What are you reading now?

[Enrique]

The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, by M.Joseph Bedier. The closest thing to Gottfried von Strassburg's work I could find.

[Megan]

I would never have the guts to read a biography of Marie Antoinette. I would be too deeply moved by the indignities committed against her person (a that of her husband, who was a good man) by those scoundrels that played to be God. The invasion of the Tuileries by the mob, the removal from her son and the days at the Conciergerie must have been Hell in Earth for her. And then the last humiliation, the way to the guillotine, before the populace, stripped of all her finery. Who can see the sketch made by David, the Revolution painter, without shedding tears? I understand she never lost hope she would eventually be freed.

Undoubdetly, Louis made a number of blunders, but perhaps the biggest was when the mob was on the point of total anarchy and needed a firm hand to restrain them, he refused point blank to allow the Swiss Guard to open fire to protect themselves and the royal family and which resulted in these animals tearing the guard limb from limb. George III, lamented that ''the whole of Europe was waiting for the King of France to act like a man.''
HIs good nature was infact used to bring about the destruction of the Ancien Regime.
The notion that has been carefully promoted by communists that the king and queen did not alleviate the condition of the poor is refuted by the public works of that were carried out at royal expense to feed and clothe the poor, esecially in Paris.
Robespierre , St. Just, Danton and the rest, were simply inhuman dogs, and you have to wonder how these blood thirsty fanatics were regarded as heroes and still are by the Left.
Mao Tse-tung was once asked, what was the effect of the French Revolution. He replied, he would let the person know when the French Revolution had ceased to have an effect, ie, its effect was still continuing.
Exactly, and it explains many of the horrors of the New World Order that is growing up all around us.

.

[AeolianHarp]

People were starving and living in filth and horror- is it any wonder they snapped? A few words to the super priviliged- share the wealth or this is what can happen. Desparate people resort to desparate measures. It is heading this way again. When lives are so full of poverty and misery they have nothing left to lose.

[Megan]

Louis was on the way to creating some kind of constitutional monarchy in France. He came to believe that reforms were needed to the system of Estates, that is of the nobility, the church etc. But that wasn't enough for the madmen that took control. Reform is never enough for the madmen and women. They want revolution. They couldn't give a farthing for the number of dead and wading through a sea of blood. A very similar thing happened at the time of the Russian Revolution, when the moderates - the Mensheviks, were on the road to reforming Czarism, but were overwhelmed by Lenin and all the other nutcases in the Bolsheviks.
The simple historical fact is, that revolutions produce vastly greater mysery and death than the failings of the system they target. And to think that the poor in some way benefit or in some way justify the actions of the revolutionaries would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
Louis should have ordered the Swiss Guard to open fire and the whole course of world history would have changed - for the better.

[Enrique]

Well said.

[AeolianHarp]

I never said I condone the violence, just that when people have been starving and living filthy hopeless lives they act out of desperation.

[Peter]

Louis should have ordered the Swiss Guard to open fire and the whole course of world history would have changed - for the better.

I'm not so sure - one of the great 'what ifs?' - I think the revolution would have happened anyway sooner or later, after all even after the reinstatement of the monarchy France suffered further revolutions. I've always thought that had Napoleon not been defeated we wouldn't have had 2 world wars, (the Congress of Vienna was a disaster) but again who knows?

[glindhot]

Sinclair Lewis: Elmer Gantry
Just finished it and declare it's my favorite of those I read this year.

[Enrique]

I saw the picture with Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry.

Carl B. Boyer: A History of Mathematics, 2003.

[AeolianHarp]

I've always thought that had Napoleon not been defeated we wouldn't have had 2 world wars, (the Congress of Vienna was a disaster) but again who knows?

What makes you think that Peter?

[Peter]

What makes you think that Peter?

Well none of the subsequent events could have happened in the way they did, German unification, Franco-Prussian war and of course the treaties and alliances that dragged nations into WWI. The Congress of Vienna carved up Europe in a way that lead to WWI. Queen Victoria's grandchildren would have only be able to sling insults at each other instead of dragging the world into two catastrophic wars. We probably would have had a French Empire that dominated Europe and my French would be far better than it is now!

[AeolianHarp]

Well you know more about than I do Peter!

[Enrique]

Well none of the subsequent events could have happened in the way they did, German unification, Franco-Prussian war and of course the treaties and alliances that dragged nations into WWI. The Congress of Vienna carved up Europe in a way that lead to WWI. Queen Victoria's grandchildren would have only be able to sling insults at each other instead of dragging the world into two catastrophic wars. We probably would have had a French Empire that dominated Europe and my French would be far better than it is now!

And even maybe England had adopted the metric system!

[Megan]

The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer, The Garden of Eden in Hell.

A Brilliant heartwarming story of the most terrible adversity it is possible to imagine.
For this deals with one of the darkest episodes in recent history, the rise of the Nazi's and the effects of their genocidal policies. This wonderful lady, who has now reached the grand old age of 108, grew up what became absorbed into the Nazi empire that is Prague.
She and her son survived the extermintation camps and describes the horrors and sufferings that Jewish people and others went through.
I found it quite chilling to read the depths of human evil by the SS. there were some passages in the book that made me pause with emotion at the atrocities committed on these innocent people, I had to put book down briefly in order for it to sink in. There have been many accounts of this period, but I did find this particularly moving and thought provoking.
I especially enjoyed Alice Herz knowledgable interpretations of Chopin's Etudes and her career as a concert pianist.

[Peter]

Well you know more about than I do Peter!

I wouldn't like to say so - it can only ever be speculation, such is the great mystery of life!