Maria de' Medici

Queen of France (1573-1642)

Italian princess, queen of France between 1600 and 1642. Born on April 26, 1573 in Florence and died on July 3, 1642 in Cologne. Her parents were Francis II, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Archduchess Joan of Austria. She was the wife of Henry IV of France, whom she married in 1600, the year in which she became queen of France. From her marriage was born Louis, the future King Louis XIII. She died in exile in a state of abandonment that resulted in almost complete poverty.

 

 

Queen of france

In October 1600 she married King Henry IV of France, who had recently separated from Margaret of Valois. With this marriage, the king intended that the fortune of the Medici would help him balance the accounts of the monarchy. But even though she was very beautiful, she made herself hated by her husband. This was due both to her cold and authoritarian character and to the flippancy of her manners and equally to her desire to command. However, King Henry himself had his love affairs and in fact shortly after his marriage to Mary was celebrated, he installed his mistress, the Marquise de Vernouil, close to the queen, by giving her a position in the house of the queen. same. Likewise, María de Médicis made continuous expenditures of money, which she distributed among characters who were supporters of her, including her favorite, Concino Concini, as well as Leonor Galigai, his wife. Under these circumstances, her relations with the king were not very cordial. When their son, the dauphin Louis, future King Louis XIII, was born in 1601, the situation in the relationship of both spouses, instead of improving, worsened. This despite the fact that in the following eight years the couple had five more children. But the prince disunited them even more, because it was the pretext for a solid group of supporters to form around Queen María, grouping around her, and who were favorable to the policy of the Spanish monarchy, the great rival of the French. There were in this faction several religious, as well as the Italian element, among which stood out Concino Concini, the queen's favorite. Things were like this when Henry IV began preparations for the campaign he intended to carry out in Germany. Due to these preparations, María de Ella obtained from her husband that he appoint her regent in her absence. She also managed to have the consecration ceremony held, which had been postponed until then, which happened on May 13, 1610. The next day the king was assassinated. This coincidence of facts raised many suspicions and it was assumed that María could have some complicity in the death of the monarch. However, no one could prove anything against the queen.

 

Regency and exile

When King Henry IV was assassinated, Marie de' Medici was appointed regent during the younger age of now King Louis XIII. During her regency period, she changed the general lines of the international policy of the monarchy of France, so now the friendship of Spain was sought. One result of this new line of political action was the Franco-Spanish marriages in 1615, in which King Louis XIII married the Infanta Ana de Austria and Isabella of France married the Prince of Asturias, Felipe. At first, she kept her collaborators like Sully by her side, but she also initiated the honors for characters like Guise or Condé, as well as those who had been enemies of her late husband. But this policy, in which Concino Concini helped her, also caused the discontent of the nobles. In 1614, these forced the queen regent to gather the General Estates and in them the money that the French treasury had saved during the reign of Henry IV was distributed, even so the nobles continued with their claims so they used force against they. On October 20 of that same year, Louis XIII of legal age was appointed.

 

The situation reached the limit when his favourite, Concino Concini, was assassinated on April 24, 1617 by Carlos Alberto de Luynes, favorite of King Louis XIII and who was carrying out direct orders from the sovereign. Despite the fact that Louis XIII had already been recognized as of legal age, the government had continued in the hands of María de Médicis and Concino Concini, who had obtained from her the title of Marquis of Ancré, so the assassination of Concini meant an attempt of the new king to disassociate himself from maternal politics. Luynes forced Mary to withdraw from court in 1617 and she was confined in the fortress in the town of Blois.

In February 1619 she was able to leave his seclusion and again, with the aim of obtaining power, he gathered around him some disgruntled nobles. His intention was to confront his son, something that finally did not happen because the two reconciled around 1622. He devoted all his energies and influences so that in 1624 Richelieu, his confessor, was appointed cardinal, who on April 29 entered the royal council and that the king also gave him the position of prime minister in August of that same year. This happened after Luynes, who had been one of Marie de' Medici's greatest enemies, died. Luynes was replaced by Richelieu in this role, and soon showed independence of mind and refused to bow to the demands of Maria, who began the conspiracies against the cardinal. This was opposed to a Franco-Spanish alliance and also aligned with the Protestant powers against the Hispanic monarchy.

