• Aboriginals in North America
  • Beast Literature
  • Canadiana.1
  • Dances & Music
  • Europe: Ukraine & Russia
  • Fables and Fairy Tales
  • Fables by Jean de La Fontaine
  • Feasts & Liturgy
  • Great Books Online
  • La Princesse de Clèves
  • Middle East
  • Molière
  • Nominations
  • Posts on Love Celebrated
  • Posts on the United States
  • The Art and Music of Russia
  • The French Revolution & Napoleon Bonaparte
  • Voyageurs Posts
  • Canadiana.2

Micheline's Blog

~ Art, music, books, history & current events

Micheline's Blog

Tag Archives: Leibniz

Pascal and Leibniz: Details

19 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Enlightenment, Philosophy, Science

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Calculators, Efficacious Grace, Le Pari Fatal, Leibniz, Leibniz's Wheel, Pascal, Pascal's Wager, Sufficient Grace, Sufficient Reason, The Pascaline

Blaise_Pascal_Versailles

Baise Pascal, Versailles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

images

Portrait of Blaise Pascal made by François II Quesnel for Gérard Edelinck in 1691 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Blaise Pascal and Gottfried Leibniz

Voltaire‘s Candide was a satire of Leibniz‘ metaphysics, but not a criticism of Leibniz himself or all of his theories (1 July 1646 – 14 November 1716). Gottfried Leibniz, who lived in Leipzig, was a great mathematician, inventor, logician and diplomat. He believed in God and assumed that God was good, hence his “best of all possible worlds.” It was a noble thought, but nearly three centuries later, we remain very short of good.

Sufficient reason[1]

The word “sufficient” reminded me of Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662: aged 39) who, despite illness, chronic pain, and his rather short life, contributed so much to the world of ideas and to science. While I was writing my posts on Candide, a monument to humankind, I was puzzled by Leibniz’s use of the word “sufficient.”

I remembered telling my students that after Étienne Pascal, Blaise Pascal’s father, lost his wife, he left Clermont-Ferrand, where Blaise was born and settled in Paris, where he often had guests who were prominent scientists.

Given that his son Blaise could not travel, due to ill health, whenever a scientist was in Paris, Étienne tried to introduce him to his son who was a child prodigy. In fact, the work done by Pierre de Fermat (17 August 1601 or 1607 – 12 January 1665) and Pascal into the calculus of probabilities laid “important groundwork” for Leibniz‘ formulation of the calculus. (See Leibniz, Wikipedia.)

At this point, allow me a slight digression.

The Calculator

As scientists, both Pascal and Leibniz invented calculators.

Blaise Pascal’s father was a tax farmer, the name given tax collectors during the ancien régime. This was a position one could purchase as was the case with many positions in 17th– and-18th-century France. Louis XIV was forever in need of money to pay for Versailles and finance his wars. Selling positions was yet another avenue allowing Louis to replenish France’s empty vaults.

As tax collector, Pascal’s father needed a calculator, so his son Blaise invented the Pascaline, an ancestor to our calculators and to computer science. It was a helpful machine and there are a few Pascalines left for everyone to see.

But Leibniz also invented a calculator, his Leibniz’s Wheel. Under Wikipedia’s entry on calculators, the reader is told that Leibniz’s calculator was never “fully operational.”

“Schickard [mostly] and Pascal were followed by Gottfried Leibniz who spent forty years designing a four-operation mechanical calculator, inventing in the process his Leibniz wheel, but who couldn’t design a fully operational machine.”

However, the Leibniz’ wheel entry tells a different story.

“Invented by Leibniz in 1673, it was used for three centuries until the advent of the electronic calculator in the mid-1970s.”

I wouldn’t dare refute that statement as we may be looking at two slightly different machines (“inventing in the process”). But I will point out that the “abacus,” was “a calculating tool that was in use centuries before the adoption of the written modern numeral system and is still widely used by merchants, traders and clerks in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere.” (See Abacus, Wikipedia.) It “was known to have been used by Sumerians and Egyptians before 2000 BCE.” I should think that humans have always had some sort of calculator. (See Calculator, Wikipedia.)

