#histoire des popes

[dreamconsumer]

Portrait of Sibylla of Jerusalem (c. 1160-1190), Princess then Queen of Jerusalem. Engraving from 1842 in 'Histoire des popes' by Maurice Lachatre.

[etymology-of-the-emblem]

The Demonic References in the Loptr Church

Befitting the cult of the dark god Loptous, many members of the Loptr Church, particularly those in Chapters 10 and Endgame of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War take their names from grimoires of demonology and the occult.

Beginning with the sect's archbishop, Manfroy (JP: マンフロイ; rōmaji: manfuroi) gets his name from legends regarding Manfred of Sicily, son of Emperor Frederick II. On page 436 of Jacques Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal is a section dedicated to Mainfroi, which claims that following his excommunication by Pope Innocent IV, Manfred studied magic and alchemy, all while communing with demons. This was largely based on a similar passage on page 303 of Pierre Le Loyer's Histoire des spectres et apparitions des esprits, which instead refers to Manfred as Manfroy. Rumors of King Manfred's deal with the devil would go on to inspire Lord Byron's Manfred, a poem telling of a noble convening with dark spirits to erase his memory of a lost lover - a sentiment based on his own failed marriage and an affair with his half-sister Augusta Leigh. The wiping of memories seemingly influenced Manfroy's act of erasing those of Deirdre, while the topic of incest likely served as a basis for the conception of Loptous' vessel.

Moving on, Zagam (JP: ザガム; rōmaji: zagamu) is the Loptrian stationed over Miletos Castle. He is named after Zagam, attested on page 711 of Dictionnaire Infernal as a Great King and President of Hell, sourced from Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, where he is instead called Zagan. The name Zagan would also be used in the later-released Ars Goetia, part of the Lesser Key of Solomon. Most mentions of Zagan claim that he could turn wine or oil into blood, and could transmute water into wine and vice versa.

Juphiel (JP: ユフィール; rōmaji: yufīru) is a Loptrian bishop defending Edda dukedom. His name comes from Uphir, a demon seemingly first mentioned in Dictionnaire Infernal on page 674. He is said to be a chemist who maintains the health of Beelzebub and the other high-ranked demons of Hell.

Dagon (JP: ダゴン; rōmaji: dagon) is a Loptrian bishop that protects Dozel Castle. His name comes from Dagon, described in Dictionnaire Infernal on page 194. But before this, Dagon, also called Dagan, was an ancient Syrian god of prosperity, kingship, and the father of many other gods. Dagan was also said to guarantee a successful grain harvest. First attestations of Dagon as a demonic entity began with the texts of the Old Testament, which claimed the Philistines to have worshiped the god above all others. De Plancy would expand Dagon's role among other demons, interpreting him to be the Great Baker of Hell - likely based on his association with grain.

Lastly is Baran (JP: バラン; rōmaji: baran), who serves to stop Seliph's army at Friege. He is named after Balan, covered on pages 76 and 77 of Dictionnaire Infernal. In other texts like the Ars Goetia, he is instead called Balam or Balaam. He is said to be a three-headed demon who responds to questions with perfect answers, whether it be about the past, present, or future. The name Balaam comes from a magician in the Old Testament, who told the Moabite king Balak how to make the Israelites sin, leading to punishment upon them by God.

Saving the most speculative for last, Veld is a high-stationed bishop of the Loptr Church who carries out Manfroy's orders throughout the Munster District. The name seemingly comes from the Old Norse veld, appropriately meaning "I rule over; I am the cause of".

In Japanese, Veld's name is written ベルド (rōmaji: berudo). It is possible that the name is a greatly truncated form of ベルゼビュート (rōmaji: beruzebyūto), Belzébuth, a French name for the Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub. Similarly to Dagon, some of the earliest mentions of Beelzebub come from the Old Testament, where he was a god of the Philistines. The Testament of Solomon would go on to assert that this was but another name for Lucifer. Other sources interpret the two as separate, however. On pages 89 and 90 of Dictionnaire Infernal, Belzébuth is claimed to be the prince of demons, the absolute leader of Hell, and second in power and wickedness only to Satan himself. For "Manfroy's Rock" and seemingly the second most powerful member of the Loptrian Order behind the archbishop to be named after Beelzebub would be rather appropriate, though the connection is certainly a stretch.

[learabeau]

Liste culturelle 2023

JANVIER

LIVRES

Le mur invisible de Marlen Haushofer

Histoire du Protestantisme de Jean Baudérot

FILMS

Godland de Hlynur Palmason

Dune de Denis Villeneuve

FEVRIER

SERIES

Tuca and Bertie de Lisa Hanawalt

Demon Slayer de Koyoharu Gotoge

FILMS

Le Retour des hirondelles de Li Ruijun

Wasabi de Gérald Krawczyk

All of Them Witches de Mona Panchal

LIVRES

Chaque geste compte. Manifeste contre l'impuissance publique de Dominique Bourg et Johann Chapoutot

La cabane magique. Panique à Pompéi de Mary Pope Osborne

Assassination classroom de Yusei Matsui

MARS

SERIES

Hollywood de Ryan Murphy

Supernatural de Eric Kripke

LIVRE

L’existentialisme est un humanisme de Jean-Paul Sartre

FILM

Fight Club de David Fincher

AVRIL

LIVRES

Peter Pan de Barrie

Informal beauty. The photograhs of Paul Nash de Simon Grant

Perceptions de Nathalie Man

La société des personnes vulnérables. Leçons féministes d’une crise. de Najat Vallaud-Belkacem et Sandra Laugier

Les hommes sont absents de Nathalie Man

FILMS

Bullet Train de David Leitch

Atonement de Joe Wright

Porco Rosso de Hayao Miyazaki

BlacKKKlansman de Spike Lee

Hokusai de Hajime Hashimoto

MAI

FILMS

It follows de David Robert Mitchell

Midsommar de Ari Aster

Little women de Greta Gerwig

Guardians of the Galaxy. Vol.3 de James Gunn

LIVRES

Le chat noir et autres histoires de Edgar Allan Poe

Déclaration des droits de la femme et du citoyen de Olympe de Gouges

JUIN

LIVRES

Émotions, souffrance, délivrance de Doctor Tuan Anh Tran

Capital: Vientiane de Guez, Pichelin and Troub's

Something to hide. Exploration des messages cachés du rock de Diego Gil et Johann Guyot

FILMS

Air de Ben Affleck

Eating our way to extinction de Kate Winslet

Susan, jour après jour de Stéphane Manchematin et Serge Steyer

Palm Springs de Marx Barbakow

Mike and Dave need wedding dates de Jake Szymanski

Clueless de Amy Heckerling

Spider-Man : Across the Spider-Verse de Joaquim dos Santos, Kemp Powers et Justin K.Thompson

JUILLET

LIVRES

Bathory. La comtesse maudite d'Anne-Perrine Couet

Une rainette en automne (et plus…) de Linnea Sterte

FILMS

Prisoners de Denis Villeneuve

Tarzan de Kevin Lima et Chris Buck

Turning Red de Domee Shi

AOUT

FILMS

Mercenaire de Sacha Wolff

Behind every good man de Nikolai Ursin

The Fast and the Furious de Rob Cohen

Born behind stones de Carina Freire

Lands that Rises and Descends de Moona Pennanen

LIVRE

Des âmes et des saisons : Psycho-écologie de Boris Cyrulnik

SEPTEMBRE

FILMS

Body Samples de Astrid de la Chapelle

Galb'Echaouf d'Abdessamad El Montassir

La ciudad de los fotógrafos de Sebastian Moreno

Happiest Season de Clea DuVall

En communauté de Camille Octobre Laperche

Barbie de Greta Gerwig

Encanto de Byron Howard et Jared Bush

Mon amour, mon ami d'Adriano Valerio

Bottoms d'Emma Seligman

LIVRES

Lettres à un jeune poète de Rainer Maria Rilke

Ich de Martina Weinhart

Poèmes à la nuit de Rainer Maria Rilke

SERIE

Downtown Abbey d'après l'oeuvre de Julian Fellowes

OCTOBRE

FILMS

Downtown Abbey de Michael Engler

Downtown Abbey : Une nouvelle ère de Simon Curtis

Sur le rocher de Sandrine Rouxel

Dangereuse Alliance d'Andrew Fleming

Folie douce, folie dure de Marine Laclotte

The Craft : Les Nouvelles sorcières de Zoe Lister-Jones

Trois mille ans à t'attendre de George Miller

The Crow d'Alex Proyas

Le jardin des planches de Monique Barrière

On vous parle du Chili : Ce que disait Allende de Chris Marker et Miguel Littin

LIVRES

L’œil et l'Esprit de Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Vivian Maier en toute discrétion de Françoise Perron

Des histoires vraies de Sophie Calle

Henri Cartier-Bresson des collections Photo Poche et introduction écrite par Jean Clair

Palm Springs 1960 - Robert Doisneau par Jean-Paul Dubois

Vivian Maier Self-Portraits de John Maloof et Elizabeth Avedon

NOVEMBRE

FILMS

Crimson Peak de Guillermo del Toro

Astérix et Obélix. Mission Cléopâtre d'Alain Chabat

Le Garçon et le Héron d'Hayao Miyazaki

Hamama & Caluna d'Andreas Muggli

Journal de Sébastien Laudenbach

In Paris Parks de Shirley Clarke

LIVRES

Ces hommes qui m'expliquent la vie de Rebecca Solnit

Pulp Poiesis : Écriture(s) en suspens(ion) d'Alizée Pichot

Enfant de la nuit polaire de Julia Nikitina

DECEMBRE

LIVRES

Nouveaux poèmes suivi de Requiem par Rainer Maria Rilke

Pampilles de Florentine Rey

Notes sur la mélodie des choses et autres textes de Rainer Maria Rilke

FILMS

Willy's Wonderland de Kevin Lewis

Family Switch de Joseph McGinty Nichol

Skyscraper de Shirley Clarke

Le monde après nous de Sam Esmail

Sensitive Content de Narges Kalhor

Snow Job : the Media Hyteria of Aids de Barbara Hammer

They Are Lost to Vision Altogether de Tom Kalin

Autour d'eux, la nuit de Vassili Schémann

Blight de John Smith

Tér d'Istvan Szabo

Chicken Run : La Menace nuggets de Sam Fell

SERIE

Lupin de George Kay et François Uzan

[microcosme11]

To my friend, Marie Artru It was through Grenoble that Napoleon reconquered France in 1815. It is natural that I ask my friends in Grenoble for hospitality for this book to the glory of the great Emperor. —Leon Bloy

Leon Bloy was an eccentric, famous writer in the late 19th century. He was a fervent Catholic who idolized Napoleon even though he was excommunicated and kept the Pope in captivity for years.

There is one English translation of this book that I am too cheap to buy.

Here is the beginning of the book in what seems like beautiful French:

L'histoire de Napoléon est certainement plus ignorée de toutes les histoires. Les livres qui prétendent la raconter sont innombrables et les documents de toute nature vont a l'infini. En réalité Napoléon nous est peut être moins connu qu'Alexandre ou Sennachérib. Plus on étudie plus on découvre qu il est l'homme qui nul ne ressembla et c'est tout. Voici gouffre. On sait des dates on sait des victoires ou désastres on sait à peu près ou a beaucoup près, des négociations fameuses qui ne sont, aujourd'hui, que de la poussière. Son nom seul demeure, son prodigieux NOM, et quand il est prononce par le plus pauvre de tous les enfants, c'est à rougir pour n'importe qui d'être un grand homme. Napoléon, c'est la Face de Dieu dans les ténèbres.

---

The story of Napoleon is certainly the most ignored of all stories. The books which claim to tell it are innumerable and the documents of all kinds go on endlessly. In reality Napoleon is perhaps less known to us than Alexander or Sennacherib. The more we study, the more we discover that he is the man whom no one resembled and that's all. An abyss is here. We know dates, we know victories or disasters, we know more or less, or very nearly, famous negotiations which are, today, nothing but dust. His name alone remains, his prodigious NAME, and when it is pronounced by the poorest of all the children, it makes a great man, no matter who he is, blush. Napoleon is the Face of God in the darkness.

The book in French

[famousinuniverse]

Histoire de ma vie

Book by Giacomo Casanova

Histoire de ma vie is both the memoir and autobiography of Giacomo Casanova, a famous 18th-century Italian adventurer. A previous, bowdlerized version was originally known in English as The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova until the original version was published between 1960 and 1962

Originally published: 1822

Author: Giacomo Casanova

Adaptations: Fellini's Casanova (1976), Casanova Variations (2014)

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born in Venice in 1725, back when the city was a hotbed of vice, famed for its gambling, its courtesans and its carnival. There’s a reason it was such an essential stop for well-to-do youths set loose on their Grand Tours, and it didn’t have much to do with St Mark’s Basilica.

Casanova was born in Venice in 1725, when the city was a hotbed of vice and pleasure

Giacomo Casanova Was An Adventurer, Libertine, And Child Molester

Giacomo Casanova's memoirs are celebrated for their thorough depiction of life in 18th-century Europe, but they also detail the escapades of a serial rapist.

Travelling widely, he associated with European royalty, popes and cardinals, along with luminaries such as Voltaire, Goethe, and Mozart.

He spent his last years in the Castle Dux in Bohemia, as a librarian in Count Waldstein’s household; where he also wrote the story of his life.

His autobiography guaranteed Casanova an enduring reputation as a womaniser on a heroic scale and he was not immune to the attraction of his own sex either; but there was  much more to him than that.

Portrait of Giacomo Casanova, via The Times of London; with map of Casanova’s travels

Forced into exile in 1756 from his native Venice, Giacomo Casanova traversed Europe in search of adventure, wealth, and of course, women. Find out more about Casanova’s legendary travels.

Eighteenth century Venice was a city of twisting canals, deceptive masks, seductive music, mysterious fog, cutthroat politics, and dreaded prisons. For a place nicknamed La Serenissima, or serene, the Republic of Venice conjured a fair amount of unease.

 He was born in April 1725 to two actors, Gaetano Casanova and Zanetta Farussi.

Young Casanova: The Youth Of A Libertine

When he was nine years old, little Casanova was sent 20 miles inland to Padua — for the drier air, and to receive an education.

After a flea-bitten start in Padua with a neglectful landlady, Casanova roosted with the schoolmaster-priest Dr. Antonio Maria Gozzi. Thanks to the priest, the boy grew familiar with theology, classical languages, and music. Above all, he became acquainted with Bettina, Gozzi’s pretty teenage sister.

Bettina cared for his hair, brushing out the vestiges of neglect from the Paduan landlady.

“She washed my face and neck and chest,” Casanova later recalled, “and gave me childish caresses which, since I was bound to consider them innocent, chided myself for letting them trouble me all the more….She aroused the most intense emotions in me.”

Casanova’s encounter with Bettina awakened a lifelong pursuit of women in the world’s most notorious womanizer.

“I was born for the sex opposite to mine,” Casanova later reflected. “I have always loved it and done all that I could to make myself loved by it.”

A rake’s progess

Returning to Venice, he took holy orders and lost his virginity – to two sisters of the non-religious kind. The gambling continued and mounting debts eventually landed him in prison. Shortly afterwards, scandal chased him from his position as a cardinal’s scribe. He then joined the army but by age 21, had decided to become a professional gambler – another short-lived career move. Next came violinist.

Returning to Venice from Padua as a young man, Casanova’s course was set when he won patronage from a Venetian nobleman 

Throughout all, he dabbled in dalliances with myriad young women, from serving girls to musicians, to sisters and nieces of friends.

Two such instructive examples were Nanetta and Marta, sisters of his sworn — at the time — love, Angela, all Dr. Gozzi’s relatives.

One night, sharing a bed, he turned to one sister — he wasn’t sure which — and deflowered her. He turned to the other and did the same, losing his own virginity in a lascivious, quasi-incestuous ménage.

Thus the career of this libertine was conceived, born, and nursed in the lagoons of Venice. His sexual travels stretched the whole of Europe, from the alleys of Rome to the Domes of Constantinople, whether on a Pope’s pretext or to satisfy his own wanderlust.

One evening during the carnival of 1745 Casanova and his friend notices a beautiful commoner from St Giobbe who was drinking with her husband and two other friends, and thought it best to organize an incredible hoax. They stood by them as public officials and imposed her husband and friends to follow them to the island of St Giorgio, in the name of the Council of the Ten, leaving the unsuspecting woman alone in Rialto.

Rialto Bridge-Bridge in Venice, Italy

After abandoning those poor fools in St Giorgio, Casanova and his friend returned to Rialto and led the woman to the 'Do Spade' inn where they had dinner and enjoyed themselves with her all night; after which they sent her home.

Cantina Do Spade

Inside Cantina Do Spade, bacaro and restraurant Venice.

A 600-year-old trattoria in Venice where Casanova once dallied with his girlfriends

Now in the capable hands of Martina and Sebastiano and their young staff, Cantina Do Spade is still going strong after 595 years.

A few years back, Giorgio Lanza expanded to full osteria status this venerable little cicchetti bar, which was first documented in 1415 and named "two swords" after a long-forgotten duel between noblemen on a nearby bridge.

Here’s four more minutes of fun! This episode of Quattro Minuti con Casanova tells the story of what happened at the Alle Spade (now called the Cantina Do Spade), a restaurant and former inn where Casanova spent a night during the Carnevale season.

Unforgettable Henriette

On one of these jaunts through Europe, Giacomo Casanova met his match.

While in his 20s, Casanova encountered a lovely young Frenchwoman disguised in men’s clothing and escorted by a Hungarian officer. In his memoir, he called her “Henriette.”

Her seductive mélange of wit and polish belied her masculine weeds — this was clearly a noblewoman on the run. Some have posited her true identity was Anne Adélaïde de Gueidan, daughter of a French aristocrat and government official, though no one knows for sure.

