Debauve & Gallais

 A  200-year-old French chocolatier. Chocolate was once seen as medicinal. From Atlas Obscura:

WHEN SULPICE DEBAUVE STARTED SELLING chocolate in 18th century Paris, he touted the exotic import as medicinal. Debauve was a trained pharmacist, and, not incidentally, a “lumière,” one of Voltaire’s enlightened who saw science as the future. He used the utile dulci (useful sweet) to help the French Queen, Marie-Antoinette, cure her headaches.

In the process he revolutionized French chocolate. At the time, cacao was largely consumed as a beverage, one which Marie Antoinette had been drinking since her childhood in Vienna. Debauve mixed drinking chocolate with sweet almond milk and the bitter headache powder he concocted for her, then molded the mixture into disks and allowed it to solidify. The queen named these chocolates Pistoles after their resemblance to gold coins. (Read more.)

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The Marxist Roots of DEI

 Session 1: Equity | James Lindsay

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A Room of Her Own

 The Tuileries, which was the part of the Louvre where Marie-Antoinette lived, was destroyed in the 1870's. From Euronews:

France’s Louvre could move the Mona Lisa to her own basement room. Here’s why. She’s the world’s most famous and most visited work of art, with up to ten million admirers per year. Her enigmatic smile has been idolised by art lovers, and even targeted by thieves, soup-loving protesters, and even a man disguised as an elderly woman in a wheelchair who threw cake in her face. But now, a new project may prove the last queen of France Marie Antoinette right, as she found her “too small, too dark.”

Leonardo da Vinci’s painting "Mona Lisa" is about to be moved, in order to give La Gioconda more space. And appease visitors. Indeed, with Louvre visitors getting an average of 50 seconds to admire the "Mona Lisa", which is displayed behind a barrier and bullet-proof glass in the centre of the Salle des Etats (glass installed in the 1950s to protect it after an acid attack), many have dubbed it the world's most disappointing masterpiece. Understandable really, as the huge crowds and limited space in the gallery means it’s difficult to see Mona Lisa. (Read more.)

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The Real Jeanne du Barry

 From Tatler:

Born Jeanne Becú in 1743, the identity of du Barry’s father is lost to history. There are rumours that he was a monk, rather ironically known as Frére Ange – Brother Angel. Her mother Anne was a seamstress, who raised her daughter in the home of her own aristocratic lover, Monsieur Billiard-Dumonceaux. After the family was ousted from the Dumonceaux household, Jeanne worked on the streets of Paris, selling trinkets to passers-by to raise money for her family.

And so she would have remained, were it not for her unparalleled beauty. Known for her blonde ringlets and almond-shaped eyes, Jeanne’s face launched her into the courtesan intrigues of the French aristocracy. ‘Madame du Barry was the incarnation of beauty,’ historian Evelyne Lever told the documentary Secretes d’Histoire three years ago, ‘she was a veritable goddess.’ After being fired from her role caring for an elderly widow – whose two sons reportedly fell in love with the young Jeanne – she found herself preforming sex work in the gambling dens of Paris. It was here that she met Jean-Baptiste du Barry, a nobleman whose character is probably best summarised by his unfortunate nickname: Le Roué, or ‘The Old Lech’. (Read more.)

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Why the Centrists Changed Their Trans Tune

 From Mary Harrington at UnHerd:

So, now the winds have changed, we find Allsopp also back-pedalling. It was never true, she asserts, that there was “no debate” on the issue of medical experiments on gender-confused children. Puberty blockers, Kirstie informs us, were bad all along. But we could always talk about it: “it is, and always has been possible to debate these things and those saying there was no debate are wrong”. All the people (mostly women) unfairly fired or bullied out of jobs, all the grannies punched in Hyde Park by men with special identities, the no-platforming, the intimidation, the threats, and the censorship — that wasn’t actually a thing.

Allsopp is the clearest indicator yet that at least where child gender vivisection is concerned, at least some of the grandes dames of Truth Universally Acknowledged may have paused broadcasting a TUA in order to convince themselves, in the light of a new emerging groupthink, that the new consensus is what they believed all along. And because moral consensus precedes its “expert” rationalisation, so we also find that those who purport to stand for science and reason are also curiously quiet.

On Sunday, for example, Sex Matters founder Maya Forstater (herself notoriously a victim of the “No Debate” consensus Kirstie Allsopp says never existed) called on science communicator and Humanists UK president Adam Rutherford to defend systematic scientific reviews, against the trans activists spreading misinformation about the Cass Review. Did he come out swinging for science and reason over gender ideology? Reader, he flunked it: “It’s not something I know much about.” (Read more.)

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The Despair of the Philosophes

 From Catholic Exchange:

The period known as the Enlightenment (c. 1685-1815) was a critical moment in the history of Christendom, as it saw the emergence of a system of thought hostile to Christianity and the rise of systematic atheism. Many thinkers of the Enlightenment considered revealed religion offensive to reason, for revealed religion insisted that we give our assent on faith, which was considered antithetical to human reason. Consider the thought of Denis Diderot: Diderot (1713-1784) was a French writer and philosopher, best known as the editor of the monumental Encyclopédie, the world’s first general encyclopedia. Diderot began his life as a Roman Catholic, embraced Deism, and later devolved to full-blown atheism. In Diderot’s 1770 tract Thoughts on Religion, we see faith and reason posited as irreconcilable antagonists:

To admit any conformity between the reason of man and the eternal reason of God, and to pretend that God demands the sacrifice of human reason, is to maintain that God wills one thing and demands the other thing at the same time…If reason is a gift from heaven, and the same thing can be said of faith, then heaven has given us two presents not only incompatible, but in direct contradiction with each other. In order to solve this difficulty, we are compelled to say either that faith is a chimera or that reason is useless.1

Diderot considered the faith the Church asks of believers tantamount to an extinction of reason. We see this in his parable of the candle: “Bewildered in an immense forest during the night, and having only one small torch for my guide, a stranger approaches and thus addresses me: ‘Friend, blow out your light if you would be sure of the right path.’ This stranger is the priest.”2 (Read more.)

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Royal Portrait Exhibition at Buckingham Palace

 

From The Court Jeweller:

In May, Buckingham Palace will open the doors of The King’s Gallery to visitors for their annual summer exhibition. This year’s Royal Collection display, Royal Portraits: A Century of Photography, includes some truly iconic royal images. Curator Alessandro Nasini explains, “This is the first exhibition from the Royal Collection entirely dedicated to modern portrait photography, an artistic medium that has helped to shape how the world views the British monarchy. We are excited for visitors to discover the beauty and materiality of these original prints, many on display for the first time, and we hope they will also enjoy a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the creative process behind some of these iconic royal images.”

The exhibition features work from some of the great royal portrait photographers of the 20th century, including Cecil Beaton, Dorothy Wilding, and (former royal spouse) Lord Snowdon. Delightfully, the vintage prints are also accompanied by some fascinating ephemera–unreleased proof sheets, handwritten annotations, and even correspondence with members of the royal family. You’ll recognize some of Beaton’s work from his famous 1939 sitting with Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother , shown on the proofs above. (Read more.)

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The Underground Government: Volunteer Committees and Commissions In Small Towns

 From Jan Greenhawk at The Easton Gazette:

If you know anything about living in a small town, you know about volunteers, committees and commissions. Most small towns don't have the population or the money to run all town operations with paid employees, so volunteers often fill the gap. These people are mostly wonderful people who want to give back to the community. Many are retirees or stay at home spouses. Sadly, sometimes they work to get favors from town government.

Having been what someone once called a "professional volunteer" throughout my life, I know how important volunteers are. I was a volunteer coach, a volunteer state, regional and national chairman for a sports organization, and a volunteer for other projects. If you think about it, most of what happens in our country would not happen without volunteers.

So, when I started to look into volunteers in some of our local communities, I looked beyond charitable organizations and instead looked at what I call "government volunteers." In other words, these are people who help in quasi-official government committees and commissions. Many are sworn in to office by local officials. (Read more.)

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