Let us return to the word ‘Sufficient’

Pascal may have provided an element to Leibniz’s vocabulary: the word “sufficient,” as in “sufficient reason.” This no one can prove, but it is either ‘probable’ or quite a coincidence. I should note that Pascal did not support fully the use of reason to arrive at scientific truths, in which he differed from Leibniz, at least initially. For Pascal reason, or “l’esprit de géométrie,” was the other half of “l’esprit de finesse,” a form of instinct or intuition (le cœur),[2] from which emanates the seminal idea that leads to an important discovery or further knowledge. Beautiful melodies are mostly inspired.

Cornelius Jansen, Évêque d’Ypres

Jansenism

Pascal was a Jansenist. Jansenism is neither a religion nor a sect; it is a concept within Catholicism that would later be condemned as heretical.[3] Jansenists believed in predestination, which meant that although one lived a virtuous life, virtue could not lead to salvation. Those who believed in God and lived a virtuous manner had been granted sufficient (suffisante) grace, but only efficacious (efficace) grace ensured one’s salvation. Therefore, however good a person could be, salvation was an arbitrary gift. It could not be attained, except by the chosen ones.

IMGP0420-copie-1

Port-Royal-des-Champs Abbey (destroyed by fire) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sufficient and Efficacious Grace

In other words, according to the Jansenists, who lived at Port-Royal-des-Champs and Port-Royal Abbey, in Paris, were friends of Pascal, there were two forms of grace: la grâce suffisante (sufficient grace) and la grâce efficace FR (efficacious grace), only one of which, la grâce efficace could ensure salvation and God, if He existed, which Pascal set out to prove in his unfinished Pensées (Thoughts), selected those who would be saved.

To complicate matters, Jesuits, also attacked by Voltaire, had devised a system that allowed people to sin without sinning. (See RELATED ARTICLES.) Nothing could excuse casuistry and it was injurious to all who lived a good life. In 1646, Pascal became a Jansenist and, a few years later, in 1656-67, when Jansenism was first condemned, he wrote his Provincial letters, 18 letters and a possible 19th, the masterpiece that inspired Voltaire’s Candide.

Cornelius Jansen‘s (28 October 1585 – 6 May 1638) is the founder of Jansenism, as his name suggests. His Augustinus (1640) was published posthumously in Louvain/ Leuven, Belgium and sparked a controversy.

I will not enter into details. Suffice it to repeat that one could not be saved even if one had led a virtuous life. Such thinking is extremely pessimistic, but given Jesuit Casuistry (la casuistique), the faithful defended the monks of the Port-Royal-des-Champs abbey, one of whom was Pascal. The issues raised by Jansenism were:

  • Pelagianism (man can save himself; but not according to the Augustinus);
  • the Original Sin (we are born guilty and are therefore in need of salvation);
  • the Divine Grace.

Divine Grace

The Oxford English Dictionary provides the following description of grace: “Grace in Christianity is the free and unmerited favour of God as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowing of blessings.”

The Following are quotations from Wikipedia

In Islam, according to “Dr. Umar Al-Ashqar, dean of the Faculty of Islamic Law at Zarqa Private University in Zarqa, Jordan: ‘Paradise is something of immense value; a person cannot earn it by virtue of his deeds alone, but by the Grace and Mercy of Allah.’

This stance is supported by hadith: according to Abu Huraira, prophet Muhammad once said that ‘None amongst you can get into Paradise by virtue of his deeds alone … not even I, but that Allah should wrap me in his grace and mercy.’”

In Hinduism, “one Hindu philosopher, Madhvacharya, held that grace was not a gift from God, but rather must be earned.”

Pascal’s Wager: Le Pari fatal

Neither Jansenists nor Muslims can earn salvation. They cannot erase the original sin. Consequently, they may despair. Existentialism claims the opposite. Humankind makes itself, which cannot be entirely the case. Yet, quite astonishingly, Voltaire was an early existentialist. He stated that “[m]an [was] free at the moment he wishe[d] to be.”  

As for Pascal, he lived virtuously wagering that he was among the chosen ones. The text of the Wager is in Sources and Resources, below.

