Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“The fundamental cause of trouble in the world is the stupid are cocksure and the brilliant have doubts.”

Bertrand Russell

Yesterday afternoon I went to my local pharmacy to pick up some prescription drugs. On the way over a man named Leonard that I knew many years ago suddenly came to mind. His father and I were air traffic controllers together. Leonard was/is a professional waiter/server and he worked at all the high end restaurants in the area. After picking up my drugs I stopped by a tiny barbecue place on the way home and there sat Leonard. How the hell did this happen? What are the chances that he and I would be in the same point in space at the same time after all these years? The human mind is a scary thing at times.

I got an e-mail message from one of my subscribers. This lady can trace her ancestry that were participants in the Civil War (Confederacy) and the Revolutionary War (Patriot). She was an Army nurse in Nam during the Tet offensive. I will not go into the horrors of that event, but thank you Brenda for your service.

Here is a bio of one of the movers and shakers of yore:

Louis XIV King of France

The Sun King

Louis XIV was born in 1638 and ruled as King of France for 72 years making him having the longest reign in history. Louis came to power when he was four years old after his father, King Louis XIII died. As you might expect, France was ruled by his mother, Anne of Austria, as regent until Louis reach an age of accountability. Louis had a very unhappy childhood because he was really raised by servants. It appears that Anne was too busy or too disinterested to look after little Louis. In fact, little Louis almost drowned in one of the fountains because there was no one watching after him. Anne was assisted by Cardinal Mazarin as chief council during this time. While Anne was regent, the nobles and judges launched an uncoordinated revolt in 1648 in an attempt to put a stop to the centralizing policies of the Chief council of Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu and upheld by Louis XIV chief council Cardinal Mazarin. The centralization meant fewer jobs and positions for the hangers-on in the King’s court. On more than one occasion Louis and his mother were driven out of Paris and lived in hunger and poverty because of civil wars. These periods of cold, fear and humiliation marked Louis for life. Cardinal Mazarin was able to suppress the revolt an in 1648 restored order with the help of a lot of broadswords, axes and nooses. Peace was finally made with Spain in 1659 making France the most powerful country in Europe. This treaty was sealed in 1660 with the marriage of Louis XIV to Marie Therese the daughter of Philip IV, the King of Spain. Louis assumed personal power soon thereafter and France was never the same. Upon the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, Louis astounded everyone by stating that he would no longer have a member of the Catholic Church as chief council, he would take care of those duties himself. The Catholic Church had a presence in the French court for centuries, but not any more while Louis was in power. He wasn’t done yet; he also decreed that no immediate family members could be members of his Council along with princes and old military nobility and the “good ole boy” system went down the toilet. And finally Louis placed even more responsibility for local governments to govern as removable. Normally the people that ended up with a position in a local government were there for life. Not any more because this meant that if the local boys did not produce, Louis would send them to the showers and bring in someone else. Then he had the corrupt Finance Minister Nicholas Fouquet arrested and put on trial for taking bribes. Fouquet had been finance minister for years but he was convicted and sent to prison for life. These actions took a big bite out of corruption in the French hierarchy. Those that were replaced called this the “reign of the low-born bourgeoisie.” None the less, Louis put his foot down and what ever he said was law. Louis added to his council Jean Baptiste Colbert as internal minister and the Marquis de Louvois as military minister. Colbert was a good choice as Internal minister because he instituted better commerce, industry, a tight quality control and a more equitable taxation system which began filling the French financial coffers to the top. But even then, some tax exemptions for the clergy and nobility continued. But where Colbert and Louis shared the most ideas was glorifying the Monarch and Monarchy through the promotion of the arts. Louis was a discriminating patron of great literature and the artistic figures in France’s classical age. He established academies for painting and sculpture, engraving, architecture, the sciences, music and the Paris Observatory. He accomplished all of this in about seven years. He essentially finished the Louvre Museum by adding classical colonnades. The most spectacular change was when he decided to turn his father’s hunting lodge at Versailles into his palace. Through great engineering and architectural work the breath-taking Palace and gardens of Versailles rose from the ground. Even to this day this structure is one of the most beautiful in the world and became a model for all the other Monarchs in Europe. The King moved into Versailles permanently in 1682. Louis established elaborate court etiquette to be followed. Everyone rose at the same hour, ate at the same hour and retired at the same hour. It was said that one could tell what was happening at the palace by merely looking at a watch. In 1667 foreign affairs Louis had launched a war against the Spanish Netherlands because he claimed that those lands belonged to his Spanish wife rather than to her half brother, Charles II who had inherited the Spanish crown. Louis and company gained some important lands in Flanders in this war. He declared war on them again in 1672 and gained even more lands in Flanders. Knowing that he had the most powerful army and navy in Europe, Louis seized the towns of Strasbourg and Casale in northern Italy in 1681. In fact, Louis defeated every major nation in Europe at one time or another. Then Louis took steps in the wrong direction. His most important ally Colbert died in 1683 as did his wife Marie Therese some say by poison, and it looked like Louis had lost his way. He revoked the Huguenot’s (Protestants) right to worship in France. The Huguenots pulled up stakes and left France taking their money and industrial skills with them which crippled France in several different arenas. In his apparent religious intolerance Louis inadvertently caused all the Protestants in Europe to unite against him. In the fall of 1688 Louis sent troops into the Palatinate (a section of Austria) to disrupt his enemies who had formed the League of Augsburg against him. Then a nine year long war ensued with France barely able to hold it own against the combined forces from England, Austria and Spain along with other smaller nations. That war ended in 1697 but Louis held onto most of his lands. Four years later he was drawn into the disastrous War of Spanish Succession. Again it was a war over lands that Louis thought his Spanish wife had rights to. This War lasted until 1714. Since 1685 Louis had been having a running squabble with the Catholic Church. Louis did essentially what English King Henry VIII did. He withdrew from the Catholic Church and formed his own French Church called the Galician Church and claimed quasi-independence from Rome but Louis eventually kissed and made up with the Catholics. In his later years, Louis began a series of celebrated liaisons with two different mistresses but he finally settled down with one. He married this girl in 1683 and she saw him through two wars and the deaths of some of his direct descendants. The two that survived him were his grandson Philip V of Spain and a great grandson that became Louis XV when Louis died in 1715. He was 77 years old and an icon in European Monarchies, a tremendous leader and patron of the arts, a true Sun King.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow