Word: orle
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...after Easter at a commune near Orléans, France. Inside a warehouse, an altar has been set up on a kitchen table. Surrounding it are a coat rack jammed with secondhand clothing, rows of used appliances and abandoned furniture, and assorted bric-a-brac. All in all, an appropriate setting for the annual get-together of the "Emmaus movement," which has shown thousands of people in 23 countries around the world how to rebuild their self-esteem by recycling the junk of the consumer society...
...Henri de Grouès, 65, known universally as Abbé Pierre. The only visible indication that he is no ordinary priest is a thin red ribbon of the Legion of Honor stitched on his jacket. But he is the man who, as a former law professor at the Orléans lunch put it, "almost singlehanded mobilized the entire government and people of France to do something for the poor...
...focus remains self-sustaining communes. Besides the 52 in France (membership 1,500), there are 100 abroad. While the communes are secular, there is a heavy emphasis on community. The communards get room, board and a stipend, but their main reward is in self-respect. A sign in the Orléans commune reads: "We will never agree to accept our subsistence on any basis other than our own work...
...ancient monasteries disappeared, Abbé Pierre believes, because they became too prosperous and insensitive, and he fears the same thing will happen to his movement. To prevent this he uses every opportunity to expound his philosophy, and last week's celebration at Orléans was no exception. "The next friend who will come to this commune is somewhere right now," he told his followers. "We know nothing about him, but he exists at this very minute. While we are here and happy, he is crying somewhere in pain. When he comes to us here he will not find...
...complained Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans and a future King of France (1830-48), after a four-month swing through the U.S. in 1797. Four years earlier, the young aristocrat, whose father was guillotined by revolutionists, had begun a 21-year exile, spent mostly in Europe. Then 23 years old, the duke filled two notebooks as he explored the exotic New World, writing of "very pretty" and "coquettish" Cherokee women, "gross, lazy and inhospitable" whites in Tennessee, and George Washington's "most exquisite politeness" during a dinner at Mount Vernon. The journal has just been published...