Anne Adélaïde de Gueidan and her sister. Anne is suspected of having been Casanova’s precious “Henriette.”

Casanova followed this fugitive lady, and as she slowly peeled back layers of herself, such as her aptitude for music, he grew more and more in love with her.

“They who do not believe that a woman is capable of making a man equally happy all the twenty-four hours of a day have never known a Henriette,” he wrote. “The joy that flooded my soul was far greater when I conversed with her during the day than when I held her in my arms during the night.”

Casanova’s Hitchcockian love inspired him to turn inwards — it was during this time that he learned French, the language of choice of European courts in the 18th century.

The love between a libertine and a noblewoman was ultimately doomed, but it would become a pattern of Casanova’s to fall for an ultimately unattainable woman in trouble, help her, seduce her, and say his goodbyes.

Ultimately, this is what happened with Henriette. When the star-crossed lovers reached Geneva, she informed Casanova it was time for them to part ways. She left nothing behind but a 1700s-style “Dear John” letter, etching “Tu oblieras aussi Henriette” — “You will forget Henriette too” — onto a windowpane using a diamond ring Casanova had given her.

She was wrong. He’d never forget Henriette.

He did move along, first to Paris, where he became embroiled in the court of King Louis XV at the sumptuous Versailles, setting the king up with one of his cast-off lovers, the Irish-descended Marie-Louise O’Murphy.

But like pigeons circling the piazzas and cross-hatched canals, Casanova always found his way home to Venice.

Marie-Louise O’Murphy, one of Casanova’s cast-off lovers who later became a king’s mistress, captured by French painter François Boucher, c. 1752.

Casanova’s Arrest in Venice

On a sticky night in the summer of 1755, Casanova was arrested for nearly every 18th century vice imaginable: blasphemy, cabalism, gambling, astrology, and Freemasonry.

His sentence included a stay at the dreaded I Piombi prison, high in the attic of the Doge’s Palace, so named for the lead roof that crowned the building. In summer, the roof attracted the hot Venetian sun, transforming the cell into an oven. In winter, it attracted the cold maritime drafts. Year-round, the cells attracted fleas and vermin.

Giacomo Casanova, libertine, dreamed day and night of his liberty.

Escape From The Prison At Doge’s Castle

Illustration from Story of My Flight

Thirty years later in 1787, Casanova wrote Story of My Flight, which was very popular and was reprinted in many languages, and he repeated the tale a little later in his memoirs

From there Casanova continued his wanderings, first to Paris, where he helped establish a lottery to enrich France’s coffers — as well as posing as a magician, opening a silk factory, and having sex with about every woman he encountered.

Casanova, the wolf of women, was on the lam. He drifted to Amsterdam and Dresden, finally finding his way to the Castle of Dux, in the coal country of modern-day Czech Republic where he was employed as a librarian.

From his own account, he had 120 sexual partners and sexual victims — nuns, underage girls, possibly some eunuchs. By his own account, he even impregnated his own daughter, Leonilda, years after he engaged in a threesome with her and her mother

Giacomo Casanova lived from 1725 to 1798. He was born and raised in Venice, later moved to Paris, and lived the last 15 years of his life in Dux – Duchcov in today’s northern Czech Republic. He is famous for his escape from the prison in Venice, but more so for his erotic adventures. His name has become synonymous with Ladykiller, and he’s one of the most famous Italians of all time.

Final years in Bohemia: , he became the librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein, a chamberlain of the emperor, in the Castle of Dux, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic)

The last years of the 18th century. In the Castle in Duchcov in modern-day’s northern Czechia, on the border with Germany, an old man sits at a wooden desk. The room is of considerable size but dark, and the walls are covered with bookshelves from floor to ceiling… It’s the library. The desk is lit by a single candle.

Wrinkled fingers protrude from under the heavy fabric. They’re holding a pen. The man is writing. To his left, full-written pages pile up, and to his right, a stack of white papers are eagerly awaiting the continuation of the story. Despite the crooked shape and the tired posture, the figure is vital and energic. The pen moves quickly and the words fill up the sheets�� A river of stories, tales, and myths.

The man is Giacomo Casanova, and what he is writing is his memoirs… A 3700 pages giant book in 12 volumes… Histoire de ma vie – The story of my life. And this book will make his name live forever. He will be remembered as the greatest lover and the most successful seducer of women of all time. 

But let’s leave him there in the library before his arthritis gets too painful, and the memory fails him, and go back to Venice, where this extraordinary story begins…

When he left Venice, he was almost sixty. His health was still good, but his capacity as a lover and socialite was considerably reduced. He felt old and the world he knew was slowly changing.

He went to Trieste. Then continued to Vienna where he stayed for a while working as a secretary for the Venetian ambassador. He reconnected with some of his old friends, but when the offer came to become a librarian at the Castle of Count Waldstein at Dux, Bohemia, he had kind of run out of options and accepted. His life as a rake was definitely over.

Castle of Dux, Bohemia, via Radio Prague International

In Dux – Duchcov, he witnessed from a distance the French Revolution and the fall of the Venetian Republic. Venice was seized by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797. Casanova died the following year. He was 73 years old.

His world crumbled, and he died on June 4, 1798. 

His last resting place is unknown.

“I have never been able to understand how a father could tenderly love his charming daughter without having slept with her at least once,” he wrote.

A portrait of Casanova in 1788, when he was 63 years old.

Casanova wrote about the purpose of his book:

I expect the friendship, the esteem, and the gratitude of my readers. Their gratitude, if reading my memoirs will have given instruction and pleasure. Their esteem if, doing me justice, they will have found that I have more virtues than faults; and their friendship as soon as they come to find me deserving of it by the frankness and good faith with which I submit myself to their judgment without in any way disguising what I am

Giacomo Casanova was many things in his life, including an inveterate traveler. Best known for the numerous women (and, according to some, a few men) who he seduced in addition to some who beguiled him, he was also a lottery organizer, spy, silk producer, violinist, con man, philosopher, prisoner, duelist, author, playwright, gambler, military officer, Freemason, poet, priest, lawyer, and more. Casanova lived in an era when few people traveled, and when they did, it was usually with a destination in mind or for a single grand tour of the Continent. It wasn’t until several years after his death that the first parts of Casanova’s memoir were published. When the first modern, complete edition of History of My Life was published in 1960, the full extent of his resourceful and cosmopolitan character became known to the general public.

Auguste Leroux’s illustrations for Giacomo Casanova’s Story of My Life.

[ottomanladies]

Is it true that Hayreddin Barbarossa once attempted to kidnap the famously beautiful Giulia Gonzaga with the intention of presenting her to Suleiman?

Apparently, it is true:

But Kheir-ed-Din had in mind a particular prize for the Sultan: something that would shine like a pearl among the simple treasures of his other captives. Twelve miles northwest of Sperlonga lay the ancient town of Fondi, the family home of the Counts of Fondi. The present Countess was none other than the renowned Giulia Gonzaga—descendant of one of Italy’s greatest families, related to the late Pope Martin V, and the young widow of the noble Vespasio Colonna. Giulia Gonzaga’s beauty had been celebrated by painters and poets to such an extent that rumour of it had even reached the Sublime Porte. The unfading amaranth, the flower of love, was the appropriate device on her coat of arms. What more suitable gift, then, could Barbarossa bring the Sultan than the lady herself—beautiful, nobly born, and highly suitable therefore for the Sultan’s harem?

After leaving his troops to sack Sperlonga, Kheir-ed-Din with a raiding force moved swiftly up the road to Fondi. Fortunately for the lady, some advance news of the approach of the Turks must have reached her. Although she was in bed when a messenger stumbled up to the villa, she just had time to leave the house, leap on her horse in her night clothes, and make her escape. In the words of Von Hammer in his History of the Ottoman Empire: “The attendant who accompanied her on this desperate midnight flight she later had condemned to death—saying that he had taken advantage of her distress and had been overbold.” An illustration to the Histoire des Pirates et Corsaires shows Giulia Gonzaga, with a sword in her hand and her breasts bare, riding down a Turkish soldier while the town of Fondi goes up in flames behind her.

Foiled of his prey, Kheir-ed-Din abandoned the town to his troops. Hamilton Currey, with more imagination than documentary evidence, writes: “They sacked Fondi and burned the town; they killed every man on whom they could lay their hands, and carried off the women and girls to the fleet. Kheir-ed-Din was furious with anger and disappointment. ‘What is the value of all this trash?’ he demanded with a thundering oath, of the commander of the unsuccessful raiders, surveying as he spoke the miserable, shivering women and girls. ‘I sent you out to bring back a pearl without price, and you return with these cattle.’ ” — Ernle Bradford, The Sultan's Admiral: Barbarossa, Pirate and Empire-Builder

[thierry-facon]

TROUBLE DU PORTRAIT

Confinement edition

« Ici s’arrête ce que le temps nous a conservé des Histoires de Tite-Live, ou plutôt ce qu’un heureux hasard a dérobé au zèle aveugle du pape saint Grégoire le Grand, qui, dit-on, fit brûler tous les manuscrits de Tite-Live qu’il put découvrir, jugeant cet écrivain dangereux à cause des fréquents prodiges qu’il raconte. »  

(de « Tite-Live: Histoire romaine », Note des traducteurs)

Pope Saint Gregory the Great (sic) had as many of the manuscripts of Titus Livy burned as possible: he thought he was dangerous because of the frequent prodigies he was describing (prodigies attributed to the pagan gods and not his God).

