Word: xiv
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...cheeks" with two sweeping waves. Anticipating complaints that the style hid too much of Jackie's face, Alexandre said: "A beautiful face needs foliage around it." For a ball next night at Versailles, Alexandre moved on from the Madonnas to the Duchess of Fontagnes, one of Louis XIV's loveliest mistresses, and designed a spectacular that was topped by a tambourine-shaped hair piece set with five family diamond pins. When Jackie protested against the jewelry, Alexandre observed: "Make an effort, Madame. You must pay tribute to Louis XIV...
...Tues., June 6 IX M, W, F at 4 Tues., June 6 X T, Th, S at 8 Sat., May 27 XI T, Th, S at 9 Sat., June 3 XII T, Th, S at 10 Mon., June 5 XIII T, Th, S at 11 Fri., May 26 XIV T, Th, S at 12 Th., June 1 XV T, Th, S at 1 Sat., May 27 XVI T, Th, S at 2 Sat., May 27 XVII T, Th, S at 3 Th., May 25 XVIII...
Bedtime a I'ancien régime was a charade of pomp and circumstantial evidence. Each evening Louis XV pretended to occupy the monumental bed in the grandiose official apartment of Louis XIV at Versailles, while grand dukes and marquises vied to hold a candle or the King's nightshirt. As soon as the last light was snuffed out, Louis XV scrambled out of bed, scurried up a secret staircase and bedded down comfortably in his own cozy petit appartement. In the morning the whole absurd ritual began again in reverse...
...idiosyncrasy rather than the cold light of 100% accuracy. The result is an "entertainment" written in the witty and amusing fashion of a male Nancy Mitford. Among the chief sitters: Catherine the Great, Peter the Great, Frederick the Great, Voltaire, Saint Simon, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Ben Franklin, Louis XIV, Louis XV, John Wesley and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Intellectual and psychological vignettes illuminate the contradictions of ruler and sage. As a bride of 16, Catherine the Great was ignorant of the facts of life, thought the only difference between men and women was that men, for some odd reason...
...prose, as Herbert Read has noted, exemplifies "all the characteristics of a true narrative style--correctness, economy and speed." Its rhythms are supple, pleasing and forceful--ranging from the near hexameters of Isaiah's cry, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" (Isa. xiv: 12) to the bold anapests of the song of Moses, "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew." (Deut. xxxii, 2). And then the publication of the Authorized Version came at a time when the English language itself was expanding at a truly violent rate...