of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Boston, MA – June 18-20, 2018), pp, 1-3; "How to Style Your Hair Into an Upside Down Bun," StepByStep, accessed May 27, 2022; "More Librarian Misconceptions," Bound: A Blog About Books & Libraries, Apr. 1, 2014; Glenn A. Hascall, "Larry & The Librarian," accessed May 27, 2022; Megan Halsband, "Let’s Talk Comics: Librarians," Headlines & Heroes, Library of Congress, Jul. 3, 2019; Jodi McFarland, "Saginaw Valley librarians ride Internet age forward," mlive, Jul. 7, 2008; Michelle Reilly, "Librarians," It's a Dog's Life, Jul. 10, 2008.

[definitelynuwonhere]

Middle Name Headcanons:

I know it’s late but I’m very bored and need a break from this angst fic (I’m stuck)

I had very fun researching names, it’s an odd reliever, I didn’t do everyone just cuz, no <3

•David Michael Shaw

-Get it? Cuz Michael? I thought it was funny ok.

•Milo Anthony Greer

-I saw someone use it in a fic I read and I really liked it, i forgot the name tho sorryy

•Asher Kieran Talbot

-Leaned into Talbot being of Irish origin

•Samuel Henry Collins

-Gramps/hj

•Vincent Carter Jones (Solaire)

-Just throwing things around ok

•Huxley Reed/Reid

-I liked it

•Lasko Arthur Jacob Moore

-I had too much fun with it- BUT OK SO HEAR ME OUT, Lasko being part of a very wealthy family one with mansions and shit. Fanfic worthy shit right there

•Damien Albert (As in Einstein lol) Rhone

-Sofia seems like someone who’d pull that shit

•Anton Filip

-Slavic boi

•Morgan Emry Kyne

-I just like how it sounded.

[beardedmrbean]

Today, with 132 votes, Nikolay Denkov was elected Prime Minister of Bulgaria. He will be rotating Prime Minister for the first 9 months of the cabinet after which he will be replaced by Mariya Gabriel.

Nikolay Denkov is an academician of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) and a regular member of the European scientific academy "Academia Europaea", a professor and doctor of sciences in physical chemistry. He is a member of the "Physical Sciences Working Group" at the European Space Agency (ESA). He heads the "Active Formulations and Materials" laboratory at the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy of the Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski".

According to the 2021 ranking of Stanford University, Academician Denkov is in the top 1% of the world's most influential scientists in his field. His scientific research is in the field of physicochemistry of colloid-dispersed systems, surface-active substances and their numerous applications. He has published more than 180 scientific articles, two of them in the prestigious journal "Nature" and one each in "Nature Physics" and "Nature Communications", as well as 18 reviews.

His works have been cited over 10,000 times in the scientific literature (h-index = 50). He has delivered over 90 lectures at international conferences, conducted over 80 seminars at foreign universities and research institutes. He is the co-author of 12 patents, including six international and four foreign.

He managed more than 45 international projects financed by foreign companies.

He worked as a visiting researcher at the Japan Science Foundation (JRDC), a senior researcher at the Rhone-Poulenc Institute (France), a leading scientist at the Unilever Research Institute (USA). He was a visiting professor at the Engineering School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry ESPCI-Paris and at the University of Lille (France).

Academician Nikolay Denkov has been awarded a number of prestigious awards for his scientific achievements: the Solvay Award of the European Colloid and Interface Society, the Lectureship Award of the Department of Colloids and Interphase Boundaries of the Japanese Chemical Society, the national award "Pythagoras" of the Ministry of Education and Science, etc.

From 2014 to 2016 Academician Nikolay Denkov was the Deputy Minister of Education and Science with portfolios of higher education and European structural funds. In 2016, he resigned due to disagreement with the policy of the then leadership in the Ministry of Education and Culture.

In 2017, he was acting Minister of Education and Science in the government of Ognyan Gerdzhikov. He held the same post in the two caretaker governments of Stefan Yanev in 2021.

