Author | Lightnews

Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1h

I really don't know what to say about the East Wing. Macron hasn't razed the Elysée Palace, King Charles is not converting Buckingham Palace into a swimming pool. Wotan had Alberich, the Romans had Alaric. Tr*mp has Tr*mp. He will stop at *nothing*. God save our souls.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 9h

pour être dans son vrai milieu, la musique du cirque olympique, le petit galop du cheval martingalé, le cerceau que l'on franchit d'un bond et le baiser envoyé aux spectateurs sur le pommeau de la cravache." Maxime Du Camp (1822-1894) 5/

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 9h

superstitieuse, superficielle, ne se déplaisant pas aux grivoiseries, toujours préoccupée de l'impression qu'elle produisait, essayant des effets d'épaules et de poitrine, les cheveux teints, le visage fardé, les yeux bordés de noir, les lèvres frottées de rouge, il lui manquait, ... 4/

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 9h

...dans des aventures dont elle était incapable de calculer la portée, ni de prévoir l’issue. Elle a été funeste, et sa beauté, qui fut merveilleuse, ne l’absout pas. […J]e dirais volontiers : “C'était une écuyère.” Il y avait autour d'elle comme un nuage de cold cream et de patchouli ; ... 3/

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 9h

Jamais créature plus futile ne mit au service d’une ambition désordonnée une plus médiocre intelligence. Elle exerça sur les mœurs extérieures une influence détestable, elle eut sa camarilla, sa cour, ses partisans ; elle eut sa politique et poussa le pays ... 2/

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 9h

"L'écroulement de l’Empire, l'affaissement de la France prouvent que Napoléon III a commis bien des fautes ; la plus grave que l'on puisse lui reprocher, celle qui fut de conséquence mortelle, c’est d’avoir épousé Eugénie de Montijo. 1/

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 20h

It does help, doesn't it. I'm so sorry for your loss.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, the right-wing culture warriors are saying that the very soul of France has been damaged by the theft of so-called crown jewels no one had heard of a week ago. Oh please. Can we be serious for a minute or two.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1d

I wonder if Trump-era tat will be on display at the National Gallery in DC 150 years from now. "Genuine spray-painted plastic moulding from the Oval Office, ca. 2025." Same difference.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1d

No, they didn't. Which is why the real treasures are (more or less) safe. Ironically, the stones and pearls were probably looted from some African colony, as @sandeepbak.bsky.social points out. The curse of Alberich, etc. Eugénie's Tuileries palace was the real Walhalla.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1d

We are lucky that they went for some tacky Second Empire tat. There are real national treasures in there. World heritage.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1d

*which

Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1d

...grab the loot and walk away. The director of the Louvre will take the blame and probably get fired, but the real culprit is the Ministry of Culture and more generally speaking a succession of governments that have directed the money away from anything actually worth paying for.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1d

The very serious point the original poster makes is about underfunding/understaffing, whoch is one of the root causes of the current French crise de régime. Culture and education have been massively underfunded for *decades*, so no one should be surprised that thieves can just walk into a museum,...

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1d

Victor Hugo despised these people so much that he wouldn't set foot in France until they were gone. The sentimental/symbolic value is nil.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1d

...the Second Empire was a tasteless parody of the First, which was a dictatorship. Offenbach's Grande Duchesse has more humanity to her (at least she has a healthy appetite for attractive male company, whereas Eugénie was a prig and a prude, the kind that runs a brothel because it's lucrative).

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1d

Exactly! France doesn't have crown jewels anyway, and the kings and queens who had these made were deeply unserious people who ran tacky imitation monarchies that didn't survive longer than a couple of decades, from one revolution to the next. Eugénie in particular was a pretentious grifter, and...

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 1d

This ⤵️

Sascha Stronach🏳️‍⚧️, The Sunforge out now @understatesmen.bsky.social · 1d

aaaaaaaand it turns out the answer to "how TF did some guys with a ladder steal the French crown jewels" is "cuts to arts funding mean the Louvre is massively understaffed"

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Reposted by Mathieu Duplay 🌈

Dimitri Tilloi-d’Ambrosi @dimitri-tilloi.bsky.social · 2d

L’éblouissante chapelle palatine du Palais des Normands à Palerme (XIIe siècle) avec ses mosaïques byzantines et ses décorations arabes sur les voûtes.

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Reposted by Mathieu Duplay 🌈

Nothings Monstered @nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social · 13d

Howling Wolf — Southern Siberia, 500–200 BCE
wood with shell inlays
11.1 x 3.3 x 5.9 cm (4 3/8 x 1 5/16 x 2 5/16 in.)
www.clevelandart.org/art/1986.26

Statue of a wolf that's headed throwing back and its mouth open being at the Moon if you go to the link there is a huge version of this image if you want to see this at 37 MB size

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 2d

I bet he won't be paying the contractors. Fasolt, Fafner, etc.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 2d

I am OK with this stuff being in museums: history (good & bad), fine workmanship, etc -- at least until an agreement is reached with the people from whom the stones and pearls were stolen to make the tiara, the earrings, etc. But would I want it at home? For sentiment's sake? Not in a million years.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 2d

The would-be king tearing down the royal palace is not a development I was ready for. That must be because I don't understand the psychology of would-be kings.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 3d

Watching this on a loop.

A Woman of Affairs 1928 - Greta Garbo, John Gilbert (Clarence Brown) ⚡UPGRADE⚡ HD 1080p

YouTube video by Window into the Past

youtube.com

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Reposted by Mathieu Duplay 🌈

Franglaise @franglaise.bsky.social · 4d

So this is how it went down

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