However, the wager can be summarized. According to Pascal, we cannot know whether or not God exists. For him, God existed. He was a man of faith. But had he not been a man of faith, he would nevertheless have wagered that God existed. By doing so, one has everything to gain and nothing to lose. 

The Theory of Probability and the Pari fatal

Here we sense that Pascal and his friends, the duc de Roannez FR but mainly Pierre de Fermat contributed in the development the theory of probability. It is possible to calculate the odds. The following quotation is in French, but the wager can be summarized. One has nothing to lose by wagering that God exists and everything to lose by not waging He exists. (See The Wager.)

« Vous avez deux choses à perdre : le vrai et le bien, et deux choses à engager : votre raison et votre volonté, votre connaissance et votre béatitude ; et votre nature a deux choses à fuir : l’erreur et la misère. Votre raison n’est pas plus blessée, en choisissant l’un que l’autre, puisqu’il faut nécessairement choisir. Voilà un point vidé. Mais votre béatitude ? Pesons le gain et la perte, en prenant croix que Dieu est. Estimons ces deux cas : si vous gagnez, vous gagnez tout ; si vous perdez, vous ne perdez rien. Gagez donc qu’il est, sans hésiter. » 

“if you win, you win everything; if you lose, you do not lose anything. So bet that God is, without hesitating.”

Conclusion

In a world where Jesuits could take sin away from sinners, it is understandable that Christians in France should have chosen to defend Jansenism. Casuistry allowed kings and aristocrats to have a mistress without remorse. If one’s intentions were good, one could kill, rape and pillage. Pascal therefore took the defense of Jansenism and the priests of Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Cistercian nuns and monks. They avoided sins, were truly devout, and lived according to their vows.

Voltaire was not a Jansenist, but he believed in God. Many humans believe in God because they see orchids, the amaryllis, dawn, and glorious sunsets. The birth of a child seems a miracle. However, Jansenism did not give anyone the chance to go to heaven and imperiled happiness. Humans must atone. Therefore, happiness during this brief lifetime could point to eternal damnation.

Antoine Arnauld
Antoine Arnauld
Jean du Vergier
Jean du Vergier

Leibniz visited with Antoine Arnauld, who succeeded Jean Duvergier de Hauranne as abbot of the Port-Royal-des-Champs abbey. As a diplomat, Leibniz was invited to Paris in 1672. (See Leibniz 1666-1674.) Leibniz had visited France earlier but, in 1672, he met with Antoine Arnauld, the superior at Port-Royal des Champs.

The “sufficient” of “sufficient reason” may well be related to the “sufficient” of “sufficient grace.” But more importantly, neither concept support the likelihood of a “best of all possible worlds.”

RELATED ARTICLE

  • Casuistry, or how to sin without sinning (5 March 2012) ←

Sources and Resources

  • Les Provinciales.pdf FR
  • Les Pensées, Internet Archives FR
  • The Provincial Letters.pdf EN
  • Les Pensées is Gutenberg [EBook#18269] EN
  • The Wager

(My computer was hacked and has not been fully repaired. So this post is not altogether complete. I must discuss free will, Les Provinciales [the syle], original sin, etc. Les Provinciales were published under a pseudonym: Louis de Montalte.)

My best regards to everyone.

Marin Marais: Sonnerie de Ste Geneviève


pascal_blaise2

© Micheline Walker
19 March 2015
WordPress

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Voltaire’s Candide, Part 1

12 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Age of Enlightenment, France, Great Books

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Bildungsroman, Leibniz, Lisbon earthquake, Picaresque, Rape, Slavery, Turquerie, War

Tafelrunde

Tafelrunde in Sanssouci (Voltaire to the left, purple, next to Casanova, red lapels), Adolph von Menzel, 1850 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Voltaire the celebrity, but…

A favourite guest of celebrities
Wit, his chief quality

Voltaire lived in a castle, le château de Ferney and befriended Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, and other royals and dignitaries. For instance, in the above image, he is at Sanssouci  [literally “without worry”], a castle owned by Friedrich der Große who was an admirer of François-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire. The artist is Adolph von Menzel (8 December 1815 – 9 February 1905). However, do not expect an example of this decorum in Voltaire’s Candide.

His indomitable wit and his pen were Voltaire’s chief weapons. He rarely went unnoticed. The French call this présence. However, he was forever running to escape the Bastille. 