He is one of the iconic names that, together with Kiril Petkov and Asen Vaсsilev, created a new party called "We Continue the Change". On December 13, 2021, he was elected Minister of Education and Science in the regular government of Kiril Petkov.

His administration is associated with the continuation of the policy initiated by GERB to increase the average teacher salary.

Before leaving the ministry, he reported that he had kept his promise that the average teacher salary would be 25% higher than the national average.

However, he failed to realize his goals - to elect school principals in a new way, so that subjectivism and their political orientation could be avoided.

The prepared ordinance was challenged in the Supreme Court. Denkov did not meet public support to realize his other goal - to extend the school year and start classes between September 5 and 7.

[travelsinser]

Most assuredly the close of the eighteenth century

Let us avoid misunderstanding of what we are now speaking. Most assuredly the close of the eighteenth century in France displayed a convulsion, a frenzy, a chaos such as the world’s history has not often equalled. There was folly, crime, waste, destruction, confusion, and horror of stupendous proportions, and of all imaginable forms. There was the Terror, the Festival of Reason, the Reaction, and all the delirium, the orgy, the extravagance, which give brilliancy to small historians and serve as rhetoric to petty politicians. Assuredly the revolution closed in with most ghastly surprises to the philanthropists and philosophers who entered on it in 1789 with so light a heart.

Assuredly it has bequeathed to the statesmen and the people of our century problems of portentous difficulty and number. But we are speaking now neither of ’93 nor of ’95, nor of ’99, of no local or special incident, of no single event, nor of political forms. We are in this essay dealing exclusively with ‘ the ideas of ’89/ with the movement which at Versailles, on 5th May 1789, took outward and visible shape. And we are about to deal with it in its deeper, social, permanent sofia sightseeing, and human side, not in its transitory and material side. The Seine, the Loire, and the Rhone have washed away the blood which once defiled their streams, the havoc caused by the orgies of anarchy has been effaced, years make fainter the memory of crimes and follies, of revenge and jealousy. But the course of generations still deepens the meaning of ‘the ideas of ’89,’ of the social, intellectual, economic new birth which then received official recognition, opening in a conscious and popular form the reformation that, in a spontaneous form, had long been brooding in so many generous hearts and profound brains.

No reading of merely French history, no study of the reign of Louis xvi. by itself, can explain this great movement—no political history, no narrative of events, no account of any special institution. Neither the degeneration of the monarchy, nor the corruption of the nobility, nor the disorder of the administration, nor the barbarism of the feudal law, nor the decay of the Church, nor the vices of society, nor the teaching of any school, nor all of these together — are adequate to explain the revolution.

They are enough to account for the confusion, waste, conflict, and fury of the contest — i.e. for the explosion. But they do not explain how it is that hardly anything was set up in France between 1789 and 1799 which had not been previously discussed and prepared, that between 1789 and 1799 an immense body of new institutions and reformed methods of social life were firmly planted in such a way that they have borne fruit far and wide in France and through Europe.

Religious fanaticism

Nor do any of these special causes just enumerated suffice to explain the passion, the contagious faith, the almost religious fanaticism which was the inner strength of the revolution and the source of its inexhaustible activity. What we call the French Revolution of 1789, was really a new phase of civilisation announcing its advent in form. It had the character of religious zeal because it was a movement of the human race towards a completer humanity.

Rhetoricians, poets, and preachers have accustomed us too long to dwell on the lurid side of the movement, on its follies, crimes, and failures; they have overrated the relative importance of the catastrophe, and by profuse pictures of the horrors, they have drawn off attention from its solid and enduring fruits. In the midst of the agony it was natural that Burke, in the sunset of his judgment, should denounce it. But it was a misfortune for the last generation that the purple mantle of Burke should have fallen on a prophet, who was not a statesman but a man of letters, who, with all Burke’s passion and prejudice, had but little of his philosophic power, none of his practical sagacity, none of the great Whig’s experience of affairs and of men.