What is in fact funny is that many of the prodigies described by Titus Livy are exactly the same as the later miracles describes by the Church and attributed to JC, saints etc. such as statues weeping tears of blood. 

My portfolio

[achraf4you]

WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT MUHAMMAD [ PART 1 ]

Lamartine, Histoire de la Turquie, Paris 1854, Vol II, pp. 276-77:

“If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad?

The most famous men created arms, laws and empires only. They founded, if anything at all, no more than material powers which often crumbled away before their eyes. This man moved not only armies, legislations, empires, peoples and dynasties, but millions of men in one-third of the then inhabited world; and more than that, he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and souls... the forbearance in victory, his ambition, which was entirely devoted to one idea and in no manner striving for an empire; his endless prayers, his mystic conversations with God, his death and his triumph after death; all these attest not to an imposture but to a firm conviction which gave him the power to restore a dogma. This dogma was twofold, the unit of God and the immateriality of God; the former telling what God is, the latter telling what God is not; the one overthrowing false gods with the sword, the other starting an idea with words.”

“Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, of a cult without images; the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is Muhammad. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?”

Edward Gibbon and Simon Ocklay, History of the Saracen Empire, London, 1870, p. 54:

“It is not the propagation but the permanency of his religion that deserves our wonder, the same pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca and Medina is preserved, after the revolutions of twelve centuries by the Indian, the African and the Turkish proselytes of the Quran...The Mahometans[1] have uniformly withstood the temptation of reducing the object of their faith and devotion to a level with the senses and imagination of man. ‘I believe in One God and Mahomet the Apostle of God’, is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the honors of the prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtue, and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of reason and religion.”

Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammadanism, London 1874, p. 92:

“He was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without Pope’s pretensions, Caesar without the legions of Caesar: without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue; if ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by the right divine, it was Mohammed, for he had all the power without its instruments and without its supports.”

Annie Besant, The Life and Teachings of Muhammad, Madras 1932, p. 4:

“It is impossible for anyone who studies the life and character of the great Prophet of Arabia, who knows how he taught and how he lived, to feel anything but reverence for that mighty Prophet, one of the great messengers of the Supreme. And although in what I put to you I shall say many things which may be familiar to many, yet I myself feel whenever I re-read them, a new way of admiration, a new sense of reverence for that mighty Arabian teacher.”

W. Montgomery, Mohammad at Mecca, Oxford 1953, p. 52:

“His readiness to undergo persecutions for his beliefs, the high moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up to him as leader, and the greatness of his ultimate achievement – all argue his fundamental integrity. To suppose Muhammad an impostor raises more problems than it solves. Moreover, none of the great figures of history is so poorly appreciated in the West as Muhammad.”

James A. Michener, ‘Islam: The Misunderstood Religion’ in Reader’s Digest (American Edition), May 1955, pp. 68-70:

“Muhammad, the inspired man who founded Islam, was born about A.D. 570 into an Arabian tribe that worshipped idols. Orphaned at birth, he was always particularly solicitous of the poor and needy, the widow and the orphan, the slave and the downtrodden. At twenty he was already a successful businessman, and soon became director of camel caravans for a wealthy widow. When he reached twenty-five, his employer, recognizing his merit, proposed marriage. Even though she was fifteen years older, he married her, and as long as she lived, remained a devoted husband.

“Like almost every major prophet before him, Muhammad fought shy of serving as the transmitter of God’s word, sensing his own inadequacy. But the angel commanded ‘Read’. So far as we know, Muhammad was unable to read or write, but he began to dictate those inspired words which would soon revolutionize a large segment of the earth: “There is one God.”

“In all things Muhammad was profoundly practical. When his beloved son Ibrahim died, an eclipse occurred, and rumors of God’s personal condolence quickly arose. Whereupon Muhammad is said to have announced, ‘An eclipse is a phenomenon of nature. It is foolish to attribute such things to the death or birth of a human-being.’

“At Muhammad’s own death an attempt was made to deify him, but the man who was to become his administrative successor killed the hysteria with one of the noblest speeches in religious history: ‘If there are any among you who worshipped Muhammad, he is dead. But if it is God you worshipped, He lives forever.’”

Michael H. Hart, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, New York: Hart Publishing Company, Inc. 1978, p. 33:

“My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world’s most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular level.”

[goreprofonde]

“The argument about the ‘naturalness’ of cannibalism occurs again in the Histoire de Juliette when Juliette and her companions are waylaid by the Russian ogre, Minski. He lives in fabulous wealth in a castle hidden away among the Apennines, not far from the volcanic region of Pietra-Mala. Juliette and the others are invited to dine with him in a room where the tables and chairs are formed by de groupes de filles artistiquement arrangés. Seated at this strange furniture the guests are served plus de vingts entrées ou plats de rôti. Minski then informs his guests that all the dishes served are human flesh. They overcome any repugnance with phrases like ‘il n’est pas plus extraordinaire de manger un homme qu’un poulet’ and tuck in. In true Sadean form, Minski not only eats vast quantities but drinks copiously too; thirty bottles of Burgundy, Champagne with the entremets, Aleatico and Falernian with the dessert. By the end of the meal, more than sixty bottles of wine étaient entrées dans les entrailles de notre anthropophage. Again the meal acts as an overture to the most grotesque scenes as the protagonists hurl themselves into the abyss of depravity. The other cannibal in the Histoire de Juliette is Pope Pius VI. Having performed a black mass - itself a form of meal - on the steps of the altar in St Peter’s, the Pope ‘drunk with lust’ tortures and kills an adolescent boy, before tearing out his heart and eating it.”

- Alex Martin and Jerome Fletcher, The Decadent Cookbook.

[dreamconsumer]

Joan I, Queen of Naples and Louis, Prince of Taranto. Engraving from 1842 in Histoire des popes by Maurice Lachatre.

[eyreguide]

Jane Eyre’s Library

The novel Jane Eyre is full of literary references, allusions, and quotations that enrich the story and showcase how well-read Charlotte (and consequently Jane) was.  This post highlights those literary references and gives a bit of context for each work that might help illuminate their use in the book.  I have done my best to note all instances where Charlotte references a literary work (not including references to historical events) but I probably missed a few.  If you know of any I missed and the particular quote, please let me know!

I thought it would be interesting to start this post with Charlotte’s recommendation of books to read to her friend Ellen Nussey.  Charlotte was eighteen when she wrote this letter.  I can’t say I was as well-read at her age!

“You ask me to recommend some books for your perusal; I will do so in as few words as I can. If you like poetry let it be first rate, Milton, Shakespeare, Thomson, Goldsmith, Pope (if you will, though I don’t admire him), Scott, Byron, Campbell, Wordsworth and Southey.” (letter dated July 4, 1834):

The Bible: I must acknowledge that there are many references to Biblical passages and characters in Jane Eyre but I have decided not to list them here, as it would be a lot of work.  It’ll be something I’ll save for a future post.

Greek and Roman Mythology: Another omission are the references to mythology throughout the novel.  Something else I’ll save for another time.

History of British Birds by Thomas Bewick

“Where the Northern Ocean, vast whirls, Boils round the naked, melancholy isles Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.”

A History of British Birds is a natural history book, published in two volumes. Volume 1, "Land Birds", appeared in 1797. Volume 2, "Water Birds", appeared in 1804.  The quote is from the second volume.

Pamela or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

Referenced in the novel as being one of the stories Bessie tells young Jane. Published 1740, Pamela was is an epistolary novel and was a best-seller in it’s time.  But the story about a young maidservant who endeavors to resist her employer’s advances and ends up marrying him in the end, was a controversial novel at the time.

The History of Henry Earl of Moreland by John Wesley

Also called The Fool of Quality this is another novel that Bessie (probably more appropriately) tells stories from to Jane.  It follows the life of Harry Clinton and his attempts to better his lot.  There are frequent intervals in which the author offers philosophical digressions and commentaries.  The final two-volume set was published in 1781.

History of Rome by Oliver Goldsmith

“I had read Goldsmith’s History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, etc.”

Originally published in 1838, this is a definitive work on the History of Rome.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

”Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ from the library.”

Gulliver's Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships is a prose satire of human nature and the ‘traveller’s tales’ literary subgenre. It was an immediate success when published in 1726.

The History of Rasselas by Samuel Johnson

“I could see the title - it was ‘Rasselas;’ a name that struck me as strange, and consequently attractive.”

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, originally titled The Prince of Abissinia: A Tale, though often abbreviated to Rasselas, is an apologue about happiness, published in 1759.  The story is a philosophical romance with similarities in theme to Voltaire’s Candide.

