Word: xiv
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Benito Mussolini, Napoleon, Louis XIV and Alexander the Great were all cat haters. Abraham Lincoln, Albert Schweitzer, Victor Hugo and Mark Twain were all cat lovers. I much prefer the company of the latter group...
...least 15 years in the society before taking final vows. Unlike other Catholic orders, which vow chastity, poverty and obedience, top Jesuits are also bound to the Pope by a special pledge of fealty. Yet throughout history, Popes have accused them of arrogance and disobedience. In 1773 Clement XIV even suppressed the order because European governments and jealous clerics complained that Jesuits had too much power. The order was not revived until...
...British monarchy took a different course. Instead of effacement, what befell it was exposure; just as the new Communist states called themselves people's democracies, it became a people's monarchy, with full media support and cooperation. Earlier monarchs, like Louis XIV of France, saw themselves as God's viceroys on earth, deducing therefrom the doctrine of the divine right of kings, and claiming not just to represent, but to be the state-"L'état c'st moi!" Today no such claim is feasible; authority cannot be derived from a God who is supposed...
What kind of prodigal squanders $1.63 million a year on 63 doorkeepers-to man three doors? A particularly extravagant Roman emperor? Louis XIV? No, this is democratic America, where an individual is not permitted such profligacy. But 200 people are: the state legislators of Massachusetts. The lawmakers' blue-uniformed doorkeepers are called "court officers," but their duties are nebulous. They do, however, have salaries, more than $18,000 annually-nearly as much as the legislators themselves. A few are former representatives, and many more are friends and relatives of lawmakers. Claims Representative Richard Voke of Chelsea...
...revolution, any more?and probably less?than Reaganism's triumph in the U.S. In many ways, the coming of the new government represents a renewal of some deep-seated French traditions and values. State intervention in economic and social matters, for example, goes as far back as Louis XIV. Even the 35-hour work week coincides with a traditional French preference for leisure over the exclusive pursuit of material wealth. No other nation on earth closes up shop for a month with such flair and goes en masse on vacation the way France does in August...