LOST BUT NOT LEAST

Born of the powerful family of Florentine mécènes, she was the niece of a pope, a Machiavellian queen of France and an ardent believer in astrology. When Catherine de Médici (1519-1589) learned from her astrologer that she would die near Saint-Germain, she took the prediction to heart and thereafter avoided all places having the name Saint-Germain. Some fifteen years later when taken ill and on her death bed at the Château de Blois, a priest was hastily summoned to perform extreme unction. After giving her the last rites, she asked him his name.  "Julien de Saint-Germain," he replied. "Alors, je suis perdue!" she answered, appalled.

Vocabulary
un mécène:  a patron of the arts; sponsor
perdu(e):  lost

Gisant or recumbent effigy of Catherine de Médici at the Basilique Saint-Denis.

©2012 P.B. Lecron

TODAY IN HISTORY

Effigies of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, at the Basilique de Saint-Denis, necropolis of the kings of France. It seems like trivia today, but after diplomatic efforts of Benjamin Franklin, it was on December 17, 1777 that Louis XVI first recognized the independence of the American colonies from the British state. This lead to a friendly commercial alliance, then to France giving financial and important naval support to the colonies against the British.

©2011 P.B. Lecron