Casanova
From lair to lair: “traduit de l’Allemand”

Next to Voltaire, at the round table (Taflerunde) is Casanova, the Chevalier de Seingalt (pronounced Saint-Galle) (2 April 1725 – 4 June 1798), the famous Venitian womanizer, but a person who lived among princes and wrote the history of his life, L’Histoire de ma vie (See Casanova, Wikipedia.)

Voltaire published his Candide under a pseudonym, that of Mr. le Docteur Ralph, and claimed the novella had been translated from German, “traduit de l’Allemand.” The frontispiece (cover) of the first edition of Candide, published in 1759, is the work of Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune. Voltaire was protecting himself.

Voltaire_and_Diderot_at_the_Café_Procope

At Café Procope: at rear, from left to right: Condorcet, La Harpe, Voltaire (with his arm raised) and Diderot. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Background: Lazarillo de Tormes

a picaresque novel
a pícaro
Lazarillo de Tormes (1554)
a Bildungsroman

Voltaire’s Candide is a novella consisting of thirty (30) chapters and published in 1759. It has been described as a picaresque novel. The word picaresque is derived from a Spanish novella entitled La Vida de un pícaro (The Life of a Rogue; short title) or La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades (The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of his Fortunes and Adversities), by Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). In picaresque novels, characters move from place to place.

The novel is also considered a Bildungsroman or a coming of age novel. In this regard, Voltaire’s Candide resembles Henry Fielding‘s Tom Jones (The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling), 1749. Henri Fielding’s Tom Jones is characterized by obliqueness because Tom, a “foundling,”[1] has no lineage, which gives him a degree of anonymity and impunity. As a Bildungsroman, Voltaire’s Candide has also been associated with Laurence Sterne‘s Tristram Shandy (a Bildungsroman), 1759 – 1767 (9 volumes).

As an oblique novel, Candide has affinities with Montesquieu’s  Persian Letters (Lettres persanes) (1721). Montesquieu’s Usbek and Rica, his two Persians, are foreigners and may therefore say anything with impunity. Tom Jones is an “illegitimate” son and a foreigner of sorts. Moreover, Candide invites comparison with Blaise Pascal‘s Lettres provinciales (1656-1567). (See Lettres provinciales, Wikipedia.) Both works feature naïve characters.

Candide1759

Candide, ou l’Optimisme, 1759

key sentences

Candide is Voltaire’s answer to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz‘ optimism. It has a second title: Candide, ou l’Optimisme. Key sentences and concepts are:

Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes. (All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.)
Il faut cultiver son jardin. (One must cultivate one’s garden.)
There is a cause for each effect.

The Cast

Cunégonde (the woman Candide loves)
The Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh (Cunégonde’s father)
Candide (the illegitimate son of the Baron’s sister)
Dr Pangloss (Candide’s mentor: who believes this is “the best of all possible worlds”)
Cacambo (Candide’s loyal servant, a zanni of the commedia dell’arte) 
The Old Lady
Martin (the Old Philosopher)
Paquette (suivante to the Baroness)
Giroflée (a friar)

etc.

The Story

We are in Westphalia. Candide, the illegitimate son of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronchk’s sister, is kicked out of Paradise when he kisses Cunégonde, the Baron’s daughter. (1)

Candide leaves and is made prisoner by Bulgarian soldiers who flog him and are about to execute him when the Bulgar King arrives and saves Candide whom, he says, is not worth hanging. (2)

In Holland, Candide meets an Anabaptist who looks after him, provides him with a shelter and becomes his teacher. (3) Dr Pangloss, Candide’s mentor at the Baron’s, appears unexpectedly. He caught smallpox and is pockmarked. He tells Candide that everyone has been killed, including Cunégonde. (4)

They leave for Lisbon but are shipwrecked during an earthquake and a tsunami (the 1755 Lisbon earthquake). A sailor lets the Anabaptist drown. Candide is wounded but he and Dr Pangloss survive. (5)

In Lisbon, Dr Pangloss is hanged by the Inquisition and Candide, spanked. (6) Cunégonde watches the auto-da-fé (act-of-faith) and recognizes Candide. An old woman is sent to fetch Candide. (7) Cunégonde is owned by a Jew and an Inquisitor, (8) but staves off their advances, she says. Candide kills both men. (9)

They flee to Buenos Aires. (10) The old woman, the daughter of a pope and a princess, tells how she lost one of her buttocks. (11-12). In Buenos Aires, the Governor falls in love with Cunégonde. (13) Candide and Cacambo continue to flee the Inquisition and arrive in Paraguay where they find Cunégonde’s brother, a Colonel, who has not died. (14) The Colonel will not let Cunégonde marry Candide who belongs to an inferior class. Candide kills him. (15)

Candide and Cacambo carry on but are captured by Oreillons and nearly eaten. They are spared because they are enemies of the Jesuits. A river propels them into El Dorado or Paradise. In El Dorado, there is no religion, just Deism, but they leave. Sheep, laden with treasures, guide them above mountains. They think they will be able to take Cunégonde back. (17 – 18) On their way to Suriname, they lose their sheep and much of their riches (jewels, etc.). However, Cacambo is sent to buy Cunégonde back while Candide and Martin, a poor philosopher, sail for Venice (19).

During the trip across the sea, Martin tells his philosophy. It is diametrically opposed to that of Dr Pangloss. (20 -21) They stop in Paris where Candide falls prey to various crooks, cheat on Cunégonde and gets in trouble. He has to flee. (22)  As they, Candide and Martin, pass England, they see an admiral who is being executed because he lost a battle. (23)

In Venice, they find no sign of Cunégonde and the old woman, but meet Paquette, the baroness’ suivante, and Giroflée, a friar. (24) They also visit with a man who claims to be happy, the Pococurante.(25) It’s Carnival time in Venice. While they are having dinner with six dethroned and impoverished monarchs, Cacambo surfaces. (26)

Cunégonde is a slave in Constantinople and has grown ugly. Among the galley slaves in the boat taking them to Constantinople, Candide, Martin and Cacambo recognize Pangloss and the son of the Baron. They have not died. They are bought back. (27) Pangloss tells how the Inquisitors failed to kill him. Similarly, the young Baron was unskillfully killed by Candide and is still alive. (28) Candide buys Cunégonde back and is repulsed.

He will marry her nevertheless, despite the young Baron’s objections. (29) They buy a piece of land and start cultivating their garden. Paquette and friar Giroflée also  reappear.  All will cultivate the garden. (30)

Sources and Resources

Candide (Wikipedia)
Candide (summary) EN
Candide (incomplete text) Internet Archives EN
Candide (incomplete text) Gutenberg [EBook #19942] EN
Candide (complete text) literature.org EN
Candide (complete text) Internet Archives FR
Candide (complete text) Ebooks gratuits FR
Candide Google Books
Candide (résumé) FR
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1 July 1646 – 14 November 1716), Wikipedia

____________________
[1] French cinematographer François Truffaut produced L’Enfant sauvage, about a feral child (The Wild Child).

Leonard Berstein conducts his Candide Overture (1956)

??????

© Micheline Walker
12 March 2015
WordPress 

45.403816 -71.938314

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

God punished Washington or Michele Bachmann and Natural Disasters

01 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on God punished Washington or Michele Bachmann and Natural Disasters

Tags

Angst, Democrats, French enlightenment, God, Leibniz, natural disasters, punishment, Republicans, Voltaire's Candide, Washington

So God punished Washington! Could that be? I suppose there has to be a way of making sense of the senseless, i.e. natural disasters.

However, there is a problem. Just which Washington did God punish? A Republican Washington or a Democratic Washington? And to make matters worse, which God meted out this punishment? I was raised to think there was only one God, but I have since realized that people pray to different Gods.

French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) wrote his masterful Candide ou l’Optimisme in 1759, shortly after Lisbon suffered an earthquake and a tsunami that killed between fifty to one hundred thousand persons. Candide, the main character of Voltaire’s witty picaresque tale (picaresque because of its forever-travelling and motley characters) is a naïve young man.

Candide was raised in the Castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, in Westphalia, Germany, and is probably the illegitimate son of the Baron’s sister. One day Candide is chased out of Paradise, the Castle Thunder-ten-tronckh, when he is caught kissing Mademoiselle Cunégonde, the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh’s beautiful daughter.