 

In 1629 it seemed that Maria had won her political game when her son appointed her regent as he began the Italian campaign. When her son returned from Italy, she suggested to him, on November 10, 1630, that Richelieu should leave the government. Initially it seemed that the king yielded to his proposals, but the cardinal maneuvered deftly and managed in February 1631 that the queen was banished again, this time in Compiègne. In April, she managed to escape from her place of confinement and took refuge in the Spanish Netherlands, specifically in the city of Brussels, where she arrived in July. Here he continued the conspiracies and he was also met by another of his sons, Gastón de Orleans, who also conspired against his brother, although his attitude towards the Hispanic monarchy was as negative as that of King Louis XIII. In Brussels, where, according to rumors, María de Médicis had arrived with the direct help of the Count-Duke of Olivares, María continued her pro-Spanish policy and had Abbot Scaglia in her court, who acted as the ambassador of the Hispanic monarchy before María, in addition, María received considerable economic aid, 333,000 shields, from the Hispanic monarchy, when the war against France began. In 1638 she continued her flight, this time to England, where she arrived in the autumn of that year as London had become the city where the most significant noblemen dissatisfied with the government of Louis XIII resided. However, in 1641 and due to the pressure exerted by Parliament on his son-in-law, King Charles I, who had been married since May 1625 to Enriqueta María, one of the daughters of Enrique IV and María de Médicis, had to leave England and headed for Germany. There, despite all her efforts, she was unable to return to France and died in Cologne on July 3, 1642.

 

As an exemplary nobleman of Italian origin, she protected the arts, and it was to her that the construction of the Luxembourg Palace was due, in which Rubens painted the gallery of this name. He also spent enormous amounts of money with which the French capital was embellished with magnificent buildings, he began the Luxembourg Palace and between 1622 and 1624 he had Pedro Pablo Rubens paint a series of 21 frescoes in which life actions were narrated. of María de Médicis and that were preserved in the royal palace and later the Louvre museum.

 

French Revolution - Tennis Court Oath

Inroduction

Tennis Court Oath, French Serment du Jeu de Paume, (June 20, 1789), dramatic act of defiance by representatives of the nonprivileged classes of the French nation (the Third Estate) during the meeting of the Estates-General (traditional assembly) at the beginning of the French Revolution.

The deputies of the Third Estate, realizing that in any attempt at reform they would be outvoted by the two privileged orders, the clergy and the nobility, had formed, on June 17, a National Assembly. Finding themselves locked out of their usual meeting hall at Versailles on June 20 and thinking that the king was forcing them to disband, they moved to a nearby indoor tennis court (salle du jeu de paume). There they took an oath never to separate until a written constitution had been established for France. In the face of the solidarity of the Third Estate, King Louis XVI relented and on June 27 ordered the clergy and the nobility to join with the Third Estate in the National Assembly.

On 20 June 1789, the members of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath vowing "not to separate and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established". It was a pivotal event in the French Revolution. The Estates-General had been called to address the country's fiscal and agricultural crisis, but they had become bogged down in issues of representation immediately after convening in May 1789, particularly whether they would vote by order or by head (which would increase the power of the Third Estate, as they outnumbered the other two estates hugely).

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

On 17 June, the Third Estate began to call themselves the National Assembly, led by Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau. On the morning of 20 June, the deputies were shocked to discover that the chamber door was locked and guarded by soldiers. They immediately feared the worst and were anxious that a royal attack was imminent from King Louis XVI, so the deputies congregated in a nearby indoor jeu de paume court [fr] in the Saint-Louis district [fr] of the city of Versailles near the Palace of Versailles. There 576 of the 577 members from the Third Estate took a collective oath "not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established". The only person who did not join was Joseph Martin-Dauch from Castelnaudary, who would only execute decisions that were made by the king.

Oath

The deputies' fears, even if wrong, were reasonable and the importance of the oath goes above and beyond its context.The oath was a revolutionary act and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the monarchy. Their solidarity forced Louis XVI to order the clergy and the nobility to join the Third Estate in the National Assembly to give the illusion that he controlled the National Assembly. This oath was vital to the Third Estate as a protest that led to more power in the Estates General, and every governing body thereafter.

A translation of the oath reads:

“The National Assembly,

Considering that it has been called to establish the constitution of the realm, to bring about the regeneration of public order, and to maintain the true principles of monarchy; nothing may prevent it from continuing its deliberations in any place it is forced to establish itself; and, finally, the National Assembly exists wherever its members are gathered.

