Honorable Quotable: Madame Beatrix de Grammont

Beatrix de Grammont by Roslin 

She was a self-confident and beautiful woman. She was alive during the French Revolution, where there was always a threat of death. When she faced the Revolutionary Tribunal at the threat of death, she was interrogated at the trial and asked: "Didn't you send money to emigrants?"
She answered with this memorable quote:

 I would say no but my life is not worth a lie.

Sources:

Mémoires de Duc de Lauzun (1747-1783). by Antione Louis de Gontaut, p.8. 

Portrait Lives: Madame de Pompadour

Madame was a different kind a mistress of the king. She was a woman of humble origins, but by King Louis XV she was made something else; ennobled by the name Marquise de Pompadour and his mistress. She influenced the king immensely, and influenced the politics of 18th century France. Many artists were encouraged by her, in fact the king is reported saying "I don't have enough room in my Castle for everybody."
For 20 years she was influencing France when she died of tuberculous at 43. She did many things in her life; she was credited with the loss of Canada by the French.

They are no pictures I can find of her in her early life so I will start in her mid twenties.

As Diana, abt 25 by Nattier

abt. 31 by de la Tour

abr. 34 by Charles Andre van Loo

abt.35 by Boucher

abt.37 by Boucher

Writing with a Dog at abt. 43 by Drouais

Sources:
www.madamedepompadour.com: a great source for information about her, this is where the Louis XV's quote is from
The Houghton-Mufflin Dictionary of Biography, 2003: Pompadour, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de,

Anne Greene: An Alleged Murderess

Anne Greene may have killed her own child (in the eyes of the law) but despite this her own execution could not kill her.

She had just been a housemaid and now she had become a murderer. Her master's grandson had seduced her and she had had his child. But because of him and his grandfather pushing a conviction of her murdering this child (a stillborn), Anne was going to die.

Like all common women in 17th century England who were found guilty of infanticide, she was to die. She was took out to the 'Cattle yard' in Oxford in 1650. She said her last words, complaining of the obscenity of her former employer and she was hung. While she was hanging unconscious maybe her friends pulled and tugged her to try to give her a faster death as a good parting gift. When they thought that she was dead they put her in a coffin and sent her off to Surgeon William Petty for an autopsy.

Dr. Petty then opened the coffin and saw in wonder that she had taken a breath.
He tried to revive her and used some 17th medicine (want to learn more, see source 1 note). Anne recovered after Dr. Petty's treatment. She could remember everything except her execution and revival by the doctor and his assistant.

People claimed that God had saved her and her fame spread wide. She had been pardoned by the county justices.
People around the area went to see Anne when she was recovering and admission was charged.

Sources:
1. Miraculous deliverance of Anne Green by J. Hughes: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov....pdf
note: for more medical information about Anne's revival look under 'the resuscitation' in this source

2. Oxford ODNB, Anne Greene (c.1628-1659): http://www.oxforddnb.com

Check out 

Murder in Shakespeare's England

by Vanessa McMahon
Click on the image. No regrets.

Aliens or Beings from an Underground World in 12th Century England?

In 12th century Suffolk, a girl and boy were found of green color. They spoke a weird language no one understood and had strange clothes. The villages who found them took them to a knight's house. They stayed there but refused to eat anything except raw beans. The boy grew depressed, and died, soon after they were both christened by the townspeople. But the girl, who was named Agnes, had lived, learning the language, and becoming popular with the people, though her green color had faded away. They asked her where she came from and how she came here. She told a interesting story. She said that she was from a place called St. Martin's Land. A land where it was always twilight with no sun and everything was green. She found Suffolk when her brother and she heard some bells which enchanted them. Following those sounds, they came through a cave and emerged to the present place where they were struck by the light of the sun and the strangest temperatures of the air, new sights to them. They sat in that place where they were found.

Many theories about the green children origins have emerged.  Some say that they were green fairies, aliens, they had came through a rip in dimensions, came from an underground world, or that everything was just a hoax in the beginning.

Agnes married Richard Barre.


Sources:
Martin and the Green Children by John Clark; Folklore 117 (August 2006) pp.207-214 http://his.library.nenu.edu.cn/upload/soft/MartinandtheGreenChildren.pdf
William of Newburgh's Account of the Children and Ralph Coggeshall's from http://anomalyinfo.com/

Check out

The Enigmas of History

by Alan Baker

Click on the image. Mysteries? Yes please.

10 Hard to Find Facts about Winston Churchill

A Prime Minister of Britain who was in office during the years of World War Two. He was among the big powers overseeing the Holocaust. Here are rare facts about him:

1.  On British policy: "What is our policy?…to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime."

V for Victory!

