Una vez más, la nada parecía destino hospitalario para un demoledor de sus propias certezas. La nada era una prórroga, una tregua, una hipoteca.
Toda la gente que se propone enderezar al mundo lo que en realidad quiere es enchuecarlo a su medida. No hay nada más torcido que un enderezador.
amor es lo más parecido a las mentiras. Justifica u opaca a la razón, por derecho o torcido que parezca, no requiere de justificaciones, se reproduce a la menor provocación y exige todo el crédito del mundo. Además de que nadie o casi nadie puede vivir tranquilo en su total ausencia.
un agente de seguros. Qué horrible profesión: alimentar a tu familia de la paranoia ajena.
Los lambiscones se esmeran como putas menopáusicas para hacerte creer que son muy útiles.
que esto de ser copy es lo más parecido a ser vedette: no eres así que digas bailarina, pero bailas; tampoco eres cantante, pero cantas; menos aún actriz, y sin embargo actúas.
Por más que quieras resistirte a él, que te niegues a oír cuando dice tu nombre, que saques tus principios y tus convicciones, que le azotes la puerta en media cara, el dinero siempre va a hallar algún callejoncito para seducirte.
Qué lástima que mis mejores sentimientos me hagan vomitar. La gente se enamora y no vomita, por eso se envenena.
Las personas adultas se avergüenzan de su infancia como de su inocencia, y luego también de su juventud, porque lo más fácil y lo más cómodo y lo de mejor gusto es olvidar a tiempo lo que ya no se tiene.
Hay un desprendimiento liberador en el acto de romper las hojas que uno ha escrito, acaso por haber notado en ellas la desnudez obscena de un par de sentimientos. Existe una soberbia mojigata remojada en pudores melancólicos detrás de la sospecha de que cuanto escribimos hace pocas semanas nos hace ver como unos cursis infumables: pornógrafos del sentimiento.
Igual que los burdeles, los periódicos duermen por las mañanas.
Tiene la paciencia de un escusado: ni habla, ni se mueve, ni reclama. Entiende que más tarde o más temprano le va a caer su mojón.
La locura es aquella enfermedad que sólo nos amenaza cuando ya sus uñas se han alojado en las entrañas, de modo que pelear contra ella es también despedazarnos el vientre, oprimirnos los pulmones, perder el miedo a la muerte como se pierden la inocencia y el amor.
Una campaña de publicidad: ¿había acaso trabajo más útil y más fútil, más ligero y pesado, más hábil y pendejo, todo en un mismo producto?
más que indefinible, el amor es, como la vida y la ficción, estúpido.
Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo. -- Xaviera Hollander [The world wants to be cheated, so cheat.]
MALOU, JULES ÉDOUARD XAVIER (1810-1886), Belgian statesman, one of the leaders of the clerical party, was born at Ypres on the 19th of October 1810. He was a civil servant in the department of justice when he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies by his native constituency in 1841, and was for some time governor of the province of Antwerp. He was minister of finance in the coalition ministry of J. B. Nothomb in 1844, and formed with B. T. de Theux a Catholic cabinet in 1846, which was overthrown in the Liberal victory of 1847. Malou then became a member of the senate, and his party only regained ascendancy in 1870. The extreme clerical ministry of Baron d'Anethan retired in December 1871 after serious rioting in Brussels, and Malou was the real, though not the nominal, head of the more moderate clerical administrations of de Theux and Aspremont-Lynden (1870-1878). He was wise enough to disavow the noisy sympathy of Belgian Ultramontane politicians with the German victims of the _Kulturkampf_, and, retaining in his own hands the portfolio of finance, he subordinated his clerical policy to a useful administration in commercial matters, including a development of the railway system. It was only after the fall of the ministry in 1878 that he adopted a frankly clerical policy, and when he became chief of a new government in June 1884 he proceeded to undo the educational compromise of his predecessors in the Frère-Orban ministry. His legislation in favour of the Catholic schools caused rioting in Brussels, and in October the king demanded the retirement of MM. Jacobs and Woeste, the members of the cabinet against whom popular indignation was chiefly directed. Malou followed them into retirement, and died at Woluwe Saint Lambert, in Brabant, on the 11th of July 1886. He was a financier of great knowledge and experience, and his works (of which a long list is given in Koninck's _Bibliographie nationale de Belgique_) include three series (1874-1880) of memoirs on financial questions, edited by him for the Chamber of Deputies, besides pamphlets on railroad proposals, mining and other practical questions. His brother Jean Baptiste Malou (1809-1864) was a well-known divine. Entry: MALOU
