Moving On

 

Moving on. Look, Josephine! Here's the sound track:

They say she had rotten teeth. Whatever.

Iron Duke,

LSP

PS. This inconsequential mind blog stands thoroughly for our farmers, unlike UKGOV, which doesn't.

The Waterloo Room

 

No, not a POC

Imagine the scene, if you can. A candlelit room at 16 St. James Square on June the 21st in 1815. A small chamber orchestra plays quadrilles while the Prince Regent takes his place. But light-hearted gaity must have been brittle. 

Three days earlier, the Iron Duke, Wellington, had met the Upstart in the shock of Waterloo; the fate of Europe, not least England, hung in the balance. You can imagine the tension as London awaited the outcome.

It took three days for news of Wellington's triumph to reach London. Major Percy, an ADC, brought it via fast ship across the Channel along with two captured French Standards. He arrived in a carriage at St. James Square on the evening of the 21st. Brian Cathcart describes the moment:

"Tension mounted as the hours passed. On Wednesday evening the streets were again filled with expectant Londoners, while War Department officials manned their desks for a second night running. At the theatres and the society parties across the West End, one topic dominated. Meanwhile Major Percy was at last making swift progress in his post-chaise and four. Changing horses at Canterbury, Sittingbourne, Rochester and Dartford, he crested Shooters Hill in time to see London in the fading light of dusk. Then soon after 11pm his yellow carriage, with two captured French eagle standards thrusting from its windows, crossed Westminster Bridge into a delirious crowd.

"With this happy throng in tow, Percy made his way to Downing Street, where he was told that the Cabinet was dining at Lord Harrowby’s in Grosvenor Square. These unfortunate ministers had thus far passed an evening of all but unbearable tension. One account goes:

'They dined, they sat. No dispatch came. At length, when the night was far advanced, they broke up. Yet, delayed by a lingering hope that the expected messenger might appear, they stood awhile in a knot conversing on the pavement when suddenly was heard a faint and distant shout. It was the shout of victory! Hurrah! Escorted by a running and vociferous multitude, the Major drove up. He was taken into the house and the dispatch was opened.'

"Sixteen pages long and written in the most sober terms, the dispatch took time to digest, but eventually delighted ministers were able to announce the news to the crowd outside, who greeted it, according to the Morning Post, with ‘universal and ecstatic cheering’. Now Percy had to report to the Prince Regent, who that night was the dinner guest of a banking family, the Boehms. Carriages were summoned and most of the Cabinet followed Percy’s chaise through the streets, once again trailing a crowd behind. Dorothy Boehm, the hostess, describes their arrival at 16 St James’s Square:

'The first quadrille was in the act of forming and the Prince was walking up to the dais on which his seat was placed, when I saw every one without the slightest sense of decorum rushing to the windows, which had been left wide open because of the excessive sultriness of the weather. The music ceased and the dance was stopped; for we heard nothing but the vociferous shouts of an enormous mob, who had just entered the Square and were running by the side of a post-chaise and four, out of whose windows were hanging three nasty French eagles. In a second the door of the carriage was flung open and, without waiting for the steps to be let down, out sprang Henry Percy – such a dusty figure! – with a flag in each hand, pushing aside everyone who happened to be in his way, darting up stairs, into the ball-room, stepping hastily up to the Regent, dropping on one knee, laying the flags at his feet, and pronouncing the words ‘Victory, Sir! Victory!’'"

Here it is today

Victory, Sir! Victory! The room in which those words were said remains today, substantially unchanged, the Waterloo Room of the East India Club. I look forward to raising a toast to the Iron Duke in that very same room later this year.

Vincite,

LSP

Just For Kix

 

Gentlemen, he came on in the same old way and we beat him back, in the same old way. Pity Josephine.

Adveniat,

LSP

Coronation And Deadly Folly

What a scene, Napoleon, self-crowned and proclaimed leader of all the world crowns his Empress Josephine, resplendent in diamonds as the powers of the Church look on, scowling at the blasphemy of the thing. Triomphe! for the Corsican upstart and his Consort. Lesueur captures the moment, with pre-industrial grandeur:

Triumph indeed, but hubris met nemesis in the Iron Duke, Wellington, who put paid to Boney's scheme of a new world order with himself in charge, smashing the upstart at Waterloo. It's said that clubland in St. James was awakened to the fact of allied victory in 1815 by parades of jubilant people carrying captured French Eagles.

So much for Boney. Wellington stated, laconically, "They came on in the same old way and we beat them back, in the same old way." You can imagine the 50,000 casualties on the field of battle. Here's the Duke in older and seemingly kinder visage:

Josephine Bonaparte died in 1814, a year before her beloved husband met disaster at Waterloo.

Sic transit,

LSP

The Empress Josephine

 

We're all fascinated by the Corsican Upstart's wife, Empress Josephine, but I feel it's only right to issue a caveat from the publishers of Josephine by Kate Williams:

Josephine de Beauharnais began as a kept woman of Paris and became the most powerful woman in France. She was no beauty, her teeth were rotten, and she was six years older than her husband, but one twitch of her skirt could bring running the man who terrorised Europe. She was born in Martinique in June 1763, and came to France as a young wife. Pretty and flirtatious, she revelled in the ancien regime. Then, as France burned, and the Revolution was followed by the Terror, she survived terrible imprisonment. Her husband died and her health was wrecked forever. Afterwards, she and other survivors tried to forget the pain in wild debauchery, clutching at the sensual pleasures that they had come so close to losing forever. Glamorous, stylish and a mistress of erotic arts, she understood that her only asset was her body and she became a mistress and courtesan to rich men. As she passed thirty, Josephine realised that her star was beginning to wane. She had to secure her future – and the men who kept her were too jaded for love. And so she turned her eye to a small, stocky, Corsican soldier, six years her junior and bursting with rude spirit. Society tolerated him for his bravery but laughed at him behind his back. No one could believe it when the stylish, feted Josephine began encouraging his advances. They were bound together by a scorching erotic fascination. He would gallop home to be with her, burst into her room, toss her into bed, and write long paeans of praise while he was away to he... With her, he became the greatest man in Europe, the Supreme Emperor. But her inability to give him a son finally tore them apart. This is a searing story of sexual obsession, war, heartbreak, affairs, devastating love, plots and murder and politics – in a world that was being altered forever.

 

Good heavens. The Iron Duke used a statue of Boney, and you can guess what part, as a coat rack in his pleasant home at No. 1 Hyde Park.

Cheers,

LSP

Sic Transit

 

You'll note Imperial Ladies aloft. Regardless, the Corsican Upstart ended his days on an island in the South Atlantic, his vaunted Grande  Armée smashed and defeated at Waterloo. So much for Boney.

His beautiful and gorgeous Empress Josephine died in 1814, a year before her philandering, adulterous Emperor was utterly and irrevocably defeated by the Iron Duke. Her last words, allegedly spoken through black and rotting teeth were, "Bonaparte … Elba … the King of Rome."

There is, if you care to draw it, a moral in this tale,

LSP

Best Brexit Ever!

Disregard the useless acting of the person who misplayed the Iron Duke and watch the charge. Scots Greys, forward!

LSP on a Grey

If you're a horseman you'll appreciate the sound, fury and kinetic energy of the thing. Hell for leather and devil take the hindmost.

Must ride more.

BREXIT forever,

LSP

Revolutionary Rage

You may not recall but Hungary had a short-lived Communist revolution, towards the end of the first World War. George Lukacs served as People's Commissar for Education and Culture in the regime and did his best to deconstruct Christian ethics through radical sex-education in schools.

The sensible Hungarians saw through the Marxist attempt to remake human nature and society in the image of antichrist and threw the commies out, bye bye, Bela Kun. 

A Lunatic Leftist Possessed by Satan

But of course their spirit lived on and we can see it today, foaming, raging, gnashing, frothing, posturing, grandstanding, teething at the prospect of losing the judiciary of the United States.

Dzerzhinsky

Hungary had the good sense to boot the hateful Lukacs into Germany, where he peddled his brand of cultural nihilism in Frankfurt and from there into America and beyond. Fast forward to today.

NWO Iluminati Evil Puppet Master Soros

George Soros, billionaire socialist heir to Lukacs, has been thrown out of his country, his organizations aren't allowed in Hungary anymore. So he's set up in Berlin; it's almost as though history's repeating itself, in a future proves past kind of way.

Iron Duke

With that in mind, they came on in the same old way and we beat them back, in the same old way. Thanks, Iron Duke, for the inspiration.

Train hard, think positive, fight easy,

LSP