The Arabian Nights

”That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings”

The Arabian Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales and is also known as One Thousand and One Nights.  The stories have been collected over many centuries but they are all framed by Scheherazade telling these stories to her husband, the King.  In one story Barmecide invites a beggar to an imaginary feast.  Also, Mesrour is the name of an executioner in the book.

The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

“He may be stern; he may be exacting: he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon.”

The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come is a 1678 Christian allegory.  Greatheart and Apollyon are characters in this work.  It is often cited as the first novel written in English.

"La Ligue des Rats" by Jean de la Fontaine

‘Assuming an attitude, she began ‘La Ligue des Rats: fable de la Fontaine.’

This French poem was first published in 1692.  Jean de la Fontaine is famous for his Fables and was one of the most widely read poets of the 17th century.  Read the original tale in French here.

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

‘Yes - “after life’s fitful fever they sleep well,” ‘ I muttered.

“She stood there, by that beech-trunk—a hag like one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres.”

Macbeth was first performed in 1606 and dramatizes the physical and physiological effects of political ambition.  The first line is a reference to Macbeth’s words concerning the dead Duncan.  And the second refers to the three witches in the play.

Bluebeard by Charles Perrault

”I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third story: looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard’s castle.”

“Bluebeard” is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in Histoires ou contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of one wife to avoid the fate of her predecessors. An interesting example of foreshadowing from Charlotte.  Read this fairy tale here.

Francis Bacon’s Essays

‘I see,’ he said, ‘the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain; I must beg of you to come here.’

This is in reference to a proverb that has been traced to Francis Bacon’s essays: “Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law.  The people assembled: Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again: and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abased, but said, “If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.”

It is unclear if this is a true legend of Mohammed or an English invention.  The Essays were published in 1625.

"Fallen is Thy Throne" by Thomas Moore

“Like heath that, in the wilderness, The wild wind whirls away.”

I could not find a publication date for the poem, but the poet Thomas Moore lived 1779-1852.  The poem these lines are from is about the fall of Israel.  Read this poem here.

Duncaid by Alexander Pope

“Yes, just as much good as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a ‘too easy chair’ to take a long walk; and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances, as it would be under his.”

The Dunciad is a landmark mock-heroic narrative poem published in three different versions at different times from 1728 to 1743. The poem celebrates a goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bring decay, imbecility, and tastelessness to the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Paradise Lost by John Milton

This pale crescent was ’The likeness of a Kingly Crown’; what it diademed was ‘the shape which shape had none.’

“Some natural tears she shed’ on being told this, but as I began to look very grave, she consented at last to wipe them.”

Paradise Lost is an epic poem with the first version published in 1667, and the second edition in 1674.  The poem is about the biblical story of the fall of Man with the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden.  The first quote in Jane Eyre concerning Jane’s paintings is a direct echo of the description of Hell in the poem: “If shape it might be call’d that shape had none/ Distinguishable... What seem’d his head/ The likeness of a Kingly Crown had on”

The second quote describes Adele’s disappointment at not joining the party and is inspired by the line about Adam and Eve departing Eden: “Some natural tears they dropp’d”

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

“Rise, Miss Eyre: leave me; “the play is played out.”

Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a romantic comedy, believed to have been written around 1601–1602 as a Twelfth Night’s entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centers on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck.  This is believed to be the source of the above line from Jane Eyre.

The Scornful Lady by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

“She never did so before,” at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail.

“In the servants’ hall two coachmen and three gentlemen’s gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about everywhere.”

The Scornful Lady is a Jacobean era stage play, a comedy first published in 1616, the year of the author Beaumont's death. It was one of the pair's most popular, often revived, and frequently reprinted works. The term abigails, meaning ladies’ maids, comes from a character named Abigail in The Scornful Lady.

King Lear by William Shakespeare

‘There, then - “Off, ye lendings!”

King Lear is a tragedy where King Lear decides to leave nothing to his honest, third daughter who refuses to flatter him like her two sisters have done.  It a story of human suffering and kinship.  The first known performance of the play was in 1606.

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

“It’s a mere rehearsal of Much Ado About Nothing.”

Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy and thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599, as Shakespeare was approaching the middle of his career. In Shakespeare’s time the word “noting” (which sounds close to “nothing”) meant gossip and rumor which is what leads Benedick and Beatrice into falling in love, and Claudio into rejecting Hero at the marriage altar.  Mr. Rochester uses that quote above to indicate to his guests that nothing is wrong.

The Turkish Lady by Thomas Campbell

”It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four: -- ‘Day its fervid fires had wasted,’ and the dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit.”

The poem’s author, Thomas Campbell, lived from 1777-1844) and the poem “The Turkish Lady” is about a captive English knight who is visited by Eastern lady who releases him from captivity and he takes her away as his bride.  A fitting reference given that this quote is used in the chapter where Rochester proposes to Jane.  Read this poem here.

A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare

”Is this my pale, little elf?  Is this my mustard-seed?”

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy written in 1595/96. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, the Queen of the Fairies. Mustardseed is one of the fairies in the play.

King John by William Shakespeare

’I might as well “gild refined gold.”

The Life and Death of King John is believed to have been written in the mid 1590s and dramatizes John, King of England, who ruled 1199-1216.  The quoted phrase is but one of several examples of “wasteful and ridiculous excess” in the play.

"Bonny Wee Thing" by Robert Burns

“Yes, bonny wee thing, I’ll wear you in my bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne.”

A 1791 poem (also written “The Bonie Wee Thing”).  This poem has also been set to music.  Read this poem here.

Lay of the Last Minstrel by Sir Walter Scott

”Looked to river, looked to hill.”

Published in 1805, Lay of the Last Minstrel is a long narrative poem in which an aging minstrel tells of a sixteenth-century border feud between England and Scotland.

The Robbers by Fredrich Schiller

“‘Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.’  Good! good!” she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled.  “There you have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you!  The line is worth a hundred pages of fustian.  ‘Ich wäge die Gedanken in der Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.’

This quotes from the first drama by playwright Schiller, published in 1781.  The story revolves around two aristocratic brothers, Karl and Franz.  Franz is beloved by his father and Karl plots to wrest away his inheritance.

A translation of the lines:

Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht. - One stepped forward to look at how the night was filled with stars.  

Ich wäge die Gedanken in der Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms. - I ventured the thoughts in the shell of my wrath and the works with the weight of my ferocity.

Lalla Rookh by Thomas Moore

To live amidst general regard, though it be but the regard of working people, is like “sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet;” serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray.

Lalla Rookh is an Oriental romance, published in 1817. The title is taken from the name of the heroine, the daughter of the 17th-century Mughal emperor Arangzeb. The work consists of four narrative poems with a connecting tale in prose.

Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field by Sir Walter Scott

“Day set on Norham’s castled steep, And Tweed’s fair river broad and deep,  And Cheviot’s mountains lone; The massive towers, the donjon keep,  In yellow lustre shone”—

Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field is a historical romance in verse of 16th-century Britain, published in 1808. It concludes with the Battle of Flodden in 1513.

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Coleridge

The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and to “burst” with boldness and good-will into “the silent sea” of their souls is often to confer on them the first of obligations.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”  is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–98 and published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads.  Read this poem here.

[detective-pulp]

Portrait : Robert Kirkman

Attention :

Pour la rédaction de cet article, j���ai entrecoupé plusieurs sources. Ainsi, j’ai constaté de nombreuses incohérences dans les informations récoltées, jusque dans les propres dires de Robert Kirkman. Donc, ne soyez pas étonné si vous découvrez d’autres versions de son histoire.

De plus, la longue carrière de Robert Kirkman ne peut être résumé en quelques pages. J’ai dû faire des choix dans le traitement. Voyez cette courte biographie comme une chronologie exhaustive de sa carrière.

En 20 ans de carrière, Robert Kirkman, c’est une poignée de comics cultes. Il est le créateur de The Walking Dead, Invinsible, Outcast, Oblivion Song, Die Die Die et récemment Fire Power.

Robert Kirkman s’est forgé une place de choix dans le paysage du comic book en intégrant Image Comics. De là, il s’est attelé à produire à une allure frénétique des hits ayant marquée une génération de lecteur. Grâce au succès consécutif de ses créations, il s’est bâti un véritable empire, s’immisçant dans toutes les strates du divertissement américain.

Ne vous méprenez pas, Robert Kirkman est un véritable bourreau de travail. Sa réussite est due à une constance créative inégalable. Cela lui a valu le titre de 8epartenaire de la maison d’édition Image, tant il a participé à sa renaissance.

Il s’est imposé comme le maître incontesté du trope de genre. Robert Kirkman a su créer et appliquer une recette infaillible, s’approprier les codes d’un genre en y ajoutant sa patte. Choisissant des sujets en marge de ce que l’industrie mainsteam produit, il aborde des réflexions étonnement universelles.

Aujourd’hui, il est à la tête de Skybound, producteur exécutif de « la marque » télévisuelle The Walking Dead, scénariste d’au moins trois séries en cours et le bougre n’est pas près de s‘arrêter. L’aventure de Robert Kirkman n’en est encore qu’à ses prémices.

Robert Kirkman est né le 30 novembre 1978 à Lexington dans le Kentucky, il grandit à Cynthiana, dans le même État.

Robert Kirkman s’intéresse très tôt à la culture comics. Il commence à en lire au collège, cependant, ses lectures sont limitées. Il se fournit au Walmart le plus proche (à une heure de voiture), mais le magasin vend exclusivement des titres Marvel. Robert Kirkman lit les X-Men et Spider-Man (en 2006, il nomme son fils Peter Parker en référence au héros). Il découvre l’univers de DC Comics et les éditeurs indépendants seulement à l’obtention de son permis de conduire.

Les premiers pas en indé

Au lycée, il se spécialise en Art, mais ses études n’iront pas plus loin. Comme il le dit lui-même, le système scolaire n’était pas fait pour lui. Il enchaîne les petits boulots, notamment dans un comics shop (un peu cliché, n’est-ce pas ?), tout en produisant, en parallèle, son propre comics.

Between the Ropes est un comic book sur le milieu du catch. Les divers personnages, composant l’œuvre, seront réutilisés dans d’autres de ses projets. A la base, Robert Kirkman voulait être dessinateur, une idée qu’il abandonnera rapidement (et pour le mieux).

« Mon rêve était d'écrire et de dessiner mes propres comics, parce que mes livres préférés étaient écrits et dessinés par des artistes qui faisaient tout eux-mêmes. » s’est confié Robert Kirkman au magazine Rolling Stone.

Dans un élan d’orgueil, il a voulu présenter son projet à Diamond Comics (seul et unique distributeur). Il essuie son premier refus et se fait remettre à sa place par le distributeur au motif d’un manque de professionnalisme. Robert Kirkman est revenu sur ses premiers travaux avec beaucoup d’ironie, ce coup d'essai était une "horrible petite merde".

« En grandissant, j'ai réalisé que je n'étais pas assez bon pour dessiner, ce qui m'a d'abord un peu attristé. Puis j'ai compris que l'écriture était plus fun, et moins chronophage. »

A 22 ans, Robert Kirkman démarre sa carrière de scénariste professionnel. Ami d’enfance de Tony Moore, ils auto-éditent Battle Pope, une parodie de super-héros sous le label Funk-O-Tron.

La fin du monde a eu lieu, peu de gens sont montés au paradis, même le Pape a été jugé pour ses actions. Dieu a envoyé Saint-Michel pour guider son armée contre les forces du malin. Saint-Michel échoue et se retrouve captif par Lucifer. Dieu fait donc appel au Pape pour partir à sa rescousse. Il envoie Jésus Christ pour l’assister dans sa quête.

En bref, une œuvre loufoque à l’humour parfois douteux, mais au programme bien chargé. Kirkman admettra plus tard, qu’il voulait attirer l’attention sur lui, quitte à choquer l’opinion publique. La série sera publiée pendant deux ans avant d’être arrêtée. Les ventes du comics couvraient à peine les frais de publication et ne permettaient pas de marge. La situation devenait critique pour les deux artistes à découvert. La publication de ce comics outrancier a eu le mérite de déclencher une réaction en chaîne, permettant aux deux compères d’intégrer la maison d’édition indépendante, Image Comics.

Porte ouverte chez Image Comics

Robert Kirkman s’est exprimé sur la chaîne Comic Tropes sur ses débuts chez Image Comics. Il s’était fait repérer par Erik Larsen (fondateur de la maison d’édition et créateur de Savage Dragon, rien que ça). A la suite d’une interview de l’artiste, Kirkman avait gardé contact avec lui, jusqu’à ce qu’Erik Larsen finisse par lui proposer un projet.

L’année 2003 marque les débuts fracassants de Robert Kirkman dans le paysage indépendant du comic book. Malgré ce que la plupart des fans peuvent croire, le premier vrai succès de Robert Kirkman n’était pas The Walking Dead.

Alors qu’il pitchait une nouvelle série pour Image Comics, Erik Larsen lui proposa de collaborer avec Cory Walker sur un épisode de SuperPatriot, un personnage issu de l'univers de Savage Dragon. Ultra productif, il travaillait également avec E. J. Su pour créer la série Tech Jacket en 6 épisodes.

Mais c’est lors de la deuxième collaboration entre Robert Kirkman et Cory Walker que quelque chose se passa. Ils créèrent ensemble Invinsible en janvier 2003.

Mark Grayson est un lycéen moyen qui travaille dans un fast food pourri, seulement sa famille cache un secret important. Son père Nolan est en fait Omni-Man, une sorte de Superman. Le monde de Mark prend un nouveau tournant le jour où lui aussi développe des super-pouvoirs.

Né dans le premier épisode de Tech Jacket, la série explosa ses ventes lorsque Kirkman intégra un twist culte à l’histoire. Le ton de la série prit un tournant radical jusqu’à sa conclusion. Cory Walker n’arrivait pas à produire dans les deadlines attendues, il a été remplacé par Ryan Ottley au 7e épisode.

Invinsible est le second plus long run de Kirkman. La série s’est achevée en 2018 à son 144ème numéro. Récemment, une série animée a été annoncé pour sortir sur la plateforme Amazone Prime Video. Robert Kirkman s’est engagé à développer du contenu télévisuel pour le service Amazon Prime avec des programmes d’horreur et de science-fiction.

L’avènement de sa carrière

Tony Moore et Robert Kirkman lancèrent plusieurs projets pour Image Comics. Ils imaginèrent ensemble le personnage de Brit (en juillet 2003), mettant en scène un vieil agent spécial surpuissant, tenancier d’un strip-club ou se produit entre autres sa compagne. La série, au même ton décalé que Battle Pope, disparaît pour revenir en 2007. La série est dirigée par Robert Kirkman mais est écrite par Bruce Brown. Douze numéros sortiront et la série s'arrêtera faute de ventes convenables pour un titre estampillé Kirkman.

Tony Moore et lui finissent par rencontrer un succès critique et commercial en octobre de la même année avec The Walking Dead.

Kirkman a expliqué que petit, il se cachait derrière pour regarder les feuilletons d’horreur dont ses parents étaient friands. Un film l’a particulièrement marqué, La Nuit des Morts-Vivants de George Romero. Un groupe de survivants devant repousser les attaques d’une horde de zombies était une vraie inspiration dans l’écriture du comics.

Le film était tombé dans le domaine publique et offrait une introduction parfaite à Robert Kirkman, en écrivant la suite située dans les années ‘60. Mais Jim Valentino, son supérieur, lui suggéra de trouver son propre concept, hésitant à produire une autre histoire de zombie. Avoir son propre concept permettait également à l’auteur en herbe de récolter l’intégralité des royalties dû au droit d’auteur. Pour finir de convaincre son boss encore réticent, Kirkman inventa une histoire d’invasion extraterrestres via un virus transformant l’humanité en zombies. Idée qu’il n’utilisera jamais, avouant plus tard à son supérieur qu’il lui avait menti.

Comme Cory Walker, Tony Moore n’arrivait malheureusement pas à suivre le rythme éditorial de la série et a fini par quitter le navire après six numéros. Tony Moore continua à dessiner les couvertures jusqu’au numéro 24 et les 4 premières couvertures des albums reliés. Le dessinateur a été remplacé dans la foulée par Charlie Adlard qui resta jusqu’à la fin de la série.

Le reste appartient à l’histoire, traduit en 30 langues et disponible dans plus de 60 pays, la série rendit  Kirkman mondialement célèbre. La série s’acheva au numéro 193, à l’été 2019, provoquant un choque chez les fans en mettant brusquement fin à une épopée vieille de seize ans.

En 2008, Robert Kirkman devient partenaire de la maison d’édition Image Comics, sorte de récompense pour service rendu. Il est la seule personne à intégrer le sommet de la hiérarchie de la maison d’édition en venant de l’extérieur.

Le rouleau compresseur Marvel Comics

En plus de toutes les productions pour Image Comics, Robert Kirkman a travaillé chez Marvel de 2004 à 2008. D’abord, engagé pour écrire un revival des années 90’ de la série Sleepwalker. La série a été annulée avant même sa publication. Le contenu du premier épisode a été inclus dans l’Epic Anthology n°1 de 2004.

Robert Kirkman est rapidement devenu un pilier dans la production éditoriale de la Maison des Idées. Il est le créateur de la mini-série Marvel Zombies. Il a écrit pour la série Fantastic Four: Foes, en plus d’un run de deux ans sur Ultimate X-Men et une mini-série Ant-Man, entre autres.

Cependant, toujours lors de la longue interview accordé à Comics Trope, Robert Kirkman revient avec amertume sur son expérience, en considérant avoir été « traité comme une merde ».

Il estime ne pas s’être intégré à la politique éditoriale de Marvel. Il est allé jusqu’à se confronter à l’éditeur en chef Joe Quesada, à cause de différents artistiques. L’auteur n’acceptait pas qu’on apporte des modifications à son travail sans sa permission. Les abus ne s’arrêtaient pas là, puisque le département marketing ne promouvait pas ses créations, estimant qu’elles ne produiraient pas assez d’argent.

