Category Archives: The Human Condition

Jansenism: a Church Divided

24 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Religion, The Human Condition

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Michelangelo‘s painting of the sin of Adam and Eve from the Sistine Chapel ceiling (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Pascal studying the cycloid, by Augustin Pajou, 1785, Louvre (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jansenists and Jesuits

We will not look at Pascal’s Provincial Letters (1656-1657) yet, as we should examine the context in which Blaise Pascal attacked the Jesuits. There is a history to the debate at the center of which is free will. Jansenists believed in predestination, which was the negation of free will and which would be condemned under pain of excommunication. As for the Jesuits of 17th-century France, their practice of casuistry permitted the commission of horrendous sins, including homicide (Chapters 13, 14). Eventually, both Jansenism and casuistry would be considered unacceptable. However, the degree of moral irresponsibility casuistry allowed was so offensive that Pascal attempted to rescue his friends at Port-Royal-des-Champs, Jansenists, by attacking casuistry vehemently, but with finesse.

Casuistry and Machiavellianism

Luis de Molina
Protestantism
Machiavellianism
ruthlessness of families

Casuistry was developed by Spanish Jesuit Luis de Molina (1535-1600), the author of Divine Grace and Human Liberty (1588) and De liberi arbitrii (shortened title), works defending free will. Casuistry made it possible to sin without sinning. One ‘method’ was direction d’intention. If one sinned but had good intentions, one had not sinned. Direction d’intention was Machiavellian, because the end justified the means. This is what Niccoló Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) teaches The Prince (Il Principe), 1532. (See Niccoló Machiavelli, Wikipedia.)

In an earlier post, I noted that Machiavelli lived in a jungle: the Medici family, whose members could have perished had it not been for their ruthlessness. (See House of Medici, Wikipedia). They ruled Florence when Italy was a group of city-states headed by powerful families: the House of Medici, the Gonzaga, the Este, the Sforza, etc. Moreover, the various families tried to have members named Pope so they could control the Church. In such a world, a prince had to be ruthless.

Port-Royal

the rise of Protestantism and two rites (Western and Eastern)
fanaticism
Casuistry
jurisprudence (casuistry in Law)

The Cistercians nuns of Port-Royal-des-Champs Abbey and Port-Royal Abbey in Paris also lived in a jungle. Christianity was no longer unified. There were Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists, Huguenots (French Calvinists), etc. Moreover, Catholicism itself had long been divided into two rites: the Roman and the Orthodox rites. If the Roman Catholic Church were further fragmented, could Roman Catholicism survive? Hence casuistry.

Reforms  were needed, such as forbidding the sale of indulgences, allowing divorce in certain cases, not levying a heavy tithe on the very poor. Greater toleration of different faiths may also have contained the growth of Protestantism, but Jansenists themselves were far too stern. They believed in predestination, depriving Christians of a way a ensuring the salvation. The religious wars, ushered in by the Renaissance were pitiless.

However, saving Roman Catholicism did not require Casuistry, nor did it require the austerity (an extreme) of Jansenism. Casuistry was so relaxed a form of Catholicism that it allowed homicide. (Letters, Chapters 13 & 14.) Jesuit Casuistry in 17th-century France could forgive a large number of sins, if not most. There is an acceptable form of casuistry in the field of Law. Casuistry is often compared to jurisprudence, a study of cases.

According to Britannica, “Greek and Roman philosophers, Jewish rabbis, Christian preachers and teachers, and Islamic jurists (see also Sharīʿah) are among those who have used casuistry to solve real-life moral puzzles. The Roman orator and philosopher Cicero wrote the first known “case book” on situations in which duties seem to conflict.”[1] 

But as I wrote above, Jesuit casuistry was an extreme as was the notion of predestination.

Grace

The controversy between Jansenists and Jesuits did not center as much on “grâce suffisante” compared to “grâce efficace,” a theoretical debate, as it did on moral irresponsibility: casuistry! Whether or not grace was suffisante (sufficient) or efficace (efficacious) was unlikely to unleash so impassioned a rebuttal as Pascal’s eighteen 18 Provincial Letters.

“Grâce suffisante” (sufficient grace) is defined as follows:

“‘Grâce donnée généralement à tous les hommes, soumise de telle sorte au libre arbitre qu’il [free will] la rend efficace ou inefficace à son choix, sans aucun nouveau secours de Dieu.’” (Pascal, see Grâce suffisante, French Wikipedia.)

(Grace generally bestowed on every human, subjected to free will in such a way that free will chooses to make it effective or not, without new recourse from God.)

“Grâce efficace” (efficacious grace) is defined as follows:

“Position théologique défendue par saint Augustin, et dont les Jansénistes se sont servis dans leur polémique contre les Jésuites. Selon sa definition, les hommes n’accèdent au salut [humans can be saved]” ne peuvent gagner le Paradis que si Dieu leur a accordé la grâce [only if God has given them grace]. Seule cette grâce divine peut les soutenir dans la foi. Ce dogme, développé à l’origine par Augustin d’Hippone dans son débat des thèses du moine britannique Pélage, s’oppose à la thèse des Jésuites qui attribuaient au libre-arbitre et aux œuvres la prérogative du salut. (See Grâce efficace, French Wikipedia.)

These definitions are based on the belief that human beings are born guilty of the original sin and must expiate. That is the source of the problem. According to the first definition, which is not clear, man is given sufficient grace. But, according to the second definition, only God can grant enough grace to open the door to Paradise and God chooses whom he will save, which is predestination.

This dogma, predestination, was refuted by Augustine of Hippo in his early debates with British monk Pelagius (354 – 418)[2] who also opposed predestination. Pelagius believed that man could ensure his salvation through good deeds. Later, however, Augustine of Hippo grew to believe he needed grace to fight sin, especially original sin which he believed was “transmitted by concupiscence.” (See Caption, below.) Augustine was flesh and blood, or all-too human.