The universal bonfire ’ theory, the ‘ grand suicide ’ view, the ‘ chaos-come-again ’ of a former generation, are seen to be ridiculous in ours. The movement of 1789 was far less the final crash of an effete system than it was the new birth of a greater system, or rather of the irresistible germs of a greater system. The contemporaries of Tacitus, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius could see nothing but ruin in the superstition of the Galileans, just as the contemporaries of Decius, Julian, and Justinian saw nothing but barbarism in the Goths, the Franks, and the Arabs.

[beautytravels]

Most assuredly the close of the eighteenth century

Let us avoid misunderstanding of what we are now speaking. Most assuredly the close of the eighteenth century in France displayed a convulsion, a frenzy, a chaos such as the world’s history has not often equalled. There was folly, crime, waste, destruction, confusion, and horror of stupendous proportions, and of all imaginable forms. There was the Terror, the Festival of Reason, the Reaction, and all the delirium, the orgy, the extravagance, which give brilliancy to small historians and serve as rhetoric to petty politicians. Assuredly the revolution closed in with most ghastly surprises to the philanthropists and philosophers who entered on it in 1789 with so light a heart.

Assuredly it has bequeathed to the statesmen and the people of our century problems of portentous difficulty and number. But we are speaking now neither of ’93 nor of ’95, nor of ’99, of no local or special incident, of no single event, nor of political forms. We are in this essay dealing exclusively with ‘ the ideas of ’89/ with the movement which at Versailles, on 5th May 1789, took outward and visible shape. And we are about to deal with it in its deeper, social, permanent sofia sightseeing, and human side, not in its transitory and material side. The Seine, the Loire, and the Rhone have washed away the blood which once defiled their streams, the havoc caused by the orgies of anarchy has been effaced, years make fainter the memory of crimes and follies, of revenge and jealousy. But the course of generations still deepens the meaning of ‘the ideas of ’89,’ of the social, intellectual, economic new birth which then received official recognition, opening in a conscious and popular form the reformation that, in a spontaneous form, had long been brooding in so many generous hearts and profound brains.

No reading of merely French history, no study of the reign of Louis xvi. by itself, can explain this great movement—no political history, no narrative of events, no account of any special institution. Neither the degeneration of the monarchy, nor the corruption of the nobility, nor the disorder of the administration, nor the barbarism of the feudal law, nor the decay of the Church, nor the vices of society, nor the teaching of any school, nor all of these together — are adequate to explain the revolution.

They are enough to account for the confusion, waste, conflict, and fury of the contest — i.e. for the explosion. But they do not explain how it is that hardly anything was set up in France between 1789 and 1799 which had not been previously discussed and prepared, that between 1789 and 1799 an immense body of new institutions and reformed methods of social life were firmly planted in such a way that they have borne fruit far and wide in France and through Europe.

Religious fanaticism

Nor do any of these special causes just enumerated suffice to explain the passion, the contagious faith, the almost religious fanaticism which was the inner strength of the revolution and the source of its inexhaustible activity. What we call the French Revolution of 1789, was really a new phase of civilisation announcing its advent in form. It had the character of religious zeal because it was a movement of the human race towards a completer humanity.

Rhetoricians, poets, and preachers have accustomed us too long to dwell on the lurid side of the movement, on its follies, crimes, and failures; they have overrated the relative importance of the catastrophe, and by profuse pictures of the horrors, they have drawn off attention from its solid and enduring fruits. In the midst of the agony it was natural that Burke, in the sunset of his judgment, should denounce it. But it was a misfortune for the last generation that the purple mantle of Burke should have fallen on a prophet, who was not a statesman but a man of letters, who, with all Burke’s passion and prejudice, had but little of his philosophic power, none of his practical sagacity, none of the great Whig’s experience of affairs and of men.

The universal bonfire ’ theory, the ‘ grand suicide ’ view, the ‘ chaos-come-again ’ of a former generation, are seen to be ridiculous in ours. The movement of 1789 was far less the final crash of an effete system than it was the new birth of a greater system, or rather of the irresistible germs of a greater system. The contemporaries of Tacitus, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius could see nothing but ruin in the superstition of the Galileans, just as the contemporaries of Decius, Julian, and Justinian saw nothing but barbarism in the Goths, the Franks, and the Arabs.