Ce manque d’intérêt flagrant pour ses créations a eu pour conséquence une coopération ratée avec Rob Liefeld (créateur de Deadpool, fondateur d’Image Comics et idole de Kirkman). Les deux artistes ont voulu relancer, en 2007, la série Killraven (créée en 1973 par Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway et Neal Adams). La série est morte dans l’œuf, alors que cinq épisodes avaient été dessinés et scénarisés. Rob Liefeld a quitté le projet, dénonçant ce manque de mise en avant et d’implication de la part de Marvel.

La pilule est dure à avaler pour les deux créateurs quand en parallèle, on sait qu’ils travaillaient pour Image Comics, spécialisé dans le creator-owned (les auteurs possèdent leurs créations). Ces événements ont poussé Kirkman à prendre la porte en 2008. Il laissa derrière lui un témoignage accablant dans une vidéo Youtube aujourd’hui indisponible. Il annonçait ne plus jamais vouloir travailler avec les grands studios, tout en ventant les mérites de l’indépendant.

Entrepreneurs de l’extrême

Comme 2003, l’année 2010 fut charnière pour le scénariste. En 2010, The Walking Dead remporte le très prestigieux Eisner Award de la meilleure série à suivre. Au début de l'année, la chaîne câblée AMC annoncait vouloir adapter la série à la télévision. Robert Kirkman fut nommé producteur exécutif et intègra la "writers' room" aux côtés du réalisateur Frank Darabont (The Mist, Les Évadés, La Ligne verte). Il dû quitter son Kentucky natal pour s'installer à Los Angeles. Le premier épisode est sorti le 31 octobre, avec une audience de 5 millions de téléspectateur. En 2015, la série « compagnon », Fear The Walking Dead, dévoilant ce qui s’est passé avant l’arrivée du virus, fut diffusée. L’épisode pilote rassembla plus de 10 million de téléspectateurs. Un autre spinoff est prévu pour le 4 octobre 2020, nommé World Beyond, la série sera en deux saisons.

Il a aussi été le producteur exécutif d’un « drame pre-apocalyptique » Coréen appelé Five Year et le documentaire Secret History of Comics pour la chaîne AMC.

Robert Kirkman créa, en 2010, son propre label Image Comics, nommé Skybound. La société n’est pas une simple maison d’édition, mais bien une entreprise à part entière. En tant que Président, Robert Kirkman prit son rôle très à cœur et développa toutes sortes de contenu du jeu vidéos, à la télévision en passant par le cinéma. Avec son associé, le producteur David Alpert, ils mirent un point d’honneur à défendre la propriété intellectuelle et le contrôle créatif de leurs employés.

Depuis, il a produit en collaboration avec le studio Cinemax deux saisons d’Outcast (entre 2016 et 2018), adaptation de son comics éponyme créé en 2014 et qui s’achève en octobre 2020. La série narre la vie de Kyle Barnes, possédé par une entité démoniaque depuis sa tendre enfance.

Le premier film produit par Skybound était Air, un thriller S-F, avec Norman Reedus (Daryl Dixon dans The Walking Dead) et Djimon Hounsou (Korath dans Les Gardiens de la Galaxie) au casting

En 2020, il remporte un Prix d'honneur au festival d'Angoulême. Une exposition lui a été consacrée en tant qu’invité. Avec une carrière menée tambour battant, Robert Kirkman n’a plus rien à prouver au monde.

[madamedupigeonsalon]

Politique : Faut il arrêter d’être condescendent envers l’Afrique?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie l’auteur nigeriane de la moitié d’un soleil ou autour de ton cou, le dit très bien, il faut arrêter l’hypocrisie a propos de la question de l’Afrique. En effet, plus de 14 pays en Afrique sont sous l’emprise de la Banque de France. Oui, le FCFest une monnaie qui est sous contrôle de la France. Alors quand on a de l’immigration en France il y a un soucis... il faut se poser la question. Pourquoi on reproche ça aux pays africains ? C’est le bilan honteux qu’on voit ! 

On regarde de haut l’Afrique mais l’Afrique est un continent sur lequel il faut compter de plus en plus. 1 personne sur 4 vivra en Afrique en 2050 ! C’est un continent qui va progresser et des personnes du monde entier achèterons une deuxième maison sur le continent. 

C’est vrai que certains dirigeants agissent comme des papes ( conservateurs et religieux ) mais se comportent comme des didacteurs ( comme au Cameroune par exemple Paul Biya passe plus son temps à Genève que dans son pays). C’est médiocre et triste mais on nous dira “N’aie pas peur le peuple”... on abuse du peuple mais c’est à lui qu’on dira de se calmer. 

L’Afrique est un continent qui a longtemps été pillé et exploité par l’impérialisme occidentaux. Pour que l’Afrique revient au devant de la scène cela voudra signifier qu’il faut se débarrasser du néocolonialisme présent aujourd’hui qui suit les pas de la colonisation “les premiers colons sont les premiers capitalistes”. Cela veut dire qu’on doit prendre possession du sol par l’éducation et la science mais aussi la technologie. 

On est condescendent vers l’Afrique car on pense que l’africain est un sous homme. Il faut changer cette idée car l’homme ne peut pas se passer de son histoire. Donc pour changer le monde il faut changer d’abord chez soi...on dit souvent refuser le débat c’est débattre inconsciemment...donc refuser de parler de l’Afrique c’est parler de l’Afrique. Donc on peut dénoncer l’identité ou la culture africaine mais on ne peut pas confondre ce qui est l’emblème de l’ancienne Egypte ou des génies africains comme Senghor ou Cheikh Anta Diop. A méditer...

Politics : Should we stop being condescending towards Africa?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian author of half a sun or around your neck, says it very well, we must stop hypocrisy about the question of Africa. In fact, more than 14 countries in Africa are under the control of the Banque de France. Yes, the FCF is a currency that is under the control of France. So when you have immigration to France there is a problem ... you have to ask yourself the question. Why do we blame this on African countries? It’s a shameful record!

We look down on Africa but Africa is a continent on which we must rely more and more. 1 in 4 people will live in Africa in 2050! It’s a continent that is going to progress and people from all over the world will buy a second home on the continent.

It is true that certain leaders act like popes (conservative and religious) but behave like didactors (as in Cameroune for example Paul Biya spends his time in Geneva than in his country). It’s mediocre and sad but we’ll be told “Don’t be afraid of the people” ... we are abusing the people but it’s him they’ll be told to calm down.

Africa is a continent that has long been plundered and exploited by Western imperialism. For Africa to come back to the forefront this will mean that we must get rid of the neocolonialism present today that follows in the footsteps of colonization "the first settlers are the first capitalists". This means that we must take possession of the soil through education and science but also technology.

We are condescending towards Africa because we think that the African is an under man. We have to change this idea because man cannot do without his story. So to change the world you have to change first at home ... we often say to refuse debate is to debate unconsciously ... therefore to refuse to talk about Africa is to talk about Africa. So we can denounce African identity or culture but we cannot confuse what is the emblem of ancient Egypt or African geniuses like Senghor or Cheikh Anta Diop. To meditate...

Kevin Ngirimcuti

[napoleondidthat]

The Grand Master of Ceremonies, Louis-Philippe de Ségur, Comte of the Empire

THE GRAND MASTER OF CEREMONIES Louis-Philippe de Ségur, Comte of the Empire

The comte Louis-Philippe de Ségur was Grand Master of the Ceremonies of the Imperial Household from 1804 until the fall in 1815. This Grand Officer "performs two different kinds of functions: the ceremonies and the introduction of the Ambassadors...He writes and signs the protocol [and] dictates the costumes in which those invited must appear...The day of the ceremony, [he] makes sure that all the parts of the protocol are properly adhered to; during the ceremony, he stands in front, close to H.M." The Grand Master gives orders to the masters of Ceremonies, with the help of the assistants of Ceremonies and heralds, and he also relies on a dessinateur of Ceremonies (a position entrusted to the painter Jean-Baptiste Isabey, charged with giving shape to and decorating ceremonial spaces and the costumes) and a coach of Ceremonies.

Ségur was the son of Philippe Henri, marquis de Ségur, marshal of France and minister of war under Louis XVI. From the aristocracy of the Ancien Régime, he was well acquainted with the customs of the court at Versailles. It would be wrong, however, to see him only as an old courtier, concerned soley with preserving the conventions and details of etiquette from one regime to the next. Indeed,  his fascinating career represents all of the rich intellectual and liberal identity of nobles in that generation of Frenchmen, born under Louis XV only to find themselves facing the civic and social challenges of the late eighteenth century. His presence at Napoleon's side takes on a particular importance.