In 1536, after a period of war and anarchy caused by the tyrannical rule of Menezes, Antonio Galvão, the historian, was appointed governor of the Moluccas. He crushed the rebellion and won the affection of the natives by his just and enlightened administration, which had no parallel in the annals of Portuguese rule in the archipelago. He returned to Europe in 1540 (see PORTUGAL: _Literature_), after inaugurating an active missionary movement, which was revived in 1546-1547 by Francis Xavier (q.v.). At this period the Portuguese power in the East was already beginning to wane; in the archipelago it was weakened by administrative corruption and by incessant war with native states, notably Bintang and Achin; bitter hostility was aroused by the attempts which the Portuguese made to establish a commercial monopoly and to force Christianity upon their native subjects and allies (see PORTUGAL: _History_). From 1580 to 1640 Portugal was itself united to Spain--a union which differed from annexation in little but name. Entry: HISTORY
Two causes have been at work to produce the universal failure of the great Society in all its plans and efforts. First stands its lack of really great intellects. It has had its golden age. No society can keep up to its highest level. Nothing can be wider of the truth than the popular conception of the ordinary Jesuit as a being of almost superhuman abilities and universal knowledge. The Society, numbering as it does so many thousands, and with abundant means of devoting men to special branches of study, has, without doubt, produced men of great intelligence and solid learning. The average member, too, on account of his long and systematic training, is always equal and often superior to the average member of any other equally large body, besides being disciplined by a far more perfect drill. But it takes great men to carry out great plans; and of really great men, as the outside world knows and judges, the Society has been markedly barren from almost the first. Apart from its founder and his early companion, St Francis Xavier, there is none who stands in the very first rank. Laynez and Acquaviva were able administrators and politicians; the Bollandists (q.v.) were industrious workers and have developed a critical spirit from which much good can be expected; Francisco Suarez, Leonhard Lessius and Cardinal Franzelin were some of the leading Jesuit theologians; Cornelius a Lapide (1567-1637) represents their old school of scriptural studies, while their new German writers are the most advanced of all orthodox higher critics; the French Louis Bourdaloue (q.v.), the Italian Paolo Segneri (1624-1694), and the Portuguese Antonio Vieyra (1608-1697) represent their best pulpit orators; while of the many mathematicians and astronomers produced by the Society Angelo Secchi, Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich and G. B. Beccaria are conspicuous, and in modern times Stephen Joseph Perry (1833-1889), director of the Stonyhurst College observatory, took a high rank among men of science. Their boldest and most original thinker, Denis Petau, so many years neglected, is now, by inspiring Cardinal Newman's _Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_, producing a permanent influence over the current of human thought. The Jesuits have produced no Aquinas, no Anselm, no Bacon, no Richelieu. Men whom they trained, and who broke loose from their teaching, Pascal, Descartes, Voltaire, have powerfully affected the philosophical and religious beliefs of great masses of mankind; but respectable mediocrity is the brand on the long list of Jesuit names in the catalogues of Alegambe and De Backer. This is doubtless due in great measure to the destructive process of scooping out the will of the Jesuit novice, to replace it with that of his superior (as a watchmaker might fit a new movement into a case), and thereby tending, in most cases, to annihilate those subtle qualities of individuality and originality which are essential to genius. Men of the higher stamp will either refuse to submit to the process and leave the Society, or run the danger of coming forth from the mill with their finest qualities pulverized and useless. In accordance with the spirit of its founder, who wished to secure uniformity in the judgment of his followers even in points left open by the Church ("Let us all think the same way, let us all speak in the same manner if possible"), the Society has shown itself to be impatient of those who think or write in a way different from what is current in its ranks. Entry: A
