Vila Wolf's Dyslexic Folklorist Ranting

Louise Marie-Thérèse also known as The Negroid Nun of Moret (16 November 1664 - 1732 in Moret-sur-Loing) was a French nun, the object of a gossip story in the 18th century, where she is pointed out as the daughter of the Queen of France, Maria Theresa of Spain.

The Black Nun of Moret, Louise Marie-Thérèse (1664–1732) was a Benedictine nun in the abbey of Moret-sur-Loing. She was called the “Mauresse de Moret", and a portrait of her exists in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève in Paris. The research done by the Société de l’histoire de Paris et d’Ile-de-France, published in 1924 by Honoré Champion éditions, concluded that this pastel portrait was painted around 1680 by the same hand which painted the series of twenty-two pastel portraits of Kings of France, from Louis IX to Louis XIV, between 1681 to 1683 on the initiative of Father Claude Du Molinet (1620–1687), librarian of Sainte Geneviève abbey. No less than 6 memorialists have devoted paragraphs to her: she is mentioned in the memoirs of Madame de Maintenon, the Grande Mademoiselle, Madame de Montespan (whose so-called memoirs were written by Philippe Musoni years after Montespan’s death), Duke of Saint-Simon, Voltaire and Cardinal Dubois (who is probably not the author of his own Memoirs).

Shortly after the death of the French Queen Maria Theresa of Spain in 1683, wife of Louis XIV, courtiers pointed out this woman as the black daughter the Queen allegedly once gave birth to.

La Grande Mademoiselle tells that the child could be of the black page Nabo, of whom the Queen was very fond. The adultery thesis is not considered likely, as the Queen was a very pious woman, and there is no knowledge of even the slightest mistake of hers. It would be very difficult in Versailles to have a liaison and even to give birth in secret. Every Royal birth happened in public, in the Queen’s bedchambers, with all courtiers present as witnesses. The little princess Marie-Anne was born (16 November 1664) with a dark skin caused by cyanosis, and died shortly after birth (26 December 1664). Some say that the baby remained black, and had been changed with a dead girl, to avoid scandal. According to Madame, wife of Louis XIV’s brother, her husband said that the child was not black at all but very ugly. In any case, although the story about the black daughter of Maria Theresa is unconfirmed, it was still persistent and believed by many.

Two Grisaille Panels, 1320–1324 French; Paris, from the Chapel of Saint-Louis, north aisle, royal abbey of Saint-Denis Pot-metal and white glass, silver stain

Each 23 1/2 x 15 1/4 in. (59.7 x 38.7 cm) The Cloisters Collection, 1982 (1982.433.3,4)

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Traditionally thought to have come from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, this pair of grisaille panels is now attributed to the Chapel of Saint-Louis at the royal abbey of Saint-Denis. Their distinctive feature, the inclusion of the small fleurs-de-lis, which sprout, budlike, from the stems of the foliage, is unique to these panels and to four other related examples—a detail that may well indicate that the glass was created for a royal foundation. The most likely candidate is Saint-Denis, the royal necropolis, where a nave chapel dedicated to Louis IX—who was canonized as Saint Louis in 1297—was completed by 1324. The rebuilding of the abbey church began shortly after Louis ascended to the throne and continued throughout most of his reign (1226–70).

Vaux le Vicomte

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The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun, 55 km southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. It was built from 1658 to 1661 for Nicolas Fouquet, Marquis de Belle Île, Viscount of Melun and Vaux, the superintendent of finances of Louis XIV.

The château was an influential work of architecture in mid-17th century Europe. At Vaux-le-Vicomte, the architect Louis Le Vau, the landscape architect André le Nôtre, and the painter-decorator Charles Le Brun worked together on a large-scale project for the first time. Their collaboration marked the beginning of the “Louis XIV style” combining architecture, interior design and landscape design. The garden’s pronounced visual axis is an example of this style.

Désert de Retz, Chambourcy (Colonne Brisée)

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The Désert de Retz is an Anglo-Chinois or French landscape garden - created on the edge of the forêt de Marly in the commune of Chambourcy, in north-central France. It was built at the end of the 18th century by the aristocrat François Racine de Monville on his 40-hectare (99-acre) estate. It is notable for the construction of 17 (or 20) buildings, of which only 10 still survive, referring to classical antiquity or in an exotic style. Those buildings include: a summer house (the “colonne brisée”, or ruined column), in the form of the base of a shattered column from an imaginary gigantic temple, an ice house in the form of an Egyptian pyramid, an obelisk, a temple dedicated to Pan, and a (now-lost) Chinese pavilion.

2. Aigle de Suger Rome, époque impériale (porphyre) et Paris, avant 1147 (monture) Paris, Musée du Louvre

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This is a porphyry vase dating from the time of ancient Egypt or Imperial Rome, which Suger, abbot of Saint Denis, had mounted with an eagle’s head and spread wings, and with a base formed by the eagle’s tail and claws. The resulting work, in gilded silver and niello inlay, is a magnificent image of a menacing bird of prey. The inscription reads “This stone is worthy of being mounted in gold and precious stone. It was made of marble, but thus mounted, is more precious than marble.”

Chateau de Marly à Marly-le-Roi, France

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The Château de Marly was a relatively small French royal residence located in what has become Marly-le-Roi, the commune that existed at the edge of the royal park. The town that originally grew up to service the château is now a dormitory community for Paris.

At the Château of Marly, Louis XIV of France escaped from the formal rigors he was constructing at Versailles. Small rooms meant fewer company, and simplified protocol; courtiers, who fought among themselves for invitations to Marly, were housed in a revolutionary design of twelve pavilions built in matching pairs flanking the central sheets of water, which were fed one from the other by prim formalized cascades

The château is no more, nor the hydraulic “machine” that pumped water for Versailles. Only the foundation of Jules Hardouin-Mansart’s small château, the pavillon du Roi remains at the top of the slope in Marly park.