A Freemason, in his youth he supported the independence of the United States and fought on American soil, returning in 1783 with the rank of colonel of dragoons. He was then sent by Louis XVI as ambassador to Russia (1784-89), where he earned the friendship of Catherine the Great. A believer in the Revolution, he was appointed ambassador to the Holy See,  but the pope refused him entry into the Papal States. He received the same treatment by the king of Prussia, to whom a discredited France had sent him in January 1792. Returning to France, he retired to his estates in Chatenay, where he prudently remained during the most dangerous years of the Revolution. Bonaparte's rise to power won him over. A member of the Legislative Corps in 1801, and then a member of the Council of State, he was appointed Grand Master of Ceremonies with the advent of the Empire. Created a comte of the Empire in 1808, he joined the Senate in 1813. Ségur sided with Louis XVIII in 1814, and then went back to Napoleon during the Hundred Days, even offering to follow him into exile after Waterloo. In the end, he stayed in France. He fell from grace during the early years of the Restoration, but regained his seat in the Senate in 1819. He died in 1830, a few weeks after the liberal revolution to the July Monarchy.

Excited by the new ideas of his age, Ségur was a born historian who loved philosophy and literature and frequented the salons of Mme Du Deffand and Mme Geoffrin, meeting La Hapre, Marmontel and Voltaire. He produced numerous works of history and political science, as well as plays, short stories and songs, and his admirable Mémories, on the first part of his life up to the Revolution, all of which are still extant. This dense text reveals the depth of his thinking and his strong belief in the Enlightenment. He was elected to the Académie francaise in 1803. His literary output was interrupted under the Empire, but he took it up again under the Restoration, notably publishing Abrégé de l'histoire universelle in forty four volumes (1817), a Histoire de France in nine volumes (1824) and Histoire des Juifs (1827). As an enlightened historian, he was admirably suited to carry out the functions of a Grand Master of Ceremonies, for which historical research was often necessary. In order to reconstitute a coherent and relevant etiquette for the court, he delved into the archives of the royal palace and memories of the courts of Europe.

The half-length portrait of Ségur from the Chateau de Versailles is a work that requires careful study.  It is important to note that the original commissioned by the Imperial Household for the Gallery of Grand Officers, was in fact a full-length portrait. Is this a copy, a replica or actually the original cut down? The original was commissioned from Marie-Guillemine Benoist and executed during the year 1806. It was in the Tuileries, hanging in the Gallery of Diana in August 1807, and then at Compiegne, in the Salon of Ushers in May 1808. On February 13, 1814, it was sent to the Louvre, like the other paintings. Was it then, under the Restoration, given to the sitter's family, as was the case with most of the other portraits of the Grand Officers? This is probable, and would support the hypothesis that it was this canvas, as it has been kept at Versailles since 1924, given by the Ségur family.

The Grand Master is standing in front of a heavy curtain that offers a narrow glimpse of a distant horizon. He appears to be holding his ceremonial staff, which tempts us to compare the composition to the portrait of Duroc, Grand Marshal of the Palace, by Gros.

It is no great surprise that it was this portrait-of himself-that Ségur had copied by Isabey, his artist of Ceremonies, to represent the figure of a Grand Officer of the Household in the Livre du Sacre, a publication he authored. In 1810, Goubaud, in his turn, made use of it to depict Ségur carrying out his duties in Napoleon Recieving the Delegation from the Roman Senate in the Throne Room of the Tuileries.

Napoleon, The Imperial Household, Sylvain Cordier, Montreal Museum of the Arts, page 48

Ségur Portrait: Artist Unknown, possible Benoist.

Goubaud’s, Napoleon Receiving the Delegation of the Roman Senate in the Throne Room at the Tuileries

[alwaysfirst]

Bollywood celebs extend condolences on demise of French film director Jean-Luc Godard

Sep 14, 2022 13:53 IST New Delhi , September 14 (AF): French-Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard, the godfather of France's New Wave cinema, passed away at the age of 91, on Tuesday. Bollywood celebs including Farhan Akhtar and Ranveer Singh extended their condolences on social media. Filmmaker-actor Farhan Akhtar took to his Instagram stories and dropped a black and white picture of Jean-Luc Godard along with a caption.

He wrote, "A giant of world cinema left us today, RIP Jean-Luc Godard." In the picture, the director was seen dressed in a suit. He was seen wearing pair of shades and a cigar in his mouth. Actor Ranveer Singh also shared a picture.

News of his death was confirmed by French media on Tuesday morning. According to Fox News, Godard is regarded as a pivotal figure in the French New Wave movement. The movement, which differed from previous film styles, emphasised realism in storytelling while incorporating experimentation with editing techniques. Godard's debut film, 'A bout de souffle (Breathless)' established him as one of the world's most vital and provocative directors, both in Europe and beyond. Jean-Paul Belmondo rose to fame thanks to his films. When Pope John Paul II condemned Godard's controversial modern nativity play "Hail Mary" in 1985, it made headlines. In 1963, Godard collaborated with iconic French actress Brigitte Bardot on the film Le Mepris (Contempt). According to Variety, Godard's most ambitious project was his multipart video project "Histoire(s) du Cinema" (1988-1998), an iconoclastic and highly personal examination of the concept of cinema and its relationship to the twentieth century. His most recent films, "In Praise of Love" (2001) and "Notre musique" (2004), were critically acclaimed at the Cannes Film Festival. When his "Film Socialisme" screened in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2010, it elicited a more amused reaction; the highly experimental work ended with a title card reading "No Comment," a statement reflected in Godard's conspicuous absence from the festival. Godard, however, experienced a significant career resurgence at Cannes in 2014 with "Goodbye to Language," in which he experimented with the 3D format while providing "a characteristically vigorous, playful, mordant commentary on everything from the state of movies to the state of the world," as described by Variety's Scott Foundas. It won the festival's jury prize (shared with Xavier Dolan's "Mommy") and later won the award for best film of the Godard and his partner, Swiss director Anne-Marie Mieville, collaborated closely for at least the last 30 years of his life. Godard married Anna Karina, an actor who appeared in several of his films, in 1961. He married Anne Wiazemensky in 1965, following the divorce of the couple. Numerous filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, and Quentin Tarantino, were influenced by the legendary director. (AF) Read the full article

[historyholidays]

The volume on the Middle Ages

The volume on the Middle Ages is indeed one of those permanent and synthetic works which have been almost driven out of modern libraries by the growth of special studies, but it belongs to that order of general histories of which we are now so greatly in need. For the consolidatiori of States in Italy we must resort to Sismondi’s Italian Republics, of which there is a small English abridgment; for that of France to Michelet; for Spain to Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella; and for England to Hallam’s Constitutional History of England; this, though fifty years have much impaired its value, still holds the field by its judicial balance of mind. For later authorities we must turn to the general Histories of England of J. R. Green and of Dr. F. Bright. But .we can point to no work save that of Robertson which in one general view will give us the history of Europe in the sixteenth century.

II.For the Renascence of Learning and Art, we have no better exponents than Burckhardt, Michelet, and Sy- monds. The German is full of learning and sound judgment; the Frenchman has a single volume of wonderful brilliancy and passion; the Englishman has produced a long series of works charged with learning and almost overloaded with ingenious criticism and superabundant illustration. But the Renascence is best studied in the biographies of its leaders, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Columbus, Bruno, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Rabelais, Erasmus, Ariosto, and Calderon—in the great paintings, buildings, inventions, and poems — in such books as those of Cellini, More, Montaigne, and Cervantes. A movement so subtle, so diffused, so complex can have no history. But its spirit has been caught and embalmed by Michelet in some hundred pages of almost continuous epigram and poetry. A sort of catalogue raisonnte presenting its versatile and ingenious force may be best collected from a study of Hallam’s great work— The Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries private turkey tours.

III. For the Reformation we rely on Ranke’s History of the Popes, especially for Germany. For England the history has been adequately told both by Green and by Froude; for Holland by Motley; for France by Michelet. It is here of course that the most violent partisanship comes in to disturb the tranquil judgment-seat of history. History becomes controversy rather than record. The Catholic will consult the splendid polemical invective of Bossuet — The Variations of Protestantism. The Protestant will rely on the vehement impeachment of Merle D’Aubigne.

Peace of Westphalia to the close of the Seven Years

IV. The dynastic, territorial, and colonial struggles from the Peace of Westphalia to the close of the Seven Years’ War have been well summarised by Heeren in his Political System, by Michelet in his summary of Modern History, and by Duruy in his Histoire des Temps Moderues. There is no book which can be said to enter into literature and gives an adequate picture of this period, unless it be Voltaire’s Age of Louis xiv. and Louis xv. Lord Stanhope’s Histories of Queen Anne and of England, Carlyle’s Frederick the Great, H. Martin’s Histoire de France, Lecky’s excellent History of England in the Eighteenth Century, are standard works for this period; but they are all far too voluminous, too special, and diffuse for the purposes of the general reader, nor do they enter into the scheme of the present essay.

V. Nor again is it possible to put into the hands of the general reader of English any single work which will give an adequate conception of the successive struggles for freedom in Holland, England, and America. They must be read in the separate histories, of which there are some that are excellent, though all of a formidable length and bulk. The nine volumes which Motley devoted in his three works on the struggle in Holland, the three works of Guizot on the English Revolution and its leaders, the standard work of Bancroft on the United States, form a series beyond the resources of the mere general reader as distinct from the student.