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Augustine of Hippo wrote that original sin is transmitted by concupiscence and enfeebles freedom of the will without destroying it. Sandro Botticelli (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Augustine of Hippo: an Opponent of Pelagius

However, Augustine of Hippo became an opponent of Pelagius who was declared a heretic at one of the Councils of Carthage and whose doctrine, Pelagianism, was condemned. Pelagius is the author of De libero arbitrio (On Free Will; 416 CE).

Pascal’s main target was Spanish nobleman and Jesuit Antonio Escobar y Mendoza (1589 – July 4, 1669) who was the author of Summula casuum conscientiae (1627) and some eighty other books. Ten years after the death of Antonio Escobar, in 1679, his books were condemned by Pope Innocent XI.

As for Pascal’s letters, they were destroyed immediately by order of King Louis XIV. Later in the 17th century, Jansenism would be condemned by the Church in the apostolic constitution Unigenitus Dei Filius, promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1713. The nuns of Port-Royal-des-Champs where forcibly evicted in 1709 and sent to other convents. The buildings of Port-Royal-des-Champs Abbey were razed that same year.

Removal of Nuns from Port-Royal-des-Champs
Port-Royal-des-Champs

Port-Royal Abbey, in Paris, was not destroyed, but it was used for various purposes and was dechristianized during the French Revolution. Casuistry, which Pascal had discredited, was condemned.

Yet, if there was a winner, it was Pascal. His Lettres provinciales (1658-1659) dealt a fatal blow to casuistry and constitute a literary masterpiece, condemned by Louis XIV.

The Church is a human institution founded in the name of Christ during the First Council of Nicaea (325 CE). Its founder is converted Roman Emperor Constantine I. (See Constantine the Great, Wikipedia) Constantine I settled in Constantinople, the former Byzantium and future Istanbul (1929).

Conclusion

Pascal’s Lettres provinciales were seemingly written to a person living outside Paris, in one of the French provinces: Normandy, Bretagne, etc. For protection, Pascal used the pseudonym Louis de Montalte. But Jansenism did not disappear quickly. Quebec was a mostly Jansenist province of Canada until the 1960s. Catholics were pious and feared God.

Pascal’s Letters are still read. They are a masterful satire, a model to Voltaire’s Candide. Casuistry was also ridiculed by Molière and La Fontaine. In Molière’s Tartuffe (1664 – 1669), Tartuffe, who feigns devotion, tries to seduce Elmire saying that he knows how take sin away. (See Casuistry, or how to sin without sinning.) Molière rewrote Tartuffe twice before it was considered acceptable.

We looked at the Lettres provinciales mainly as a biting satire of casuistry, which it is. However, as we have seen, Pascal’s work has other dimensions. Humans are born guilty of the original sin and must be baptized promptly and, according to Jansenism, despite a virtuous life, they will not be saved, unless God has chosen to save them.

The Church being a human institution founded in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, it may be important to consider that Jesus told such parables as the Prodigal Son and the Woman Caught in Adultery. He preached forgiveness and unconditional love. It may also be very useful to remember that Jesus of Nazareth has been called our Saviour and our Redeemer.

Finally, despite circumstances,

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blessed:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

– Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

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Detail from The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

RELATED ARTICLES

Sources and Resources 

Provincial Letters, complete text, Internet Archive EN
Lettres provinciales, texte intégral, Ebooks gratuits.pdf FR
Tartuffe.pdf, complete text EN
Tartuffe, complete text, Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg EN
Tartuffe.pdf, texte intégral, FR

____________________ 

[1] “casuistry”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 21 mars. 2015
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/98890/casuistry>. 

[2] “Pelagius”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 21 mars. 2015
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/449072/Pelagius>.

Marin Marais: Le Badinage

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Sandro Botticelli (Wiki)

© Micheline Walker
24 March 2015
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Canada’s “Van Doos:” Résistance

14 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in Canada, The Human Condition, War

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Vanitas Still Life with Self-Portrait, Pieter Claesz, 1628. Note the mise en abyme of the artist’s portrait in the glass ball. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) 

Coincidences

I have tried to leave behind me the casualties of the Battle of the Somme, which is difficult: more than 1,000,000 casualties! Lest we forget.

However, while writing the Weeping Angel of Amiens, I discovered the above painting featuring a delightful mise en abyme. The glass ball creates a mirror effect, which is an example of the illusionism of the Golden Age of Dutch painting, the 17th century. Moreover, the violin depicted by Pieter Claesz, was placed between a clock, a substitute for an hourglass, and a skull. The painting is a vanitas as is the painting of our chubby Weeping Angel of Amiens. 

At the foot of this post, I have inserted a video featuring the works of Heda Willem Claesz. He and Pieter were not relatives, but Pieter very much admired Willem Claesz and both painted vanitas, a subject matter of still lifes.

The “Van Doos,” or Royal 22nd Regiment

Writing the Weeping Angel of Amiens, I discovered when and how the Royal 22nd Regiment, or le Royal 22e Régiment, a French-Canadian regiment called the “Van Doos” by Anglophones and aficionados. No, it is not a Dutch name. It’s “vingt-deux” (22).

Members of the regiment called themselves “Canadiens,” as in the Montreal hockey team. The Canadiens hockey team was named after the singing and very strong “voyageurs” who faced death every day, but sang in unison as they paddled their way to beaver felts and accompanied explorers all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Their success is due to a dare-devil mentality, their ability to work as a team, their basic joie de vivre and their close relationship with Amerindians. Amerindians were the voyageurs‘ guides and voyageurs spoke Amerindian languages. Well, the “Van Doos” also sang in the middle of the Battle of the Somme (1st July 1916 – 18th November 1916) and called themselves Canadiens.

Please click on the image to enlarge it.