2. His Father's Death: It was long thought that his father died from syphilis at 45. His father actually died from a brain tumor.

3. Part American: Churchill was part American, from his mother, Jennie Jerome. 

4.Smoking Habit: He liked to smoke Havana cigars which he discovered in the military.

5. His occupations: Churchill before his career in politics, was a writer, he wrote many books. He was also in the military.


6. Comment on a Book He Wrote: Samuel Hoare said about one of his books:Winston's written an enormous book all about himself and called it The World Crisis.

7. History Lovers Unite!: He loved history, scoring well in it in school. He even thought of writing a book about Napoleon.

8. Hobbies: He loved polo when he was young but connected with art and started to paint when he was older.

9. Many life-threatening circumstances: he almost drowned and had serious pneumonia. One time someone actually tried to push him in front of a train, thankfully his wife saved him, she hit the person with her umbrella. 

10. That Club: he co-founded a club called 'The Other Club. (Don't get too imaginative; it was a dining club)


Sources:
Winston Churchill, Man of the Century, Course Guide by John Ramsden
Winstonchurchill.org
Oxford Essential Quotations

I am going to be writing sometimes every other day now. So if I post on Monday then next I will post on Wednesday. You have probably noticed my erratic posting schedule. I'll post soon and try to get out of this schedule.

Check out

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 

Its kinda cheap but still 5 stars!

Churchill wants you to click on the picture link

Murray O'Daly: an Medieval Irish Poet's Event of the Killing

In his early life, Murray had killed a steward who had come to receive a due for his debt. Murray got in a disagreement with this man. Murray, taking an ax and making some whacks (just like Lizzie Borden), killed the innocent steward.

The steward had came to collect for a man named O'Donnell. Now O'Donnell pillaged the country to find Murray and to make him pay for the murder. Appealing for kindness and trying desperately to save his own skin, Murray wrote poetry praising O'Donnell. The poet called O'Donnell the 'kind hand of peace' while simultaneously running away from him. Murray wrote about how he killed that man in this part of a poem : 

Trifling is our difference with the man
A shepherd was affronting me
And I killed that clown
O God! is this a cause for enmity?

Take that...what you will.

His praising strategy actually worked; he was received back as a friend. 

Sources:

The Tribes of Ireland by Aenghus O'Daly p.6-8, on Google Books

Annals of the Four Masters by Unknown, M1213.8-9: http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T100005C/text005.html

Murray O'Daly is his anglicized name, his other name is Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh

Portrait Lives #3: Charles II

Charles was a very interesting monarch, enjoying a life full of adventures. He was born in 1630, and lived an early life of royalty. Then after his father, Charles I was executed by Parliament and kings were banned, he was on the run. He ran to other countries as well as traveling throughout England in a series of disguises because there was a 1,000 pound prince price on his head.
Kings were eventually restored in England as you might know. Charles II was crowned king at 30 years old in May 1660. He allowed women to act, resisted against Titus Oates (the best name ever) who thought Catholics were plotting conspiracies in England. He was actually was presented with the first pineapple in England, which I suppose he ate gleefully. He had tons of mistresses, one he liked to call 'Fubbs'.

2. Charles with a gun aged abt. 8 by van Dyck 

1. On the far left, Charles II is gold, aged 6 by
Anthony van Dyck

3. Charles with a sword aged about 14
by William Dobson

4. Hot Charles aged about 23
by Phillipe de Champaigne

5. Rich Charles aged about 31
by John Michael Wright

7. Charles chillin' aged 45 by Peter Lely 

6. Charles has fashion and shoes
aged about 40 by Peter Lely 

8. Old but still masuline Charles, aged 50 by Peter Lely

9. Dusty Charles aged 53 by Willem Wissing

He died at about 55 years old on 1685. The Earl of Rochester jokingly said that the King's epitaph should read:

Here lies our sovereign lord, the king,
Whose word no man relies on,
Who never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one. 

Sources:
Quote from Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotation by Kate Louise Roberts, page 685: http://books.google.com/books?id=vusHEymIuvwC&dq=We+have+a+pretty+witty+king,+Whose+word+no+man+relies+on%3B+He+never+said+a+foolish+thing,+Nor+ever+did+a+wise+one&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Charles II: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharlesII, a really good site that is kinda of like Wikipedia but more flexible.
May 28th: http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/may/29.htm
Fun Trivia: Charles II: http://www.funtrivia.com/en/people/charles-ii-8764.html
Charles II: http://instruct.uwo.ca/english/234e/site/bckgrnds/biogrphs/charlesii.html
Horrible Histories

Check out 

King Charles II by Antionia Fraser

Click the picture, what's the worst that could happen?