Decrees that all members of this Assembly immediately take a solemn oath never to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require until the constitution of the realm is established and fixed upon solid foundations; and that said oath having been sworn, all members and each one individually confirms this unwavering resolution with his signature.

We swear never to separate ourselves from the National Assembly, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require until the constitution of the realm is drawn up and fixed upon solid foundations.”

Significance and aftermath

The Oath signified for the first time that French citizens formally stood in opposition to Louis XVI and the National Assembly's refusal to back down forced the king to make concessions. It was foreshadowed by and drew considerably from the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, especially the preamble. The Oath also inspired a wide variety of revolutionary activities in the months afterwards, ranging from rioting in the French countryside to renewed calls for a written constitution. It reinforced the Assembly's strength, and although the King attempted to thwart its effect, Louis was forced to relent and on 27 June 1789 he formally requested that voting occur based on head counts, not each estates' power.The Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789) preceded the abolition of feudalism (4 August 1789) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (26 August 1789).

 

The Zimmermann Telegram

  Between late July of 1914 into 1917, most of the states of Europe were embroiled in a major conflict that became known (circa 1918-1939) as the Great War, but is now more usually referred to as World War One. During these earlier years of the war the United States remained neutral. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson was elected President for a second term and was helped towards such re-election because of the slogan "He kept us out of war."

On 16th January 1917 British agents intercepted a coded telegram that, when deciphered by cryptographers based in the naval codebreaking bureau's Room 40 in Whitehall, proved to be a communication from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Ambassador to Mexico, von Eckhardt.

 The content of this communication instructed von Eckhardt, should a state of war come to exist between Imperial Germany and the United States, to offer United States territory (Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona) to Mexico in return for joining with the German cause. These American States had actually been "lost" to Mexico in earlier conflicts with the United States.

In an effort to protect their intelligence from detection and to capitalize on growing anti-German sentiment in the United States, the British waited until February 24th to present the telegram to Woodrow Wilson.

The American press published news of the telegram on March 1st. In early April President Wilson addressed Congress spelling out his belief that the United States was effectively having war forced upon it principally by the campaign of submarine warfare but the Zimmermann proposals were also cited as a serious provocation.

 On April 6th, 1917, the United States Congress formally accepted that a state a war existed where the United States was in opposition to Imperial Germany and its allies.

  The decoded telegram reads:-

"We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal or alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you. You will inform the President of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace."

  Signed, ZIMMERMANN

  The coded telegram is actually signed "Bernstorff" because it was transmitted through the United States and Bernstorff was the German Ambassador to Washington.

 

Prince Bragation, outstanding General of Tzar Alexander I

Napoleonic era

 

Introduction

 

Pyotr Bagration (10 July 1765 – 24 September 1812) was a iice Russian general and prince of Georgian origin, prominent during the Napoleonic Wars.

 

Bagration was born in Kizlyar or Tbilisi to a family, part of the Bagrationi dynasty. His father was an officer in the Imperial Russian Army, which Bagration also enlisted in 1782. Bagration began his career serving in the Russo-Circassian War for a couple years. Afterwards he participated in a war against the Ottomans and the capture of Ochakov in 1788. Later he helped suppress the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794 in Poland and capture Warsaw. During the Italian and Swiss campaigns of 1799 against the French, he served with distinction under Alexander Suvorov.

 

In 1805, Russia joined the coalition against Napoleon. After the collapse of the Austrians at Ulm, Bagration won praise for his successful defense in the Battle of Schöngrabern that allowed Russian forces to withdraw and unite with the main Russian army of Mikhail Kutuzov. The combined Russo-Austrian army was defeated at the Battle of Austerlitz in December, where Bagration commanded the right wing against the French under Jean Lannes. Years later he commanded Russian troops in the Finnish War against Sweden and another war against the Turks in the Danube.