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Mignault communicated with Prime Minister Robert Borden, leading to the creation of the Royal 22nd Regiment

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The “Van Doos”

Traditionally, French-Canadians have refused to go to war. They opposed conscription during both World War I (see War Museum) and World War II (see War Museum) and oppose, but not altogether, Canada’s military engagement in the struggle against Iris, not Islam. However, despite their wish not to join the military, they have on occasion volunteered to do so.

Such is the case with the future Royal 22nd Regiment, which was formed in 1914. In fact, before the “Van Doos” regiment was created, 1,000 French-Canadian soldiers had been recruited and scattered here and there in the Canadian Expeditionary Force  (CEF), in not too honourable a fashion.

“This was not an oversight. Ontario (Hughes’s[1] political base) was in the process of forbidding teaching in French, or of French, in the school system (Regulation 17), causing outrage in French Canada and a lack of support for the war of the ‘King and country’ that was perceived as seeking to destroy the Francophone community in Canada.” (See Royal 22nd Regiment, Wikipedia.)

Matters changed when Arthur Mignault, a medical doctor and a wealthy French-Canadian pharmaceutical entrepreneur, offered to form a French-Canadian regiment which he would fund.

“In 1914, Mignault communicated with Prime Minister Robert Borden[2] to propose the establishment of a solely French Canadian battalion within the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). According to Mignault, this would allow Canadians of French extraction to circumvent the language barrier of the English-speaking battalions.” (See Arthur Mignault, Wikipedia.)

Dr Mignault’s offer was a godsend, so the creation of the unit was authorized on 14 October 1914 and members of the battalion trained at Valcartier. In September 1915, the division went overseas not as the Royal 22nd Regiment, but as the 22nd Canadian Division.

“The 22nd went to France as part of the 5th Canadian Brigade and the 2nd Canadian Division in September 1915, and fought with distinction in every major Canadian engagement until the end of the war.” (See Royal 22nd Regiment, Wikipedia.)

Many French-Canadians scattered in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) joined the “Van Doos” after the Battle of Courcelette (15 September 1916 – 22 September 1916).

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The Battle of Courcelette (Photo credit Canadian War Museum)

The Battle of Courcelette

“The Canadian soldiers managed to capture Courcelette. The success earned the Quebec 22nd Regiment a reputation as a stellar fighting force and several officers and soldiers were decorated for their courage. But it was at a bloody cost.” (The Bloodiest Battle, [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC/Radio-Canada])

On 15 September 1916, two Canadian regiments, the 25th Battalion, the Nova Scotia Rifles, and the 22nd Battalion, the future Royal 22nd Regiment, were ordered to capture Courcelette, “a village in the Somme Valley occupied by Germans.” The objective of the Anglo-French forces was not achieved. In other words, no “hole was cut in the German line” that would allow moving men and equipment. (See Courcelette, Wikipedia.) However “[d]espite thousands of casualties, it was a victory, one of the few for Allied forces on the Somme.” (See Battle of Courcelette, Canadian War Museum.)

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A photograph of the Royal 22nd Regiment leaving Quebec in 1915. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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The Royal 22nd Regiment parading on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in 1927 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Testimonials

The testimonials tell a horror story:

“We were walking on dead soldiers… I saw poor fellows trying to bandage their wounds… bombs, heavy shells were falling all over them. Poor Angéline, it is the worst sight that a man ever wants to see… All my friends have been either killed or wounded….

My dear wife, it is worse than hell here. For miles around, corpses completely cover up the ground. But your Frank didn’t get so much as a scratch. I went to battle as if I had to cut wood with my bayonet. When one of my friends was killed at my side, I saw red: some Germans raised their arms in surrender, but it was too late for them. I will remember that all my life.” (See The Bloodiest Battle, Frank Maheux, lumberjack, to his wife.)

It was a “nearly suicidal” attack. “We know very well… that we are heading to the slaughterhouse[,]” wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Louis-Thomas Tremblay in his diary. (See The Bloodiest Battle.)

Conclusion

On 20 May 1919, all battalions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) were disbanded, including the 22nd Battalion. However, following World War I, Canada reorganized its military forces. As you know, many Québécois are separatists, but they will have their place in Ottawa, especially in the Canadian Military Forces.

There was public pressure and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec as well as the City Council of Quebec City “demanded that a permanent French-language unit be created in the peace-time Regular Force, and accordingly a new regiment was created, made up of veterans of the 22nd Battalion, on 1 April 1920.” In June 1921 King George V approved “the renaming of [the 22nd Battalion] as The Royal 22nd Regiment.” In 1928, the Regiment was given its French name: le Royal 22e Régiment. (See Royal 22nd Regiment, Wikipedia.)

The Royal 22nd Regiment remains to this day. It served in World War II, and a large number of French-Canadians soldiers have died in Europe. Their participation in both wars is understandable. During WW I and WW II, many were fighting for France. On D-Day, French-Canadian soldiers could communicate easily with the citizens of Normandy. Naziism was an evil. Moreover, survival means doing one’s best. It is “résistance.”[3]

“We know very well,” [Louis-Thomas Tremblay] wrote in his diary, “that we are heading to the slaughterhouse. The task seems nearly impossible, considering how ill prepared we are, and how little we know the layout of the front. Even so, morale is wonderfully high and we are determined to show that we Canadians are not quitters.”