The _Order of St Maurice and St Lazarus_ (SS Maurizio e Lazzaro), is a combination of two ancient orders. The Order of St Maurice was originally founded by Amadeus VIII., duke of Savoy, in 1434, when he retired to the hermitage of Ripaille, and consisted of a group of half-a-dozen councillors who were to advise him on such affairs of state as he continued to control. When he became pope as Felix V. the order practically ceased to exist. It was re-established at the instance of Emmanuel Philibert by Pope Pius V. in 1572 as a military and religious order, and the following year it was united to that of St Lazarus by Gregory XIII. The latter order had been founded as a military and religious community at the time of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem with the object of assisting lepers, many of whom were among its members. Popes, princes and nobles endowed it with estates and privileges, including that of administering and succeeding to the property of lepers, which eventually led to grave abuses. With the advance of the Saracens the knights of St Lazarus, when driven from the Holy Land and Egypt, migrated to France (1291) and Naples (1311), where they founded leper hospitals. The order in Naples, which alone was afterwards recognized as the legitimate descendant of the Jerusalem community, was empowered to seize and confine anyone suspected of leprosy, a permission which led to the establishment of a regular inquisitorial system of blackmail. In the 15th and 16th centuries dissensions broke out among the knights, and the order declined in credit and wealth, until finally the grand master, Giannotto Castiglioni, resigned his position in favour of Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, in 1571. Two years later the orders of St Lazarus and St Maurice were incorporated into one community, the members of which were to devote themselves to the defence of the Holy See and to fight its enemies as well as to continue assisting lepers. The galleys of the order subsequently took part in various expeditions against the Turks and the Barbary pirates. Leprosy, which had almost disappeared in the 17th century, broke out once more in the 18th, and in 1773 a hospital was established by the order at Aosta, made famous by Xavier de Maistre's tale, _Le Lépreux de la cité d'Aoste_. The statutes were published in 1816, by which date the order had lost its military character; it was reformed first by Charles Albert (1831), and later by Victor Emmanuel II., king of Italy (1868). The knighthood of St Maurice and St Lazarus is now a dignity conferred by the king of Italy (the grand master) on persons distinguished in the public service, science, art and letters, trade, and above all in charitable works, to which its income is devoted. There are five classes. The badge of the combined order is composed of the white cross with trefoil termination of St Lazarus resting on the green cross of St Maurice; both crosses are bordered gold. The first four classes wear the badge suspended from a royal crown. The ribbon is dark green. Entry: ROYAL
LOUIS XVIII. (LOUIS LE DÉSIRÉ) (1755-1824). Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, comte de Provence, third son of the dauphin Louis, son of Louis XV., and of Maria Josepha of Saxony, was born at Versailles on the 17th of November 1755. His education was supervised by the devout duc de la Vauguyon, but his own taste was for the writings of Voltaire and the encyclopaedists. On the 14th of May 1771 took place his marriage with Louise-Marie-Joséphine of Savoy, by whom he had no children. His position at court was uncomfortable, for though ambitious and conscious of possessing greater abilities than his brother (Louis XVI.), his scope for action was restricted; he consequently devoted his energies largely to intrigue, especially against Marie Antoinette, whom he hated.[1] During the long absence of heirs to Louis XVI., "Monsieur," as heir to the throne, courted popularity and took an active part in politics, but the birth of a dauphin (1781) was a blow to his ambitions.