[boutiquehotelsbg]

Most assuredly the close of the eighteenth century

Let us avoid misunderstanding of what we are now speaking. Most assuredly the close of the eighteenth century in France displayed a convulsion, a frenzy, a chaos such as the world’s history has not often equalled. There was folly, crime, waste, destruction, confusion, and horror of stupendous proportions, and of all imaginable forms. There was the Terror, the Festival of Reason, the Reaction, and all the delirium, the orgy, the extravagance, which give brilliancy to small historians and serve as rhetoric to petty politicians. Assuredly the revolution closed in with most ghastly surprises to the philanthropists and philosophers who entered on it in 1789 with so light a heart.

Assuredly it has bequeathed to the statesmen and the people of our century problems of portentous difficulty and number. But we are speaking now neither of ’93 nor of ’95, nor of ’99, of no local or special incident, of no single event, nor of political forms. We are in this essay dealing exclusively with ‘ the ideas of ’89/ with the movement which at Versailles, on 5th May 1789, took outward and visible shape. And we are about to deal with it in its deeper, social, permanent sofia sightseeing, and human side, not in its transitory and material side. The Seine, the Loire, and the Rhone have washed away the blood which once defiled their streams, the havoc caused by the orgies of anarchy has been effaced, years make fainter the memory of crimes and follies, of revenge and jealousy. But the course of generations still deepens the meaning of ‘the ideas of ’89,’ of the social, intellectual, economic new birth which then received official recognition, opening in a conscious and popular form the reformation that, in a spontaneous form, had long been brooding in so many generous hearts and profound brains.

No reading of merely French history, no study of the reign of Louis xvi. by itself, can explain this great movement—no political history, no narrative of events, no account of any special institution. Neither the degeneration of the monarchy, nor the corruption of the nobility, nor the disorder of the administration, nor the barbarism of the feudal law, nor the decay of the Church, nor the vices of society, nor the teaching of any school, nor all of these together — are adequate to explain the revolution.

They are enough to account for the confusion, waste, conflict, and fury of the contest — i.e. for the explosion. But they do not explain how it is that hardly anything was set up in France between 1789 and 1799 which had not been previously discussed and prepared, that between 1789 and 1799 an immense body of new institutions and reformed methods of social life were firmly planted in such a way that they have borne fruit far and wide in France and through Europe.

Religious fanaticism

Nor do any of these special causes just enumerated suffice to explain the passion, the contagious faith, the almost religious fanaticism which was the inner strength of the revolution and the source of its inexhaustible activity. What we call the French Revolution of 1789, was really a new phase of civilisation announcing its advent in form. It had the character of religious zeal because it was a movement of the human race towards a completer humanity.

Rhetoricians, poets, and preachers have accustomed us too long to dwell on the lurid side of the movement, on its follies, crimes, and failures; they have overrated the relative importance of the catastrophe, and by profuse pictures of the horrors, they have drawn off attention from its solid and enduring fruits. In the midst of the agony it was natural that Burke, in the sunset of his judgment, should denounce it. But it was a misfortune for the last generation that the purple mantle of Burke should have fallen on a prophet, who was not a statesman but a man of letters, who, with all Burke’s passion and prejudice, had but little of his philosophic power, none of his practical sagacity, none of the great Whig’s experience of affairs and of men.

The universal bonfire ’ theory, the ‘ grand suicide ’ view, the ‘ chaos-come-again ’ of a former generation, are seen to be ridiculous in ours. The movement of 1789 was far less the final crash of an effete system than it was the new birth of a greater system, or rather of the irresistible germs of a greater system. The contemporaries of Tacitus, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius could see nothing but ruin in the superstition of the Galileans, just as the contemporaries of Decius, Julian, and Justinian saw nothing but barbarism in the Goths, the Franks, and the Arabs.