(Lieutenant-Colonel Louis-Thomas Tremblay, The Bloodiest Battle)

Baptiste, the Goat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Baptiste, the Goat: the mascot of the Royal 22nd Regiment  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

RELATED ARTICLE

Sources and Resources

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[1] See Sir Sam Hughes (Canadian War Museum)

[2] See Sir Robert Borden (Canadian War Museum)

[3] Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, “La Patrie littéraire: errance et résistance,” Francophonies d’Amérique (Nº 13, 2002, pp. 47-65). http://www.erudit.org/revue/fa/2002/v/n13/1005247ar.html?vue=resume

Antoine Forqueray – La Buisson – Heda Willem Claesz

Leroyal22regiment

© Micheline Walker

Blaise Pascal’s “Roseau pensant”

19 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by in French Literature, The Human Condition

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Blaise_pascal

Léon Brunschvicg, Fragments 348 and 397
Louis Lafuma, Fragments 113 and 114
English translation:
Project Gutenberg [EBook #18269]
Introduction by T. S. Eliott
 

Blaise Pascal: Le Roseau pensant

 

Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), a writer, philosopher, inventor, mathematician, etc. used the term “roseau pensant” to define the human condition. Literally “roseau pensant” means “thinking reed.” It describes humankind’s duality. We are fragile: mere reeds. However, we think, which gives us nobility. We are therefore misérables in that we are frail and die, which is how the reed is perceived by La Fontaine (“Le Chêne et le Roseau”), but thought, our ability to think, makes us “grands” (great). In La Fontaine, the reed bends, but it does not break.

Pascal died at the age of 39. The Pensées were left in fragments: bundles of papers called liasses. They were classified by Louis Lafuma, Léon Brunschvicg and Philippe Sellier, as well as other scholars. Project Gutenberg uses the Brunschvicg classification.

I am providing you with the translation used by Project Gutenberg.

Section VI, The Philosophers, p. 96

In Project Gutenberg’s edition [EBook #18269], thoughts numbers 347 and 348 are translated as follows:

347-348: L’homme n’est qu’un roseau, le plus faible de la nature ; mais c’est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l’univers entier s’arme pour l’écraser : une vapeur, une goutte d’eau, suffit pour le tuer. Mais, quand l’univers l’écraserait, l’homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, puisqu’il sait qu’il meurt, et l’avantage que l’univers a sur lui, l’univers n’en sait rien.

Toute notre dignité consiste donc en la pensée. C’est de là qu’il faut nous relever et non de l’espace et de la durée, que nous ne saurions remplir. Travaillons donc à bien penser : voilà le principe de la morale.

Roseau pensant. — Ce n’est point de l’espace que je dois chercher ma dignité, mais c’est du règlement de ma pensée. Je n’aurai pas davantage en possédant des terres : par l’espace, l’univers me comprend et m’engloutit comme un point ; par la pensée, je le comprends.

 

347: Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this.

All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality.

348: A thinking reed.—It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.

Section VI, The Philosophers, p. 107

397: La grandeur de l’homme est grande en ce qu’il se connaît misérable. Un arbre ne se connaît pas misérable. C’est donc être misérable que de se connaître misérable ; mais c’est être grand que de connaître qu’on est misérable.

 

397: The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is then being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable.

 —ooo—

Source:

Les Pensées, Gutenberg Project [EBook 18269]EN
Introduction by T. S. Eliott (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1958)
Project Gutenberg uses L. Brunschvicg’s classification of the fragments left by Pascal. 
 
Pergolesi‘s Stabat Mater, “Quando Corpus Morietur”
Philippe JAROUSSKY & Julia LEZHNEVA”
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pergolesi‘s Stabat Mater, “Quando Corpus Morietur”
London Symphony Orchestra, 1985
Claudio Abbado, conductor
 
PAGE1-~1© Micheline Walker
19 April 2014
WordPress

 

 

Le Mal du siècle, 19th-Century France

18 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by in French Literature, Literature, Romanticism, The Human Condition

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“This well-known and especially Romantic masterpiece was described by the historian John Lewis Gaddis as leaving a contradictory impression, ‘suggesting at once mastery over a landscape and the insignificance of the individual within it. We see no face, so it’s impossible to know whether the prospect facing the young man is exhilarating, or terrifying, or both.’”[i] (See Caspar David Friedrich, Wikipedia.) 

Edgar Degas, Melancholy (c. 1874)

Melancholy, by Edgar Degas, c. 1874 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Le Mal du Siècle

This duality, “mastery” and “insignificance,” could explain the malaise called le mal du siècle (the malady of the century), a term coined by poet Alfred de Musset (11 December 1810 – 2 May 1857) in La Confession d’un enfant du siècle (The Confession of a Child of the Century), an autobiography published in 1836. Moreover, France entered the nineteenth century after a radical revolution that turned into a bloodbath. Yet the nineteenth century in France was inaugurated by the military victories of Napoleon. The  levée en masse, conscription, of 31 August 1793, had given Napoleon his grande armée.

—ooo—

Let’s take a closer look. Le mal du siècle[ii] is associated with François-René de Chateaubriand‘s René, a novella published separately in 1802, but also included, along with Atala (1801), in Chateaubriand’s Génie du Christianisme (The Genius of Christianity), published in 1802. It was also part of Les Natchez, a work written between 1793 and 1799, but not published until 1826. It is about René, a forelorn protagonist. Along with Atala (1801), it was conceived in America and written in Britain. Chateaubriand belonged to an aristocratic family and had to flee France during the French Revolution. He travelled to North-America, as did many émigrés, and then lived in England where he wrote abundantly. He left a superb narrative describing the Mississippi, the river he calls the Meschacebé and which he is unlikely to have seen.

René’s “mal du siècle”

René, the protagonist of René, is a sensitive young man who simply does not belong and whose mal is melancholy. The word melancholy all but summarizes “le mal du siècle,” also called “le vague des passions,” l’ennui (boredom), “spleen” (in Baudelaire). Chateaubriand has René say that he “lacked something to fill the void on his existence[:]”  “Il me  manquait quelque chose pour remplir l’abîme de mon existence[.]” René also says that man’s natural song is sad: “Le chant naturel de l’homme est triste.” In René’s opinion, “[o]ur heart is an incomplete instrument, a lyre missing strings” forcing us to express joy on the same tone as sighs:

“Notre cœur est un instrument incomplet, une lyre où il manque des cordes, et où nous sommes forcés de rendre les accents de la joie sur le ton consacré aux soupirs.” (René)

La théorie des climats

A reader of Montesquieu, Madame de Staël, the author of De l’Allemage (Germany), 1810-1813, theorizes that northerners are more prone to melancholy than people born and living in sunnier environments. This theory is called “la théorie des climats” and, although it is expressed by Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755), an early representative of the French Enlightenment, it dates back to Greco-Roman antiquity. Madame de Staël’s northerners would be German-speaking people, the inhabitants of the British Isles and, perhaps, the people of Brittany, France, a Celtic nation. These northerners are Romanticism‘s better recruits.

