Word: xiv
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Others were not so guiltless. A peak of sulfur-and-brimstone intensity was reached by the Satanists of 17th century France, who were rooted out by a secret court under Louis XIV. A famous case of that day involved a series of demonic rituals commissioned by a mistress of Louis who felt that she was falling out of favor. To regain the monarch's love, she had a corrupt priest say sacrilegious Masses *over her nude body in a subterranean Paris chamber, sacrificing a live child at the height of each Mass...
...atomic clock to measure, he teases a laugh like a yo-yo on the end of a string. A figure of grizzled aplomb, he can get up from a spread of ham hocks and pinto beans, then strut through a junky living room as if he were Louis XIV in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles...
...Misanthrope was written at the time when Louis XIV had gathered the entire French aristocracy in his monkey court at Versailles to gibber and not at each other and indulge in gratuitous palace intrigues while he ran the country with a free hand. Although the setting is not Versailles, the characters in the play are all part of this glittering, shallow society, where conventions enforce a routine dishonesty, friendship and courting are reduced to foppish displays, and love is overwhelmed with calculation. In this setting we meet Alceste, the misanthrope, who is repelled by all the vanity and hypocrisy...
...economic managers was a Rothschild banker, Georges Pompidou, who became his successor as President in 1969. The economic group's most radical proposal by far was to reverse France's historic trend toward ever tighter centralization, which was begun in the 17th century when Louis XIV began holding permanent court at Versailles, thus depriving the nobility of their regional power bases...
...many generations of legacies that even their steward is a second generation "P.C. man". Many think that the P.C. has been overly concerned with family trees to the exclusion of geniality, and the present membership includes a few members whose political leanings lie somewhere to the right of Louis XIV. The P.C. ended up with only four new members in 1969, and it wasn't because only four members of a class of 1200 were worthy of the honor...