Xerxes Punished the Sea

Xerxes' servants lashing the sea; I bet the sea
really regret it's actions after this

The Persian king Xerxes wanted to go to war with Greece, so he had a bridge built across the Hellespont Sea to aid him with this. Soon afterwards a storm destroyed the bridge and he became furious, madly furious. In fact he insisted in having the sea called the Hellespont whipped a thousand times and even ordered some primitive version of handcuffs thrown into it. Xerxes ordered his servants to say this as they whipped the sea:

"You hateful water, our master lays his judgement on you thus, for you have unjustly punished him even though he's done you no wrong! Xerxes the king will pass over you, whether you wish it or not! It is fitting that no man offer you sacrifices, for you're a muddy and salty river!"(1)

Xerxes ordered the bridge to be rebuild and after a winter's time he crossed the bridge in elated happiness.

Sources:

1.Herodotus: The Histories: Xerxes at the Hellespont (mid 5th Century BCE); http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/world_civ/worldcivreader/world_civ_reader_1/herodotus.html

2. The History of Herodotus by Herodotus, translated by George Rawlinson, Book VII; http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.7.vii.html 

3. Xerxes by Jacob Abbot; http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=abbott&book=xerxes&story=hellespont

Rasputin is Superhuman.

Rasputin: he knows what's going on.

Everyone in his life wanted to see him dead after the media showed him as a devil on human earth. He was a monk, healer and a private adviser to the Russian Czar family...who later were also murdered.  Hey, what can they do, when Death comes their way? Death meaning people trying to kill them.

Random fun fact:
He predicted his own death and the Czar's:

“When the bell tolls three times, it will announce that I have been killed. If I am killed by common men, you and your children will rule Russia for centuries to come; if I am killed by one of your stock, you and your family will be killed by the Russian people! Pray Tsar of Russia. Pray.”

The people who plotted to kill bated him by inviting him to tea."Oh, Why don't you come and have so tea with us sometime?" I imagined the plotting murderers said to him. The plotting murderers were Vasily, Vladimir, Prince Felix, Grand Duke Dmitri, Dr. Lizavert, and Lt. Sukhotin, like I said a lot of people wanted to kill Rasputin.

Felix was the one who invited him for tea. When Rasputin arrived the other plotters hid in the other room getting drunk. Felix gave him some cyanide to kill him, which was hidden in his food. But for some reason, when he ate the poison, it did not kill him, it just made him feel unwell. So Felix invited him to pray to the crucifix in the room and Rasputin agreed. As Rasputin knelt to kiss the cross, Felix shot him in the back.

Felix thought he had killed Rasputin so he allowed the other plotters to emerge and Dmitri, Lizavert, and Sukhotin left to burn the monk's possessions. Felix and Vladimir waited for them to return to get rid of the body. As they did, Vladimir left the room to drink more. Then Felix yelled to him "...Shoot him. He is alive! He is running away!" Vladimir chased Rasputin, shot him in the back and head, and when Rasputin was down, he went and hit him hard in the head...just to make sure he died this time (gosh, didn't they know when to give a guy a break!?).

Felix, then, became 'enraged' at the sight of Rasputin's face, I'd like to say he became crazy; He started hitting his face with a dumbbell, even after that Rasputin was still alive so they threw him in a river.  He was dead. May I say Superhuman?

Sources:
Murder of Grigori Rasputin: http://www.omolenko.com/en/rasputin/platonov-murder.htm 
Rasputin Quotes: http://historyofrussia.org/rasputin-quotes/

The Masked Ball Incident of the French King

http://expositions.bnf.fr/flamands/grand/fla_228.htm

They called it the Bal des Ardents, not just because french sounds pretty, which it does, but because of what this phrase means.
"Now, don't look it up! Listen, be patient!"
You're burning with anticipation, aren't you?
The Queen's favored lady-in-waiting's wedding was passed through the night in joy. Everyone was so excited for the queen had personally prepared a party afterward. The king was excited too for the afterward party but for different reasons.  The king had arranged a prank. He put on a long linen flax coat and so did five of his servants, too* so that they appeared to look like "savages." They ordered for the lamps to be put one side of the room so they wouldn't catch fire. Later, the Duke of Orleans, the king's distracted brother forgot to move the lamps, and held one of them too close to one of the flax costumes and set it aflame.  Eventually the fire spread to all the people in costumes, and the screams were horrible, at least this is how it is reported. They tried to extinguish it, though their efforts hardly did anything. When the weak Queen saw that king was on fire, she fainted, as one man ablaze screamed "Save the King, save the king!"  The Duchess of Berry threw her dresses' train the king. One of the men in costume (Evan) had jumped into a barrels of water used to wash dishes, he saved but still a little soapy.  Only that man and the king survived of the men in costume.

