Historical Omertà
Katie Holyoak
Tue, 01/31/2023 - 08:00
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
The French star is suing a film company in the High Court after their plans fell apart.
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William Shawcross will no longer lead a review of Richard Sharp's appointment owing to past contacts.
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Are you Experienced?
Katie Holyoak
Mon, 01/30/2023 - 08:17
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
In December 1839, Robert M.T. Hunter, Whig of Virginia, was – eventually – elected as the Speaker of House for the 26th Congress.
Editor's note: This essay was prepared for publication on Friday, January 6, prior to the House reconvening at 10:00 PM and voting to make Kevin McCarthy the Speaker.
The “red wave” midterm elections predicted by many pundits and Republicans amounted to little more than a trickle. That trickle, however, was enough to hand control of the House of Representatives back to the GOP after a four-year hiatus. Kevin McCarthy, who spent those four years as minority leader in the shadow of his in-state rival Nancy Pelosi, believed his party would reward him for his years of service by handing him the speaker’s gavel when the 118th congressional session began.
As an 8:00 PM vote to adjourn carried, ending the third day of the new session (January 5) with no speaker chosen, it became clear that McCarthy’s path to the speakership, if one still existed, would be a rocky one. That reality had actually revealed itself two days prior when, for the first time in 100 years, a speaker of the house was not chosen on the first ballot. Ten more ballots have yielded no winner. Responsible for the seismic turn of events is a small group of hardline conservatives who question McCarthy’s conservative chops, labeling the Californian part of a dreaded “establishment,” and sought to extract concessions on house rules and committee leadership that would place more of their members in a position to drive (or derail) legislation. Nineteen insurgents stood firm on the first two ballots to deny McCarthy the prize; a twentieth has since joined and Victoria Spartz (R-IN) has voted present on the last eight ballots after voting for McCarthy on the first two.
It is unclear how this will all play out. Perhaps the hardliners are playing their version of hardball, hoping to squeeze as many concessions as possible from McCarthy before dissolving their oppositional bloc—chiefly securing a pledge to shut down the government rather than raise the debt ceiling again and a rule change allowing a single member to call for a motion to vacate the Speaker’s chair. Perhaps they are playing the long game in hopes of forcing a complete standstill and compelling McCarthy to capitulate to give way to a compromise candidate. Modern observers are unacquainted with this sort of fight for the speakership. These protracted battles, however, were fairly common during the antebellum years.
Of the first thirty-six congressional sessions, thirteen went beyond the first ballot, with six requiring ten or more. The most contentious speaker fight (34th Congress, 1855-1857) played out in the heat of the burning sectional feud of the 1850s that would soon explode into the Civil War. Two months and 133 ballots were needed before Nathaniel Prentice Banks of Massachusetts won a slim majority to mercifully end what was by far the lengthiest battle for control of the lower house. Six years earlier, after a nineteen-day standstill, the members chose to reduce the threshold for a winner from a majority to a plurality to allow for the commencement of House business.
While not as lengthy of a fight, perhaps the most bizarre start to a congressional session happened in December 1839, when the 26th Congress began its business (while the congress officially began in March, its members did not meet in Washington until December for logistical reasons). The House convened on December 2 and proceedings began as customary with the clerk reading off the names of the elected members. In those days, the delegates were seated geographically, with the clerk beginning with Maine and working down the coast before moving out west. When the clerk reached New Jersey early in the call, he read the name of John Randolph, a Whig. He then stopped, citing an issue; two slates of representatives, one Whig and one Democratic, claimed to be the duly elected members from their state.
New Jersey's delegation to the 26th Congress had been elected at-large, rather than by congressional district. The six Whigs who claimed the seats presented papers bearing the governor’s seal, the legally mandated proof of election. The Democrats brought papers as well, but theirs bore the seal of the secretary of state. The discrepancy stemmed from allegations of voter fraud and illegal vote certification coming from two New Jersey counties. Whig governor William Pennington chose to throw out the votes in question, giving his party’s delegation all six seats. The papers signed by the secretary of state reported the unaltered results and slim victories for five of the six Democrats (because Whig John Randolph’s seat was not disputed, the clerk seated him during the roll call).
The clerk’s decision to pause the roll call precipitated a chaotic start to the congressional session. Whigs insisted that the delegation holding the legally acknowledged documentation be seated immediately, the remaining delegates called, a speaker chosen, and the House organized. Once organized, the House could commence an investigation to get to the bottom of the matter. Democrats countered that seating the Whig members was a blatant subversion of the will of the people, since the Whig victory came only after the exclusion of hundreds of votes.
No one seemed to know how to proceed although many offered their thoughts. One proposal was to choose a temporary speaker, organize the House into its respective committees and allow the Committee on Elections to investigate, at which time a permanent speaker could be chosen once the proper members were seated. This raised the question of which New Jersey delegation, if any, should be able to vote for the temporary speaker.
Another suggestion was to pass over the New Jersey delegation completely, seat the remaining members (or at least establish a quorum), and allow the House to rule on the matter before organizing. Several Whigs argued that the House could not begin official business without being organized. They argued instead that the New Jersey Whigs should be seated and a speaker chosen. If an investigation later revealed that the Democrats were the rightful holders of the seats, a new speaker election could take place.
The wrangling went on for four days until finally the decision was made to appoint former President John Quincy Adams as chairman so that questions could be put before the members and votes taken. The first question posed was a vote on the resolution to skip over the New Jersey delegation to establish a quorum to rule on the issue at hand. Before votes could be taken, members questioned whether the New Jersey Whig delegation, as the bearers of the legal certification, should be allowed to vote on a matter that directly concerned them. Debate raged for the next several days, at times resembling an Abbott and Costello routine—Adams insisted that questions could not be voted on without the New Jersey vote; Democrats argued that a vote should be taken to determine which slate of New Jerseyans should be allowed to vote; Adams argued that vote could not occur without the vote of a New Jersey delegation.
The House eventually decided to allow both New Jersey delegations to vote, after which each individual member’s credentials were read and a determination was then made as to whether to count their vote in the final tally; none of the New Jersey delegates' votes were counted.
Despite their inability to resolve the matter of the New Jersey vote, balloting for the speaker at long last took place after the Whigs relented—twelve days into the session. The first ballot left Virginia Democrat John W. Jones five votes shy of the 118 vote threshold for victory. The second vote produced the same result with some shuffling of support among the also-rans. The third and fourth ballots revealed a weakening of support for Jones, and by the fifth vote his total dropped to 71, while fourteen other members received at least one vote. After a sixth ballot produced no one within thirty-nine votes of winning, the House adjourned.
The next day’s voting introduced a new front runner, Alabama Democrat D.H. Lewis. Lewis received 110 votes on the day’s first ballot and 113—matching the highest total on any of the ballots—on the day’s second. Lewis’s support dwindled over the next two votes, however, and after the tenth ballot, he withdrew from consideration. Meanwhile, a states’ rights Whig from Virginia named Robert M.T. Hunter had gathered momentum during the day, increasing his vote total on each ballot before finishing atop the long list of candidates with 85 votes on the tenth ballot. On the eleventh and final ballot, Hunter, his states’ rights credentials making him palatable to Democrats, received 119 votes and became the youngest occupant of the speaker’s chair.
Shortly after his election, Hunter organized a Committee on Elections—a committee that included future accidental President Millard Fillmore—that, after months of investigation, voted along party lines to seat the Democratic delegation from New Jersey.
Time will tell how the speaker of the house election for the 118th Congress will resolve itself. Twenty-first century Americans are seeing 19th century politics play out before them for the first time. With the nomination of former President and non-House member Donald Trump on the seventh and eighth ballots, it would seem, as was the case in 1839, that we are in for a wild ride.
* This article was originally published here
Anne de Laval’s gold-rigged teeth (and the rest of her remains) were discovered in 1987 during an archaeological excavation of the basement of the chapel in the Vieux-Château de Laval. She was buried in an anthropoid lead coffin that was inside a wooden sarcophagus. A heart-shaped lead casket known as a cardiotaph was placed on the exterior coffin above her chest. Neither the coffin nor the urn had any inscription that might identify the owner.
The lead coffin was opened in a local funeral home, revealing a complete skeleton wrapped in a canvas shroud kept in place by hemp cords. The body had been expertly embalmed and was in good condition. There was enough archaeological and osteological evidence to identify the body as that of Anne d’Alègre. A study found her organs — brain, lungs, digestive tract — had been removed and replaced with aromatic herbs and berries. The cardiotaph contained a desiccated organic amalgam that was almost certainly a human heart with embalming materials.
(And now the moment you’ve been waiting for: an extended, meandering, long-winded digression into the wars of religion that blighted France in the 16th century and ultimately took out the Laval family.
So Martin Luther nails his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church on Halloween of 1517 and by 1521 the Reformation is making converts in France. Tensions rise persecution of Protestants, from draconian anti-Protestant laws to massacres of thousands ensue. In 1562, 50 Huguenot worshippers, five of them women, one a child, were slaughtered in their meeting house in Vassy by the troops of the Catholic Francis, Duke of Guise. This act is considered the starting point of the French Wars of Religion.
They continued at a staccato pace more than 30 years, stopping and starting as one aristocratic faction vied with another. Protestant Henry of Navarre ultimately asserted his legitimate claim to the throne of France, but he had to fight Catholic opponents to secure it. He finally quelled the objections of holdout areas by converting to Catholicism in 1593. The French Wars of Religion ended officially when King Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes mandating freedom of religion in 1598.
His daughter Anne was married to Guy XIX, Count of Laval, in 1583. Guy had been raised Protestant. His father was not just a devout believer, but the founder the first Calvinist church in Brittany. The House of Laval held rich fiefdoms in Brittany, Normandy and Maine and the family’s power and income were little harmed in the first three wars of religion. The Laval holdings were spared destruction in battle and they were not targeted by the extraordinary taxes levied to fund the war.
When the leader of the Protestant forces, the Prince of Condé, died in 1569, an uncle of Guy XIX, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, was appointed to lead the Huguenot forces. In the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572, Gaspard was targeted for elimination by the Catholic faction and pulled from his bed and murdered.
Guy XIX fled France, traveling through Protestant-friendly countries from Switzerland to England. He returned to France in 1575 and settled in his chateau at Vitré where Protestantism had more popular support than at Laval. It was during a gap in active war that he married Anne. Two years later, their son, the future Guy XX was born.
Their marriage could not outlast the virulence of this conflict. Guy XIX was killed near the Huguenot-held fortress of La Rochelle in 1586. Baby Guy XX was just a year old at the time, so his mother wielded his power as his guardian and the Dowager Countess of Laval. France was now mired in the 8th War of Religion, and wee Guy was literally smuggled to the safety of the Protestant stronghold of Sedan by his grandmother who dressed as a peasant woman and carried him in her arms 61 miles from Reims.
Guy traveled to Italy in 1604 and witnessed the miracle of the blood of San Gennaro in Naples then met with Pope Clement VIII. He declared to the Pope that he would abjure Protestantism and when he returned to France in 1605, that’s what he did, much to his mother’s horror. A few months later, he was dead, killed fighting in Hungary with the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II against Sultan Achmet I. His body and heart were returned to Laval for burial and they too wound up in the cross-hairs of religious conflict. It took another three years to settle the bickering over where his heart and body should be interred and for the funeral to finally take place. His mother did not attend the funeral ceremony, nor did any other Protestant.
As Guy XX had no children, no brothers, no relatives at all in line to inherit this important title and property, he should have made explicit arrangements before going off on a perilous journey to fight the Ottomans. He did not, so on his death his seigneuries were inherited by the La Trémoille family and the Laval dynasty ended.
Anne was still going strong, though. The Maréchal de Fervaque died in 1613 and Anne immediately started looking for husband number three. There were a number of suitors — the Prince of Joinville, the Duke of Chevreuse — as her fortune and social status made her a desirable partner. Her romantic life was the talk of Paris as was her daring fashion and carriage racing hobby. She never did get around to that third marriage. She died in 1619 after many months of illness. The canons of the Church of Saint-Tugal would not allow her to be buried with her husband, her son’s heart and all the past counts and countesses of Laval because she was Protestant. She was buried in the chapel of the Chateau de Laval instead.
Guy XX’s remains were exhumed when the church was demolished to make way for a new government building during the French Revolution. They were moved to the museum stores in the Vieux-Château de Laval, dodging the fate of so many scattered bones of French nobles.)
The new study 
A “Cone Beam” scan, which uses X-rays to build three-dimensional images, showed that gold wire had been used to hold together and tighten several of her teeth.
She also had an artificial tooth made of ivory from an elephant—not hippopotamus, which was popular at the time.
But this ornate dental work only “made the situation worse”, said Rozenn Colleter, an archaeologist at the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research and lead author of the study.
The gold wires would have needed repeated tightening over the years, further destabilizing the neighboring teeth, the researchers said.
Long-term dental health was probably not her goal. She was willing to suffer all that pain and tightening so she didn’t look toothless. That third husband was still on the table, after all, and disfigurement of any kind in that era was deemed a reflection of moral failure. For Anne appearances mattered enough to endure the agony.
* This article was originally published here
ಮುಂಬೈ, ಜನವರಿ. 27: ಮಹಾರಾಷ್ಟ್ರದ ನಾಂದೇಡ್ ಜಿಲ್ಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆದ ಮರ್ಯಾದೆಗೇಡು ಹತ್ಯೆಯ ಆಘಾತಕಾರಿ ಘಟನೆಯೊಂದು ವರದಿಯಾಗಿದೆ. 22 ವರ್ಷದ ವೈದ್ಯಕೀಯ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿನಿಯೊಬ್ಬರನ್ನು ಆಕೆಯ ತಂದೆ, ಸಹೋದರ ಮತ್ತು ಇತರ ಮೂವರು ಸಂಬಂಧಿಕರು ಸೇರಿ ಕೊಲೆ ಮಾಡಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಮೃತರನ್ನು 22 ವರ್ಷದ ಶುಭಾಂಗಿ ಜೋಗದಂದ್ ಎಂದು ಗುರುತಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ. ಆಕೆಯ ಪ್ರೇಮ ಪ್ರಕರಣ ಬೆಳಕಿಗೆ ಬಂದ ಕಾರಣ ಕುಟುಂಬದವರೇ ಸೇರಿ
Horror for Horror
Katie Holyoak
Fri, 01/27/2023 - 09:18
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
In 1938, Woman Ironing was sold to escape Germany. Now the heirs of the original owner want it back.
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