[lifestylemanagement]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[lifestylesea]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[taksimhookah]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[technostyle]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[pinklifest]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[allhealthly]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[moviestyles]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[trastravels]

Most assuredly the close of the eighteenth century

Let us avoid misunderstanding of what we are now speaking. Most assuredly the close of the eighteenth century in France displayed a convulsion, a frenzy, a chaos such as the world’s history has not often equalled. There was folly, crime, waste, destruction, confusion, and horror of stupendous proportions, and of all imaginable forms. There was the Terror, the Festival of Reason, the Reaction, and all the delirium, the orgy, the extravagance, which give brilliancy to small historians and serve as rhetoric to petty politicians. Assuredly the revolution closed in with most ghastly surprises to the philanthropists and philosophers who entered on it in 1789 with so light a heart.

Assuredly it has bequeathed to the statesmen and the people of our century problems of portentous difficulty and number. But we are speaking now neither of ’93 nor of ’95, nor of ’99, of no local or special incident, of no single event, nor of political forms. We are in this essay dealing exclusively with ‘ the ideas of ’89/ with the movement which at Versailles, on 5th May 1789, took outward and visible shape. And we are about to deal with it in its deeper, social, permanent sofia sightseeing, and human side, not in its transitory and material side. The Seine, the Loire, and the Rhone have washed away the blood which once defiled their streams, the havoc caused by the orgies of anarchy has been effaced, years make fainter the memory of crimes and follies, of revenge and jealousy. But the course of generations still deepens the meaning of ‘the ideas of ’89,’ of the social, intellectual, economic new birth which then received official recognition, opening in a conscious and popular form the reformation that, in a spontaneous form, had long been brooding in so many generous hearts and profound brains.

No reading of merely French history, no study of the reign of Louis xvi. by itself, can explain this great movement—no political history, no narrative of events, no account of any special institution. Neither the degeneration of the monarchy, nor the corruption of the nobility, nor the disorder of the administration, nor the barbarism of the feudal law, nor the decay of the Church, nor the vices of society, nor the teaching of any school, nor all of these together — are adequate to explain the revolution.

They are enough to account for the confusion, waste, conflict, and fury of the contest — i.e. for the explosion. But they do not explain how it is that hardly anything was set up in France between 1789 and 1799 which had not been previously discussed and prepared, that between 1789 and 1799 an immense body of new institutions and reformed methods of social life were firmly planted in such a way that they have borne fruit far and wide in France and through Europe.

Religious fanaticism

Nor do any of these special causes just enumerated suffice to explain the passion, the contagious faith, the almost religious fanaticism which was the inner strength of the revolution and the source of its inexhaustible activity. What we call the French Revolution of 1789, was really a new phase of civilisation announcing its advent in form. It had the character of religious zeal because it was a movement of the human race towards a completer humanity.

Rhetoricians, poets, and preachers have accustomed us too long to dwell on the lurid side of the movement, on its follies, crimes, and failures; they have overrated the relative importance of the catastrophe, and by profuse pictures of the horrors, they have drawn off attention from its solid and enduring fruits. In the midst of the agony it was natural that Burke, in the sunset of his judgment, should denounce it. But it was a misfortune for the last generation that the purple mantle of Burke should have fallen on a prophet, who was not a statesman but a man of letters, who, with all Burke’s passion and prejudice, had but little of his philosophic power, none of his practical sagacity, none of the great Whig’s experience of affairs and of men.

The universal bonfire ’ theory, the ‘ grand suicide ’ view, the ‘ chaos-come-again ’ of a former generation, are seen to be ridiculous in ours. The movement of 1789 was far less the final crash of an effete system than it was the new birth of a greater system, or rather of the irresistible germs of a greater system. The contemporaries of Tacitus, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius could see nothing but ruin in the superstition of the Galileans, just as the contemporaries of Decius, Julian, and Justinian saw nothing but barbarism in the Goths, the Franks, and the Arabs.

[pubulc]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.