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Today in 1793, Louis XVI was executed under orders of the National Convention.

"I remained alone in the chamber, overwhealmed with sorrow, and almost without sense of feeling. The drums and trumpets proclaimed His Majesty's departure from the Tower...An hour after, discharges of artillery, and cries of Vive la Nation! Vive la Republique! were heard...The best of Kings was no more!" -Jean-Baptiste Clery, A Journal of the Occurrences at the Temple (1793)

#National convention #French Revolution #French Revolutionary Wars #Louis XVI #Jacobin #Gironde #Sans-cullottes #execution #1793 #Jean-baptiste Clery

Me: "He clung to his hoe, his long shafted spade, and that short scythe, the pique, which Arthur Young had allowed to be"One of the most useful implements that can be seen"." J.H Clapham, Economic development of France and Germany (1815-1914) IS IT ME OR DOES THIS READ EXACTLY LIKE THE PASSAGE OF 50 SHADES OF GREY YOU READ TO ME IN HMV?!?!

My mate: No, I believe that was 'I tongued his shaft and breathed heavily.' But I can see where the two cross over.

Me: I never forget a shafft.

My Mate: Shalf?

Me: You're Damn right.

#Shaft #50 shades of grey #economics #1815 #1914 #Germany #france

6 January 1883: Louis Napoleon Bonarpare III died in exile in Kent. Haunted by the defeat at the battle of Sedan (1870), his last words were "Were you at Sedan?" A defeated Empire, a crippled economy and a revolution/civil war in France changed European politics in the preceding years of the Great War, as well as socialist perceptions of the past; "But let us not forget that it is the governments and ruling classes of Europe who enabled Louis Napoleon to play 18 years the ferocious farce of the restored Empire."

- Karl Marx, The Civil War in France (1871)

Image, Napoleon III captured after Sedan (September 1870)

#Franco-prussian war #french civil war #French Revolution #History #Bismark #Napoleon III #Louis Napoleon #Sedan #War #Mark

"For him this is not only the extermination of the revolution, but the extermination of France, now decapitated in reality, and by the French Government itself."

Marx on Bismark's achievement after the Franco-Prussian war and intervention in the French Civil War.

- Karl Marx, The Civil War in France (1870-71)

#Bismark #Karl Marx #Marxism #History #Franco-prussian war #French Civil War

"The Communal Constitution has been mistaken for an attempt to break up into a federation of smaller states [...]The antagonism of the Commune against the state power has been mistaken for an exagerated form of the ancient struggle against over-centralization."

He continues,

"The unity of the nation was not to be broken, but, on the contrary, to be organised by the Communal constitution, and to become a reality by the destruction of the state power which claimed to be the embodiment of that unity [...,] to the nation itself."

He concludes,

"The Communal Constitution would have restored to the social body all the forces hitherto absorbed by the state parasite feeding upon [...] the free movement of, society."

Marx on the constitution of the PAris Commune.

- Karl Marx, The Civil War in France (1870-71)

#Civil War in France #Franco-prussian war #Karl Marx #history #marxism #politics #Paris Commune

"The French workmen must perform their duties as citizens; but, at the same time, they must not allow themselves to be deluded by the national souvenirs of 1792, as the French peasants allowed themselves to be deluded by the national souvenirs of the First Empire."

- Karl Marx The Civil War in France (1870-71)

#Karl Marx #Franco-prussian war #Civil War in France #Marxism #History

Why be so fascinated by the dull gleam of a stone when he has all the stars in the sky to look at? - Thomas More, Utopia (1516)

#History #philosophy #Thomas More #Utopia #Wealth #materialism

“Unless the miller blindfolds the donkey in the treadmill, it will turn round and eat the corn. God has mercifully blindfolded us, so that we cannot see the good that we do, for then we should perhaps praise ourselves and lose our reward. That is why we are left for a time with bad thoughts, so that when we see them, we judge and condemn ourselves. Those very thoughts are the cloth that blindfolds us and prevents goodness from being seen. When a man accuses himself, he does not lose his reward.”

Humility

The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks

Image, Saint Poemen

#philosophy #Christianity #meditation #contemplation #aesthetic #monk #hermit #Paul of Thebes #Thoughts #Mind #Body #God #Actions #Morality

“Theonas said, “Our mind is hindered and held back from contemplating God, because we are kept prisioner by our bodily passions.””

Sober living

The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks

#Saint Theonas #Mind #God #Meditation #bodily passions #Sober living #Contemplation

“Nilus said, “The arrows of the enemy cannot touch someone who loves quiet. But those who wander among crowds will often be wounded by them.””

Matrona said, “Many solitaries living in the desert have been lost because the lived like people in the world. It is better to live in a crowd and want to live a solitary life than to live in solitude and be longing all the time for company.””

OnQuiet

The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks

The Desert Fathers were aesthetic hermits and monks living primily in Scetis and the deserts of Egypt around the third century AD. Mount Athos, and Benedictine monasticism were largely influenced by the Desert Fathers and their practices. Anthony the Great, Paul of Thebes, Arsenius the Great and Moses the Black are among the many early Christian Monks.

Image, Saint Anthony

#Desert Fathers #Aesthetics #Monks #Hermits #Christianity #Christian #Bible #Quiet #Meditation #reflection

"And now, what about those people who accumulate superfluous wealth, for no better purpose than to enjoy looking at it?

- Thomas More, Utopia (1516)

Alexander Litovchenko

#Alexander Litovchenko #Thomas More #Utopia #Wealth #Capital #Capitalism #Socialism #History #Greed #piggish greed

"[...] the Utopians fail to understand why anyone should be so fascinated by the dull gleam of a tiny bit of stone, when he has all the stars in the sky to look at - or how anyone can be silly enough to think himself better than other people, because his clothes are made of finer woollen thread than theirs. After all, those fine clothes were once worn by sheep, and they never turned into anything better than a sheep."

- Thomas More, Utopia (1516)

#Thomas More #Utopia #Politics #philosophy #Wealth #Capitalism #Socialism #History

"History is made by mens actions, and their choices are conscious and may be significant. Yet the greatest of all revolutionary strategists, Lenin, was lucidly aware that during revolutions planned actions take place in a context of uncontrollable forces."

- E. J Hobsbawm, Revolution in History

Lenin

#E. J Hobsbawm #history #Lenin #Revolution

"Imperialism is, at the same time, the most prostitute and the ultimate form of the state power which nascent middle class society had commenced to elaborate as a means of its own emancipation from feudalsim, and which full-grown bourgeoise society had finally transformed into a means for the enslavement of labour by capital."

- Karl Marx on the Third French Empire (post-commune)

Karl Marx, The Civil War in France, 1871. Third Address, May 1871.

Painting, Maximilien Luce - Paris Street in May 1871.