See even people from all centuries can party at all hours of the night, just some don't end up well.






Sources:

Volume 2 of Chronicles of England, France, Spain, and the Adjoining Countries  by Jean Froissant, Sainte-Palaye, Thomas Johnes, William Smith, 1889, Oxford University, http://books.google.com/books?id=GC4OAAAAQAAJ&dq=jean+froissart+chronicles+william+smith+two&source=gbs_navlinks_s

*The servants were Count de Joingy, Charles or Aymand de Poitiers,  Evan de Foix, and Hugonin de Gensay 

Last Words: Saint Louise-Marie of France or Mother Therese

Louise at 9

  "To paradise! Fast! At great gallop!"*

 These were Louise's last words in the late December of 1787. You can call her Mother Therese if you really want to show the fact she is a nun, I don't think she would really care what you call her.  She was born in 1737, the daughter of King Louis XV and his wife.
She had the bad fortune of having  partially defected leg because of an accident as a child, but still had a high self-confidence through her life.
She became a nun because of she believed she was miraculously cured after she survived an event when she was young which caused her to almost die.  She came out very religious.  She joined the Nun order at Mount Carmel. She became a Carmelite! (a real word)
She was in nun servitude for 13 years. Till, which has been said on Carmelnet she was poisoned by her father's enemies. I really don't think that was the case.
They said dramatically: "In Dec, 1787, the attempt [of murder] was repeated by means of a packet of false relics sprinkled with poison. After having opened the packet, mother Teresa immediately fell
ill.

Louise, now Mother Therese in full nun gear.

Is it really possible for someone to fall ill suddenly from poison? Usually it has to build up in the body, least I thought it did. Reportedly she had complained of stomach problems and she fell ill and then died.
And the question comes to mind about her supposed murder : Why kill a nun? Shouldn't killing a nun be bad luck? Any nun is harmless; not that they carry machine guns or plot conspiracies on a regular basis or anything. Why would they care anything about her, even if she is the king's daughter, she is also a nun.


Sources:
1. Her English Wikipedia page. Note: Don't get me wrong, just little structural facts from there and see lines below.
*I had to get the quote from Wikipedia because her words vary widely across the sources. Since Wikipedia had the original french wording, I thought it would be better translate it myself.No Google Translate, I know french. it was said as "Au paradis! Vite! Au grand galop!"
2. Venerable Therese of St. Augustine by Prof Plinio: http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j052sdMadameLouise12-23.htm

3. TERESA OF ST. AUGUSTINE (Louise of France, 1737-1787) 
Venerable (D): http://carmelnet.org/biographies/TeresaStAugustine.pdf

There's quotables and there's Last Word quotables, which are a little more interesting compared to a regular quote.  So with this post I will start another segment-- not surprisingly called Last Words.

Mary Hamilton, Criminal, Mistress, and Seducer

Mary Hamilton awaiting execution by
Pavel Svedomskiy

Mary was a beautiful young woman, who became the mistress of Peter the Great. She took much pride in Peter, an emperor's attention. Except when Peter turned his love to someone else, she wanted for somebody to replace it. She seduced his servant, Ivan Orlov. She became pregnant by him and went on to drown the boy soon after his birth. Maybe love made her crazy, but in that case it also made her commit infanticide.

Ivan took a different mistress. Mary gave him some expensive jewels to win him back...which Mary stole from the empress.
It was soon found out that she had stolen from the empress and killed her child, and she wouldn't get away easy.

Mary was sentenced to death.

Emperor Peter

Her execution was like a play, in that the emperor was a conductor. Peter told her to wear a white gown there he embraced Mary before she walked up the steps of the scaffold and when she was to be beheaded he had told her to pray.
When she had died, Peter lifted her decapitated head and kissed it.  He preceded tell the audience about the head's anatomy, even pointing out the veins and muscles. He couldn't be any calmer.

Sources:
Red Pages of Tsardom by Edgar Wallace: http://freeread.com.au/@RGLibrary/EdgarWallace/NonFiction/RedPagesFromTsardom.html; it is a very interesting source.
Murder Pedia; Mary Hamiliton: http://murderpedia.org/female.H/h/hamilton-mary.htm; they also have other murderers on there. 

Check out 

Peter the Great: His Life and World

and don't murder anyone because that would be bad and clicking on this link wouldn't be.