[2] He opposed the revival of the _parlements_, wrote a number of political pamphlets,[3] and at the Assembly of Notables presided, like the other princes of the blood, over a bureau, to which was given the name of the _Comité des sages_; he also advocated the double representation of the _tiers_. At the same time he cultivated literature, entertaining poets and writers both at the Luxembourg and at his château of Brunoy (see Dubois-Corneau, _Le Comte de Provence à Brunoy_, 1909), and gaining a reputation for wit by his verses and _mots_ in the salon of the charming and witty comtesse de Balbi, one of Madame's ladies, who had become his mistress,[4] and till 1793 exerted considerable influence over him. He did not emigrate after the taking of the Bastille, but, possibly from motives of ambition, remained in Paris. Mirabeau thought at one time of making him chief minister in his projected constitutional government (see _Corr. de Mirabeau et La Marck_, ed. Bacourt, i. 434, 436, 442), but was disappointed by his caution and timidity. The _affaire Favras_ (Dec. 1789) aroused great feeling against Monsieur, who was believed by many to have conspired with Favras, only to abandon him (see Lafayette's _Mems._ and _Corr. of Mirabeau_). In June 1791, at the time of the flight to Varennes, Monsieur also fled by a different route, and, in company with the comte d'Avaray[5]--who subsequently replaced Mme de Balbi as his confidant, and largely influenced his policy during the emigration--succeeded in reaching Brussels, where he joined the comte d'Artois and proceeded to Coblenz, which now became the headquarters of the emigration. Entry: LOUIS
Louis XV. was a great gourmet; and his reign saw many developments in the culinary art. The mayonnaise (originally _mahonnaise_) is ascribed to the duc de Richelieu. Such dishes as "_potage à la Xavier_," "_cailles à la Mirepoix_," "_chartreuses à la Mauconseil_," "_poulets à la Villeroy_," "_potage à la Condé_," "_gigot à la Mailly_," owe their titles to celebrities of the day, and the Pompadour gave her name to various others. The Jesuits Brunoy and Bougeant, who wrote a preface to a contemporary treatise on cookery (1739), described the modern art as "more simple, more appropriate, and more cunning, than that of old days," giving the ingredients the same union as painters give to colours, and harmonizing all the tastes. The very phrase "_cordon bleu_" (strictly applied only to a woman cook) arose from an enthusiastic recognition of female merit by the king himself. Madame du Barry, piqued at his opinion that only a man could cook to perfection, had a dinner prepared for him by a _cuisinière_ with such success that the delighted monarch demanded that the artist should be named, in order that so precious a _cuisinier_ might be engaged for the royal household. "_Allons donc, la France!_" retorted the ex-grisette, "have I caught you at last? It is no _cuisinier_ at all, but a _cuisinière_, and I demand a recompense for her worthy both of her and of your majesty. Your royal bounty has made my negro, Zamore, governor of Luciennes, and I cannot accept less than a _cordon bleu_" (the Royal Order of the _Saint Esprit_) "for my _cuisinière_." Entry: COOKERY
At this period the affairs of New France claimed the attention of the French court. From the year 1665 the colony had been successfully administered by three remarkable men--Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle, the governor, Jèan Talon, the intendant, and the marquis de Tracy, who had been appointed lieutenant-general for the French king in America; but a difference of opinion had arisen between the governor and the intendant, and each had demanded the other's recall in the public interest. At this crisis in the administration of New France, Frontenac was appointed to succeed de Courcelle. The new governor arrived in Quebec on the 12th of September 1672. From the commencement it was evident that he was prepared to give effect to a policy of colonial expansion, and to exercise an independence of action that did not coincide with the views of the monarch or of his minister Colbert. One of the first acts of the governor, by which he sought to establish in Canada the three estates--nobles, clergy and people--met with the disapproval of the French court, and measures were adopted to curb his ambition by increasing the power of the sovereign council and by reviving the office of intendant. Frontenac, however, was a man of dominant spirit, jealous of authority, prepared to exact obedience from all and to yield to none. In the course of events he soon became involved in quarrels with the intendant touching questions of precedence, and with the ecclesiastics, one or two of whom ventured to criticize his proceedings. The church in Canada had been administered for many years by the religious orders; for the see of Quebec, so long contemplated, had not yet been erected. But three years after the arrival of Frontenac a former vicar apostolic, François Xavier de Laval de Montmorenci, returned to Quebec as bishop, with a jurisdiction over the whole of Canada. In this redoubtable churchman the governor found a vigorous opponent who was determined to render the state subordinate to the church. Frontenac, following in this respect in the footsteps of his predecessors, had issued trading licences which permitted the sale of intoxicants. The