Lamartine and Pascal

To a certain extent, René’s sadness is yet another expression of man’s duality. In “L’Homme” (Méditations poétiques, 1820), French poet Alphonse de Lamartine writes that “L’homme est un dieu tombé qui se souvient des cieux [.]” (Man is a fallen god who remembers heaven.) As Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) wrote, there is misère in the mortality of humans, but “grandeur” in the fact that humans know they will die. (Wo)man is a roseau pensant: a mere reed, but a thinking reed.

La grandeur de l’homme est grande en ce qu’il se connaît misérable; un arbre ne se connaît pas misérable.[iii]

(Man’s grandeur is immense in that he knows he is miserable [a mere mortal]; a tree doesn’t know it is miserable.)

But René also suffers from a profound sense of alienation from the world and is therefore considered Werther’s French counterpart. Johann Wolfgang Goethe‘s Werther is the protagonist of The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers), an epistolary novel published in 1774, a quarter of a century before Chateaubriand’s René. 

Sturm und Drang

However, Werther has been associated, rightly or wrongly, with the Sturm und Drang movement (the late 1760s to the early 1780s). The Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) movement, named after a play by Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger (17 February 1752 – 25 February 1831), is characterized by the expression of “extremes of emotion,” and is not restricted to literature. It extends to music and the fine arts (examples are listed under Sturm und Drang, in Wikipedia).

The Sorrows of the Young Werther & René

Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832); 1774 In Goethe’s Sorrows of the Young Werther, a bestseller, unrequited love or, love lost, often leads to melancholy, Werther falls in love with Lotte who is about to marry Albert, a man eleven years her senior. He therefore courts rejection. The plot is the classic love triangle. Lotte marries Albert and Werther commits suicide. Werther’s suicide is the expression of an “extreme of emotion.” He has invested his entire self in Lotte (see cathexis, Wikipedia). Chateaubriand (4 September 1768 – 4 July 1848); 1802

François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand, Anne Louis Girodet Trioson

François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand, Anne Louis Girodet Trioson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As for René, also a bestseller, there is no refuge for its protagonist’s melancholia. He visits the Natchez people in Louisiana, still a French colony, and travels to Scotland, the home Ossian. Ossian is an invented bard whose poetry is that of James MacPherson. René considers suicide, but finds a reprieve when he is joined by his sister Amélie, whom he loves. However, Amélie soon leaves him to enter a convent, her love for René being incestuous. René returns to America and is killed by a Natchez. Les Natchez can be considered an episode, or chapter, in the European discourse on the “Noble Savage.” However, Chateaubriand’s savage is not so noble.

There is no refuge for the Werthers and Renés. Romantics often perceived the world as mediocre and hostile which exacerbated the profound sadness called le mal du siècle. But romanticism can also be summarized as an age when sentiment prevailed over reason. It is a reaction against the Enlightenment. Beginning with René Descartes‘ (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) Discourse on Method (1637), reason had prevailed over sentiment.

The Reign of Sentiment

Therefore, it would seem to me that romanticism gives free rein to sentiment and subjectivity over reason. The reign of reason had been challenged by Blaise Pascal and otherwise assaulted, but it could be said that La Querelle des Bouffons, (The War of the Comic Actors) was reason’s major defeat (see Related Articles: Pergolesi). It is also a victory of the Modernes over the Anciens. Romantic authors and musicians revived the Medieval era, a Christian era. They sought their roots. The Brothers Grimm collected the folklore that gave German-speaking people their identity and Wagner gave them their glorious past.

Alfred de musset.jpg

Alfred de Musset by Charles Landelle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Weltschmerz: le mal du siècle

Alfred de Musset: Confession d’un Enfant du siècle

At a deeper level, these “extremes of emotion” may be an expression of man’s duality or the human condition. “Siècle” means both century and the world, or the secular and the profane. In his Confession d’un enfant du siècle, mentioned above, Alfred de Musset wrote that:

“Toute la maladie du siècle présent vient de deux causes : le peuple, qui a passé par 93 et par 1814, porte au cœur deux blessures. Tout ce qui était n’est plus ; tout ce qui sera n’est pas encore. Ne cherchez pas ailleurs le secret de nos maux.”

(The entire malady of the present century stems from two causes : the nation that lived through 93 [la terreur or the reign of terror] and 1814 [Napoleon’s defeat: the Battle of Paris] had its heart wounded twice. All there was is no longer; all that will be has yet to come. Seek nowhere else the secret of our ills.)

Such a definition applies to France, but the industrial revolution was no less traumatic than the French Revolution and Napoléon’s: defeat, i.e. 1814.

However, Werther is the victim of unrequited love, the world is not as it should be. As for René, he is at odds with a world that ended in the Terror of 1793-94: 93. However, Werther is the victim of unrequited love, the world is not as it should be. As for René, he is at odds with a world that ended in the Terror of 1793-94: 93. As an aristocrat, Chateaubriand had to flee France. He went to America, as did several émigrés. He then fought in the Army of Princes but was wounded, which forced him to live in England where he was not idle. He and madame de Staël all but invented French romanticism, she as a theorist and he as the finest writer of the early  19th century. All émigrés were amnestied[iv] by Napoleon on 27 April 1802, but Chateaubriand left England in May 1800, when some émigrés were also amnestied.

Conclusion

Humans have long been described or have described themselves as both tall and small. They combine a degree of “mastery” and “insignificance.” This theme underlies most of Western literature. John Milton‘s Paradise Lost tells that story. René’s mal du siècle, however, is also as described by Alfred de Musset. The French Revolution turned into the above-mentioned bloodbath: 93. The King was guillotined and its wealth was taken away from the Church. This was Talleyrand‘s[v] idea, a priest and a bishop. The vote took place on 10 October 1789. Priests fled to Britain.[vi] A new calendar was adopted. Yet, romanticism happened everywhere and, for many years, Madame de Staël‘s château at Coppet was its nucleus and Madame de Staël herself, a theorist of romanticism. Besides, the industrial revolution, a revolution greater than the French Revolution, was introducing the reign of machines that both empowered and lessened humankind, hence Weltshmerz, a term we owe Jean-Paul Richter. Le mal du siècle may well be the birthplace of l’absurde (see Absurdism, Wikipedia).

RELATED ARTICLES

  1. On Madame de Staël (12 March 2014)
  2. The Nineteenth Century in France (5 March 2014)
  3. Salons and Cafés survive “la terreur” (19 February 2014)

Sources: Chateaubriand (4 September 1768 – 4 July 1848) 

Montesquieu (18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755)

Musset (11 December 1810 – 2 May 1857)

  • Confession of a Child of the Century, by Alfred de Musset is a Gutenberg project [EBook #3942]EN

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[i] John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History (Oxford University Press: 2004), pp. 1-2

[ii] “Mal du siècle,” in J. P. de Beaumarchais, D. Couty, A Rey, Dictionnaire des littératures de langue française (Paris: Bordas, 1984).

[iii] Blaise Pascal, Pensées 114-397 (Lafuma/Brunschvicg), in Henri Gouhier et Louis Lafuma, Œuvres complètes (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1963), p. 513.

[iv] See Decree on Émigrés, Wikipedia

[v] André Castelot, Talleyrand ou le cynisme (Paris: Librairie Académique Perrin, 1980), p. 160. [vi] Many priests were sent to Quebec, where Britain had French-speaking and Catholic subjects.

Daniel Barenboim plays Songs without Words (Opus 30, N° 01) 
Felix Mendelssohn 

Chateaubriand

Chateaubriand, by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (Photo credit: Wikipedia) 
Confession d’un enfant du siècle (trailer): film starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Peter Doherty
(Sylvie Verheyde, director).
untitled
© Micheline Walker
18 April 2014
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Phèdre’s “Hidden God”

08 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in French Literature, Literature, The Human Condition

≈ 12 Comments

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Phèdre and Thésée, by Léon Bakst, 1923

I believe I should write more on Jean Racine‘s Phèdre (1677). 

In 1955, Jewish Romanian scholar Lucien Goldmann (1913, Romania – 1970, Paris) published a study of Pascal and Racine he entitled Le Dieu caché ; étude sur la vision tragique dans les Pensées de Pascal et dans le théâtre de Racine, Paris : Gallimard, 1955. The Hidden God; a study of the Tragic Vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s Theater. The  notion of  a “hidden god” is an insightful description of Pascal’s Pensées and also constitutes a bold depiction of Racine’s Phèdre inability to help herself.

Phaedra is at the mercy of an unkind destiny and her depravity stems largely from her mother’s, Pasiphaë. Pasiphaë sinned by engaging in sexual intercourse with a bull.  Consequently, Phaedra and Ariadne are half sisters to the Minotaur, a zoomorphic monster, a monster combining human and animal characteristics. It is as though they were stained.

Yet Phèdre is the granddaughter of Helios, the Sun, the daughter of Minos, king of Crete and son of Zeus. So, despite her mother’s bestiality, one hopes that Phaedra will be redeemed by other and nobler ancestors, but her sense of guilt turns them into judges.

Jansenism & Port-royal-des-champs

Phèdre’s inability to fight destiny is linked with Jansenism. The theological doctrine of Jansenism is often associated with philosopher, theologian and scientist Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), the author of the masterful Lettres provinciales, eighteen letters written under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte. Pascal was motivated to write Les Provinciales (1656-1657) when fellow Jansenist and friend Antoine Arnauld, from Port-Royal-des-Champs, was condemned by the Sorbonne‘s Faculty of Theology for views that were considered heretical.

But, although Pascal, a Jansenist, wrote Les Provinciales, as explained below, we are looking at a seventeenth-century revival, by Cornelius Jansen, of a doctrine rooted in the theology of Augustine of Hippo and which had a location, the convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs, near Paris.

Jean Racine, by François de Troy

Racine at Port-Royal-des-Champs

Racine, the author of Phèdre, was educated at Port-Royal-des-Champs and had therefore been exposed to Jansenism. Jansenists believed in predestination and emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace. (Jansenism, Wikipedia). So Phèdre is helpless. She says that “Le crime d’une mère est un pesant fardeau” (A mother’s crime is a heavy burden), a burden she fears her children will also bear (III, 3, 364) as one bears the original sin and as she bears her own mother’s depravity. Moreover, she is not rescued by divine grace (or efficacious grace). Phèdre’s god is a “hidden god.”

Augustine of Hippo and Cornelius Jansen

Jansenistic theology is rooted in the theology of St Augustine (354 – 386) or Augustine of Hippo. However, as indicated above, its “modern” father is Cornelius Jansen or Jansenius, (28 October 1585–6 May 1638), the Dutch Bishop of Ypres (Belgium). It did not spread beyond France and, to a very large extent, it was a reaction against Jesuit casuistry which, quite literally, allowed one to sin without sinning. (See Related Articles, at the foot of this post.

Pelagianism: a Heresy

The debate centered on the matter of grace and, by extension, on the topic of free will. An extreme and heretical view was that of Pelagius (c. 350 – c. 420). Pelagius believed that all Christians could be saved using their free will. This doctrine, called pelagianism, was condemned because it negated the need for divine grace and also negated the original sin.  It therefore had affinities with the laxity of seventeenth-century Jesuits.

Pelagius was opposed to Augustine of Hippo’s conviction that salvation was not possible without divine grace (called grâce efficace). Inextricably linked with Augustine’s teaching is the concept of predestination which limits a Christian’s ability to save himself. Jansenism took this view to an extreme replicating Augustine’s insistance that Christian salvation depends on divine grace.[i] 

I will go no further on the above, as the entire debate gets too complicated. Simply expressed and put in a nutshell, Jansenism conveys a very pessimistic view of a Christian’s ability to determine his or her fate, which is at the heart of Phèdre’s despair. She views herself as the worst of sinners in a universe filled with gods who are her ancestors and will not help her. Again, her god is a hidden god.

Jansenism was crushed by the bull Unigenitus, issued by Pope Clement XI in 1713.

RELATED ARTICLES

_________________________

[i] The best information I have gathered on the quarrel between Jansenists and the Jesuits is La Querelle entre les jansénistes et les jésuites, featured on the website of the Jesuits of France and written in French.
 
Henry Purcell (1659-95)
The Fairy Queen, Z.629 (1692)
“O let me weep” (The Plaint)
Philippe Jaroussky    

415PX-~1

© Micheline Walker
8 March 2012
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Pietà
El Greco

Jean Racine, Gabriel Fauré & Alexandre Cabanel: a Canticle

06 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Art, Literature, Music, The Human Condition

≈ 5 Comments

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Phèdre, by Alexandre Cabanel (1880)

Alexandre Cabanel  (28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jean Racine’ Phèdre

Jean Racine (22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699) is the foremost dramatist (tragedy) of 17th-century France.  Racine is best known for his tragedies the most powerful of which may be Phaedra EN (Phèdre FR) which premiered 1 on January 1677, at l’Hôtel de Bourgogne, the best venue in Paris.

In Greek mythology, Phaedra is the daughter of Pasiphaë, the granddaughter of Helios, the personification of the Sun, and the daughter of Minos, king of Crete and the son of Zeus.  She is married to Theseus, the founding hero of Athens, who slayed the Minotaur, aided by Ariadne, Phaedra’s sister.  Ariadne gave Theseus a thread (le fil d’Ariane) to guide him to the Minotaur, was enclosed in the Cretan labyrinth.  The Minotaur is the child of Pasiphaë and a bull and, therefore, a half-brother to Phaedra and her sister Ariadne.  As for the bull, he may be the Sacred Bull, a White Bull. Europa was seduced by Zeus disguised as a bull. (See Europa, Wikipedia.)

Europa and the Bull - Red-Figure Pottery, Stamnos, Tarquinia Museum, circa 480 BCE (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

Europa and the Bull, Greek Red-Figure Pottery, circa 480 BCE (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

In Racine’s tragedy, Theseus, Phèdre’s husband, has a son by a previous marriage, Hippolytus.  During a lenghty absence, it is reported that Theseus has died. Phaedra, who has fallen in love with Hippolytus, tells him she loves him.  Hippolytus is horrified.  However, Theseus has not died.  When he returns home, a jealous Phaedra—she has learned that Hippolytus loves Aricie—tells Theseus that she was seduced by Hippolytus.

Theseus calls on Poseidon (Neptune), who has promised to grant him wishes, and asks him to avenge him.  A monster comes out of the sea and kills an innocent Hippolytus who is riding on a horse.  Guilt-ridden Phaedra commits suicide.

Racine’s play is based on Euripides’s Hippolytus, but Jean Racine’s play is the work of a writer who views love as devouring passion.

Jean Racine’s Phèdre is a Gutenberg publication.

Gabriel Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine

As for Gabriel Fauré‘s Cantique de Jean Racine, it was composed when Fauré was 19.  The text itself is a paraphrase, by Racine of a Medieval hymn entitled Consors paterni luminis.  In Racine’s paraphrase (see below) God seems distant as He also seems in Phèdre.  This hymn is sung at the beginning of Matins, the Canonical Hour that ends as day breaks.  Set to Fauré’s music, the meaning of the text, an almost despairing hope that God “notre unique espérance” (our only hope) will have mercy on powerless humanity is expressed in a poignant yet resigned manner.  Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine is the centrepiece of this post. 

Alexandre Cabanel: a portrait of Phèdre

Our featured artist is Alexandre Cabanel (28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889), an academic painter.  He won the Prix de Rome and was awarded the Grande Médaille d’Honneur at the Salons of 1865, 1867, and 1878.  In 1863, Cabanel was elected a member of the Institute, founded on 25 October 1795, and appointed professor at the École des Beaux-Arts. 

Cabanel’s art has been described as art pompier (pompous), but his portrait of Phèdre is exquisite and renders her inability to fight a fatal love. She looks powerless.  Cabanel’s most famous work is The Birth of Venus, 1863, housed at the Musée d’Orsay, in Paris.

The Birth of Venus, by Alexandre Cabanel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Le Cantique de Jean Racine: the Text

I have not provided an English translation of Racine’s Cantique.  However, translations of the canticle are available, in several languages, at ChoralWiki (simply click).

Verbe, égal au Très-Haut, notre unique espérance,
Jour éternel de la terre et des cieux ;
De la paisible nuit nous rompons le silence,
Divin Sauveur, jette sur nous les yeux !

Répands sur nous le feu de ta grâce puissante,
Que tout l’enfer fuie au son de ta voix ;
Dissipe le sommeil d’une âme languissante,
Qui la conduit à l’oubli de tes lois !

Ô Christ, sois favorable à ce peuple fidèle
Pour te bénir maintenant rassemblé.
Reçois les chants qu’il offre à ta gloire immortelle,
Et de tes dons qu’il retourne comblé !