At one point in the novel, the naïve Candide just happens to be in Lisbon with his mentor, Pangloss, on the very day, November 1st, 1755, Lisbon was devastated by an earthquake and a tsunami that claimed nearly one hundred thousand lives.

Candide and Pangloss survive, but Candide cannot understand why such a disaster has befallen the citizens of Lisbon. Fortunately, his beloved mentor Pangloss, a disciple of Leibniz (1646-1716), reassures him by saying, as he always does, that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds: “Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.”

It is unlikely that Lisbon’s Great Earthquake and Tsunami alone, if at all, moved Voltaire to write Candide. Voltaire was the most prominent among the philosophers of the French Enlightenment, and philosophers usually discuss philosophy, not current events. However, the earthquake had to be on Voltaire’s mind or it is unlikely he would have led his characters to the site of the disaster at the very moment said disaster occurred: kairos, or time in its vertical and opportune dimension, rather than chronos, the unaging and horizontal dimension of time.

Although he was a lumière, Voltaire was also a deist, albeit unconvincingly, and very much aware of the human condition. Late in his relatively long life (he died at the age eight-four), Voltaire wrote that he was “slowly nearing the moment when philosophers and idiots suffer the same fate.” “J’approche tout doucement du moment où les philosophes et les imbéciles ont la même destinée.” Death was the equalizer.

But unlike Pascal, a believer who tended to fear reason, Voltaire was a “philosophe” guided by reason alone. So it was as a “philosophe,” i.e. he felt no angst, that he accepted, humorously and with considerable wit, that humans were mortals who knew they were mortals. Moreover, he undoubtedly did so while dining at the table of some great aristocrat or prince. He loved luxury.

Voltaire was nevertheless an outspoken advocate of equality, justice and tolerance and was emprisoned for his views. He is therefore considered as a precursor of the French Revolution. But not for one second, however brief, would he have understood the “terreur,” or the year 1793, when both Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were summarily guillotined.

Yet, although he places Candide and Pangloss in Lisbon on the day of the Great Earthquake and Tsunami of 1755, it is unlikely Voltaire would have seen this enormous disaster as a manifestation of God’s disapproval of anything or anyone.

As for last week’s earthquake and hurricane Irene, these were natural disasters and natural disasters cannot be prevented nor do they take sides. Because meteorologists can now follow the path of hurricanes and measure their velocity, the rich could flee from Irene, which would not have been possible before satellites were built. But God could not have discriminated between Republicans and Democrats as both are temporary denizens of Washington. Besides, if there are several Gods, they are probably fighting among one another. Godliness is in trouble.

When, after trials and tribulations galore, Candide is reunited with his beloved Cunégonde, she is no longer the beautiful Cunégonde of yesteryear, but literally repulsive. Candide marries her regardless, but has learned that all is not for the best in the best of possible worlds, and that he had better stick to cultivating his garden: “il faut [we must] cultiver notre jardin.“

So my question remains. Just which Washington did last week’s earthquake and hurricane Irene punish? Furthermore, just which God (money being the mightiest) held the rod?

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Europa

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,507 other subscribers

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Epiphany 2023
  • Pavarotti sings Schubert’s « Ave Maria »
  • Yves Montand chante “À Bicyclette”
  • Almost ready
  • Bicycles for Migrant Farm Workers
  • Tout Molière.net : parti …
  • Remembering Belaud
  • Monet’s Magpie
  • To Lori Weber: Language Laws in Quebec, 2
  • To Lori Weber: Language Laws

Archives

Calendar

February 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728  
« Jan    

Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • WordPress.org

micheline.walker@videotron.ca

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker

Social

Social

  • View belaud44’s profile on Facebook
  • View Follow @mouchette_02’s profile on Twitter
  • View Micheline Walker’s profile on LinkedIn
  • View belaud44’s profile on YouTube
  • View Miicheline Walker’s profile on Google+
  • View michelinewalker’s profile on WordPress.org

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker
Follow Micheline's Blog on WordPress.com

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

  • Follow Following
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Join 2,475 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: