Faith · Monarchies · People · Saint Petersburg
Alexander I was born on 12 December 1777, the year of the great flood in Saint Petersburg, which afflicted hundreds of thousands of people and killed thousands. The Emperor died on 1 December 1825, 12 months and 12 days after the second-largest flood in the city's history.
NB! · Art · Monarchies · Observations · Humour
Behold the tiny feet of Henri IV ☺️ Only bear in mind that here he is a corpse. Hardly the most flattering angle for a portrait, and a posthumous one at that. The king reclines on a bed beneath a canopy, in full dress and regalia, with candlesticks set all around
Art · Monarchies · Museums
The portrait of Napoleon at the recently closed exhibition "Salon 1819" at the Girodet Museum in Montargis, France, is strewn with golden bees, the emblem Napoleon chose as his imperial sign. Of no small importance to Napoleon, of course, was the fact that golden bees resemble the golden
Aristocracy · Monarchies · Museums · Heritage
These are the mottoes of one of the most prestigious and respected honours in Europe, the dynastic Order of the Golden Fleece, founded on 10 January 1430 by Philip the Good. In the portrait from the Dijon Museum of Fine Arts, the duke is shown wearing the Order of the
Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Society
Sire, give freedom to the Russian word. Our intellect is cramped, our thought poisons our breast for want of space, it groans in the stocks of the censorship. Give us free speech... we have something to say to the world and to our own people. < > Wash from Russia
Monarchies · Observations · Heritage · Paris
How do you like Louis Philippe with painted lips? I never cared for the Pear King, but I see nothing amusing in the fact that someone has rouged the lips of his statue at Les Invalides. The saddest thing about this act of vandalism is that lipstick scarcely comes off
Cinema · Monarchies · Observations · Humour
In Netflix's The Last Czars, this is what we are invited to take for the heir to the Russian throne, Nicholas Alexandrovich, at the funeral of Alexander III. Let me remind you that Nicholas was 26 🤷🏽♂️ Of course, in former years people looked older and worse than we
Archive · Monarchies · Mores
To be invited to a feast with Ivan the Terrible is, of course, a sign of particular favour. That said, the Tsar invited the long-awaited embassy from the King of Denmark only after asking for the list of gifts and satisfying himself that they sufficed. The Tsar's
Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies · Mores · People
Jacob Ulfeldt described Russian court etiquette with great astonishment and displeasure. Ivan the Terrible he portrays as an arrogant, pompous, vain and abrupt man, surrounded by dull-witted boyars and streltsy. The prince, moreover, was wholly inattentive and simply did not listen to the reading of the embassy's
Archive · Monarchies · Mores
Ivan the Terrible receives the Danish ambassadors together with his eldest son. Before the audience, the court officials (pristavs) strictly forbade the ambassadors to recite the titles of their king before those of the Prince of Moscow, reminding them that envoys who had once broken this rule had been expelled
Aristocracy · Monarchies · Mores · Paris
Since we have embarked on listing Coco Chanel's lovers, she also had a pre-war affair with Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, first cousin of Nicholas II and a participant in the murder of Rasputin. One of the most notorious figures of the White emigration, the Grand Duke for
NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies · Paris · Pop Culture
Speaking of costly jewels, this pearl parure of Marie Antoinette was inherited by her daughter, Marie-Thérèse, the last Dauphine of France, Duchess of Angoulême. The enormous pearl pendant from this set was recently sold for £27,881,497