 
 
composer: Gabriel Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924)
work: Cantique de Jean Racine, Op 11
performer: unidentified
 
imagesCA1Z0ES3© Micheline Walker
October 6th, 2012
WordPress

 

Belaud the Cat’s Suite

28 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Sharing, The Human Condition

≈ 2 Comments

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Belaud

Belaud the Cat

 

This is me, Belaud, her cat, sitting on a chair.  Today, she’s totally out of it.  I’m around being good, but that’s not enough for her.  So, I decided that a cat of my lineage could write down a few lines.  She’s such a poor speller that I can do much better.

This is the entrance to the kitchen

Would you believe this woman insisted that the little diamonds on the floor be lined up with the middle of the sink’s area?  She likes things to be lined up properly.

0141

Her studio & my bedroom

Here, below, we have her side of my room.  She does watercolours in this room. There’s no justice, I have to share my own room.  She has obligations!  I might have to phone my lawyer or contact the League of Cats. Yes there is a League of Cats.  

 

Here I am, resting.  Napping is very important.  Would you believe we have two French-Canadian catalognes.  The woven blankets are “catalognes.”  I showed her pictures of Carl Laarson’s house where there are “catalognes” used as carpeting.

View of the kitchen from the dining-room

So there we are looking at the dining-room. There is no way we could sell this apartment without staging it. It’s cluttered. She’s turned an antique washstand into a small bar.  There is a lovely antique table in the kitchen, but I can’t show it. It’s beautiful but it’s cluttered.

The dining-room

Immediately below is a view of the dining-room. The bottles? She makes sure we look as though we had everything. It’s the same with bathroom towels. You never know, she says, someone could drop in.

Beyond the dining-room is her office.  She has left that big hand bag of hers in the middle of the place. I should also tell you that our blue armoire is about to move to a better place. This, she says, is where I want to put my grand-mother’s “love seat.”

002

The cat & sink

This is me again trying to get some water from the tap, but the tap does not drip.  That I should be subjected to such torture is totally unacceptable. She once lived in Normandy where she had a large sink. So we have one large sink.


 The Living-Room

The living-room has just appeared. It’s huge, but she did not remove the throw from my LOUIS-PHILIPPE.  I am calling my lawyer. I should tell you that I object to our having a television in the living-room. It’s the wires. Fortunately, she has a friend who is an engineer and very tidy. He’s part Russian and part Ukrainian.

001

007

The master bedroom

She did not photograph the master bedroom and its ensuite. Is she thinking of operating a Bed & Breakfast. I keep telling her to move to that room so mine would be entirely mine.

005

Daniel Barenboim plays Mendelssohn (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847)
Songs without Words, Op. 30, No. 1

137-21

© Micheline Walker
28 February 2012
WordPress
art by Micheline Walker

The One Hundred Years’ War & the Plague

19 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by in Art, History, The Human Condition

≈ 526 Comments

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Joan of Arc

Painting, c. 1485. An artist's interpretation, since the only known direct portrait has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490)
Painting, c. 1485. An artist’s interpretation, since the only known direct portrait has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490) (Photo and caption credit: Wikipedia)

—ooo—

Allow me to reflect on the One Hundred Years’ War (1337-1353) that opposed France and England and their various allies and, at the same time, also to reflect on the Black Death, a pandemics that occurred eleven years after the war began.

La Bataille de La Rochelle, Jean Froissart

La Bataille de La Rochelle,
Jean Froissart

The One Hundred Years’ War

The One Hundred Years’ War was a series of wars. There were periods of peace. Still, between 1337 and 1453, men were killing one another as France fought to oust the English.

The French did oust the English, despite England’s victory at Agincourt, the victory out of which emerged a poet, Charles, Duke of Orléans, and other English victories. But consider the price.

A Pyrrhic Victory

It was a Pyrrhic victory. During part of the years Charles d’Orléans was detained in England, a brave young woman, named Joan of Arc (ca. 1412 – 30 May 1431), without whom Charles VII (22 February 1403 – 22 July 1461) would not have been crowned King of France, in 1429, was betrayed, sold to England by the Burgundians and burned at the stake on May 30, 1431. She has been pronounced a martyr, beatified (1909), and canonized. But recognition did not give her back her most precious possession: her life. Life, short as it is and harsh as it may be.

The Triumph of Death, Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Triumph of Death, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, ca. 1562 (Museo del Prado) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Black Death: The Plage

The French did oust the English. However, during the One Hundred Years’ War, half the population of France died. Between 1348 and 1350, the Black Death ravaged a large part of Europe. But, if one combines war, famine and the plague, France’s losses were enormous.

Pandemics can be more devastating than wars as they are likely to resurface as epidemics. If you have read my post on the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, you may remember that, in 1416, the Limbourg brothers died of the plague, as did Jean de France who had commissioned his extraordinary Book of Hours in 1410. When they died, the brothers had nearly but not completely carried out their assignment. The Très Riches Heures were completed by Barthélemy van Eyck and Jean Colombe.

The plague killed mercilessly. In some regions of Europe, it snuffed two out of three lives in the space of four days, and the only possible salvation was immediate flight before contamination. There were epidemics of the plague from about the time of the Crusades until the late eighteenth century.

But we need not look back that far, i.e. as far as 1348-1350. The so-called “Spanish Flu” of 1918 killed more individuals than all the battles of World War I combined. I was told that a woman lost three grown sons in the space of twenty-four hours.

Conclusion

We are at the mercy of Lady Fortune who is not always generous. Yet, we lend her a hand. People are still killing one another, regardless of the cost: loss of life, trauma, impoverishment. In fact, let us turn the other cheek, so to speak.

Gustav Mahler (7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) 
« Symphony No. 5 in C-Sharp Minor: IV. Adagietto (Sehr langsam) »
 
Kermis / The Peasant Dance, ca. 1568 Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlandish, ca. 1525/30–1569)

Kermis / The Peasant Dance, ca. 1568
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlandish, ca. 1525/30–1569)

© Micheline Walker
February 19, 2012
WordPress
 
revised
February 23, 2014