Alexeievna

The family portrait was painted as a model for one of the monumental murals which once adorned the old Bayerisches Nationalmuseum on Maximilianstrasse. Today the building houses the Museum Fünf Kontinente. The historicist cycle of 143 murals depicted the most important events in the history of Bavaria and the House of Wittelsbach. Like most of them, the fresco painting after this particularly high-quality model no longer exists. The foundation of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum dates back to the middle of the 19th century on the personal initiative of Max I's grandson, King Maximilian II Joseph. The newly erected building of the museum was inaugurated in 1867.

“Je chemine solitaire sur cette terre, Depuis longtemps détachée du plaisir, de la vie ; Nul compagnon ne partage le secret de mon cœur, Jamais aucune âme n'a su me comprendre. Je fuis le monde et toutes ses joies, Je suis bien loin aujourd'hui des humains ; Leur bonheur et leur peine me restent étrangers ; Je chemine solitaire, comme sur une autre planète. Ô vous, chères âmes de ces temps lointains, Auxquelles s'adresse aujourd'hui mon âme, Bien souvent elle vous accompagnera, Et vous la ferez vivre grâce à mes poèmes.”

corsage (2022) dir. marie kreutzer

fire made flesh, mother of dragons.

colin morgan as george “bay” middleton in corsage

”He who said: “My people, my children”; he who said he breathed for the nation’s happiness alone, who said he was only “content when they were content, miserable when they ailed”; he who denied them their most sacred rights, who wavered between the people and his vanity, and wanted public prosperity, without wanting that which constitutes it. Louis wept; was it from feeling or fury? We have known of souls softened by fear and cruelty, such as Louis XI, who invoked heaven prior to spilling blood, but this is the first king under the sun, since history has transmitted the events, whose tyrannical framework was built upon sweetness and the appearance of decency. Everywhere he usurped the place of the patrie, and sought to tempt affections owed to France alone. A trap all the more shrewd by which Louis, joining covert violence with intrigue, thus undermined the laws, through force, through the refinement of his conduct and through the interest of wretched virtue.” 

For the real Madame Du Barry … is a very different person from the popular Du Barry of the pamphlets and romances and contemporary biographies.

… On three occasions did she intercede on behalf of condemned criminals, and each time with success; she gave generously, lavishly; not only during the days when she had the Treasury to draw upon, but in later years, when her means were relatively small; nothing roused her to such indignation as the sight of cruelty or the neglect of suffering; she was the best of relatives, the most loyal of friends.

“What a meeting have I gone through. Why should I love so tenderly, and why should I be so tenderly beloved?”