 

During the French invasion of Russia in 1812, Bagration commanded one of two large Russian armies, the other commanded by Barclay de Tolly, fighting a series of rear-guard actions. The Russians failed to stop the French advance at the Battle of Smolensk. Barclay had proposed a scorched earth retreat that was approved by Alexander I, although Bagration preferred to confront the French in a major battle. Mikhail Kutuzov succeeded Barclay as Commander-in-Chief and continued his policy until the Battle of Borodino near Moscow. Bagration commanded the left wing, later called the Bagration flèches, at Borodino, where he was mortally wounded and died a few weeks later. He was originally buried at a local church, but in 1839 was reburied on the battlefield of Borodino.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Pyotr was born in 1765 to a prince of the Mukhrani branch of the Bagrationi dynasty, Colonel Prince Ivane Bagrationi, who was the eldest son of Prince Alexander, an illegitimate son of King Jesse of Kartli, which is now central Georgia. He studied Russian and German and was taught Persian, Turkish, Armenian, and Georgian by his father. However, unlike many other Russian aristocrats, he did not know French..Bagration personally identified himself as a "pure Russian" (chistoi russkoi)

 

Pyotr joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1782,  enlisting as a sergeant in the Kavsansk Rifles of the Astrakhan Infantry Regiment. His younger brother Roman joined the Chuguevsk Cossack regiment as a uryadnik (a Cossack NCO) at the age of thirteen in 1791. Both would go on to become generals of the Imperial Russian Army.

 

Bagration served for some years in the Russian-Circassian War. He participated in the Siege of Ochakov (1788). In 1792 he was commissioned as a Captain and transferred to the Kiev Cavalry Regiment that year as a second Major, transferring as a full first Major to the Sofiiskii Carabineers on 15 May 1794. He served in the military campaign to suppress the Polish Kościuszko Uprising of 1794.

 

He received successive promotions to Lieutenant-Colonel (26 October 1794), to Colonel (1798) and to Major-General (1799). His merits were recognized by Suvorov, whom he accompanied in the Italian and Swiss campaigns of 1799, winning particular distinction by the capture of the town of Brescia.  From 1798 to 1799, he commanded the 6th Chasseurs; from 1801 to 1802, he commanded the Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard; then from 1802 to 1805, he served as GOC Jager Brigade.

 

Catherine Pavlovna of Russia , a daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia, was passionately in love with Prince Bagration. That worried the Russian royal family, and to avoid future relations between the two, the Emperor Paul forced Bagration to marry Princess Catherine Skavronskaya in 1800.

 

He was the alleged lover of Emperor Paul's daughter Catherine. In 1800 Paul recognized the title of "Prince (Knyaz) Bagration" for Pyotr in Russia, and unexpectedly married him off to Countess Catherine Pavlovna Skavronskaya, the favorite niece of Grigory Potemkin and one of the Empress Maria's ladies-in-waiting. Bagration and Catherine had been casually involved, but the marriage was a failure. The young and lovely Catherine soon preferred traveling and, in 1805, fled to Vienna, where her salon and running affair with Prince Clemens von Metternich—who called her "the Naked Angel"—permitted her to serve as an important agent of Russian intelligence and diplomacy. Bagration was obliged by the emperor to claim their daughter, Marie-Clementine, as his own and to subsidize thousands of rubles of Catherine's debts. He had a reputation as a heavy gambler, as well, and was forced to sell estates to cover losses that rose as high as 80,000 roubles.

 

In the wars of 1805 Bagration's achievements appeared even more brilliant. When Napoleon ordered Murat to break an armistice he had just signed with Bagration, the general was able to successfully resist the repeated attacks of forces five times his own numbers under Murat and Lannes at Schöngrabern (16 November) near Hollabrunn. Though Bagration lost half of the men under his command, their stand protected the retreat of the main army under Kutuzov to Olmutz. When Kutuzov was overruled and forced into battle at Austerlitz (2 December), Bagration commanded the advance guard of the Prince Liechtenstein's column and defended the allied right against Lannes, while the left attacked Napoleon's deliberately undefended right flank. He was promoted to Lieutenant-General in 1805, and in 1807 fought bravely and obstinately at the battles of Eylau (7 February), Heilsberg (11 June), and Friedland (14 June).  

 

He was successful as commander of both Russia's Finnish Campaign in 1808 and Turkish Campaign in 1809. In the former, he captured the Åland Islands by a daring march across the frozen Gulf of Finland. His rapid transfer to the distant Moldavian front against the Ottoman Empire has been seen as a reprimand for an alleged affair with the tsarevna Catherine, who was married off shortly thereafter. While there, he led the Russian army at Rassowa and Tataritza and was promoted to full General of Infantry.

 

In 1812, Bagration commanded the 2nd Army of the West. A few days before Napoleon's invasion on 24 June, he suggested to Alexander I a pre-emptive strike into the Duchy of Warsaw. Though defeated at Mogilev (23 July), Bagration led his forces to join the 1st Army at Smolensk under Barclay de Tolly, to whom he ceded overall command of both armies on 2 August. Bagration led the left wing at the Battle of Borodino (7 September), where he constructed a number of flèches- due to a shortage of engineer officers though, these were poorly designed. During the battle he received a mortal wound and later died on 24 September, in the village of Simi, which belonged to his aunt.

 

It is said that, while wounded, Bagration kept giving orders to the troops without knowing that the Russian army was abandoning Moscow. When he finally heard the truth, Bagration was so shocked that he rapidly stood up, totally forgetting about his grave wound. Such an act was too much for his severely wounded body and it quickly cost Bagration his life.

 

Ancient egyptian art

 One of the characteristics of Egyptian art was the monumental works that generally had a symbolic, funerary or religious character. Although the concept of art is modern, it is perfectly usable in Egyptian architecture, sculpture, painting and jewelry, many of its achievements being authentic works of art and not simple works of classical craftsmanship.

 

Egyptian art was characterized by the fixing of pillars or constant motifs from the beginning of the history of unified Egypt until the end of Roman domination. This period of almost three thousand years involved a development in artistic patterns, motifs, figures and forms of expression, with breaks or revolutionary innovations such as the Amarna period, where art would be totally innovative with respect to its centuries-old artistic heritage.

 

 

Narmer palette, classic image of the pharaoh "destroying" the enemies. It is a constant motif and a clear example of art as an expression of political power.

The knowledge we have of Egyptian art is mainly due to the materials used, be it stone (limestone, sandstone or granite), metals (gold, electrum, copper and bronze), wood (ebony and cedar) and others no less valuable such as ivory, faience and glass.

 

One facet that characterizes Egyptian culture is the constant effort to convey a concept of tradition. This effort translates into the adoption of certain models or images as icons that are repeated in the succession of pharaohs. So even though Egyptian history can be categorized into major stages such as the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, many of these art forms can be repeated as they have been transformed into icons.

 

Art as an expression of political power

It is one of the first bindings since the beginning of the story. Current political ideas and positions would provide the main reason for the production of countless artistic works with a clear idea of ​​propaganda.

 

Under this approach, the main axis is the reason for the work. Said motif is the fundamental pillar of it and determines its parameters: the distribution of the images on the plane (or surface) to be used, the sizes of the images to be represented according to an order of priority based on the importance of the characters, and the use of certain forms as a synthesis of the concept to be transmitted.

 

The use of art in clearly propagandistic works was a common element. During the New Kingdom it was common for military campaigns to Nubia, Syria and Canaan to be represented in successive additions to the temples of Amun at Karnak. Thus, the consecutive pylons of such temples were adorned with multiple reliefs where the reigning pharaoh was battling against Asian or Nubian enemies.

 

 

In Egyptian architecture, adobe was identified as the most used material in its buildings, both in palaces for people with good economic position and for poor people in towns. The difference between the upper social class in Egyptian architecture and the lower social class was the number of rooms in the house, such as bathrooms, utility rooms and a large courtyard, the interior adorned with countless monuments, ornaments and decorations. murals painted in various kinds of colors, while the house of the people of the lower social class had only one room. It is also mentioned that the roofs were used as bedrooms, due to the excessive heat in the area. Both houses were characterized by having very few and small windows, also due to the climate of the region.

 

Art as religious expression

Ancient Egyptian spirituality greatly influenced everyday life. The symbiosis of art and religion was observed throughout almost the entire history of Egyptian art. In the religious aspect, the multitude of deities also meant a need to identify them. Art was in aid of this need by conceptualizing and synthesizing each deity with certain elements that were clearly attributed to them. Thus, each representation of a god necessarily had a set of elements that made it possible to identify it both in images of reliefs or paintings and in sculptures: Amun with the two ostrich feathers as a headdress, the image of Osiris wrapped in white, a simile mummy, Horus with his classic falcon head, Toth with that of the ibis, etc.

 

One of the main edges occurs in the plane of the sculptures. The statues of the gods not only represented them, but were clear elements for worship in the temples, called "the Mansions of the god". In the most remote of the temples the statue of the god was located, which was worshiped and cared for as a living being. In fact, the sculptures were cleaned, dressed and perfumed as if they were the god himself, since, within the Egyptian worldview, the gods nested within the very body of the sculpture. These could be modeled in stone, metal (usually gold) or wood.