bishop, supported by the intendant, endeavoured to suppress this trade and sent an ambassador to France to obtain remedial action. The views of the bishop were upheld and henceforth authority was divided. Troubles ensued between the governor and the sovereign council, most of the members of which sided with the one permanent power in the colony--the bishop; while the suspicions and intrigues of the intendant, Duchesneau, were a constant source of vexation and strife. As the king and his minister had to listen to and adjudicate upon the appeals from the contending parties their patience was at last worn out, and both governor and intendant were recalled to France in the year 1682. During Frontenac's first administration many improvements had been made in the country. The defences had been strengthened, a fort was built at Cataraqui (now Kingston), Ontario, bearing the governor's name, and conditions of peace had been fairly maintained between the Iroquois on the one hand and the French and their allies, the Ottawas and the Hurons, on the other. The progress of events during the next few years proved that the recall of the governor had been ill-timed. The Iroquois were assuming a threatening attitude towards the inhabitants, and Frontenac's successor, La Barre, was quite incapable of leading an army against such cunning foes. At the end of a year La Barre was replaced by the marquis de Denonville, a man of ability and courage, who, though he showed some vigour in marching against the western Iroquois tribes, angered rather than intimidated them, and the massacre of Lachine (5th of August 1689) must be regarded as one of the unhappy results of his administration. Entry: FRONTENAC
Malacca, now a somnolent little town, a favourite resort of rich Chinese who have retired from business, is visited by few ships and is the least important of the three British settlements on the Straits which give their name to the colony. It has, however, a remarkable history. The precise date of its foundation cannot be ascertained, but there is strong reason to believe that this event took place at the earliest in the 14th century. The Roman youth Ludovigo Barthema is believed to have been the first European to visit it, some time before 1503; and in 1509 Diogo Lopez de Siqueira sailed from Portugal for the express purpose of exploiting Malacca. At first he was hospitably received, but disagreements with the natives ensued and word was brought to Siqueira by Magellan, who was one of his company, that a treacherous attack was about to be made upon his ships. Siqueira then sent a native man and woman ashore "with an arrow passed through their skulls" to the sultan, "who was thus informed," says de Barros, "through his subjects that unless he kept a good watch the treason which he had perpetrated would be punished with fire and sword." The sultan retaliated by arresting Ruy de Araujo, the factor, and twenty other men who were ashore with him collecting cargo for the ships. Siqueira immediately burned one of his vessels and sailed direct for Portugal. In 1510 Mendez de Vasconcellos with a fleet of four ships set out from Portugal "to go and conquer Malacca," but d'Alboquerque detained him at Goa, and it was not until 1511 that d'Alboquerque himself found time to visit Malacca and seek to rescue the Portuguese prisoners who all this time had remained in the hands of the sultan. An attack was delivered by d'Alboquerque on the 25th of July 1511, but it was only partially successful, and it was not until the 4th of August, when the assault was repeated, that the place finally fell. Since that time Malacca has continued to be the possession of one or another of the European Powers. It was a Portuguese possession for 130 years, and was the headquarters of their trade and the base of their commercial explorations in south-eastern Asia while they enjoyed, and later while they sought to hold, their monopoly in the East. It was from Malacca, immediately after its conquest, that d'Alboquerque sent d'Abreu on his voyage of discovery to the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, which later were the objective of Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation. During the Portuguese tenure of Malacca the place was attacked at least twice by the Achinese; its shipping was harried by Lancaster in 1592, when the first British fleet made its way into these seas; it was besieged by the Dutch in 1606, and finally fell to a joint attack of the Dutch and the Achinese in 1641. It was under the Portuguese government that St Francis Xavier started a mission in Malacca, the first Christian mission in Malayan lands. Entry: MALACCA
BOUHOURS, DOMINIQUE (1628-1702), French critic, was born in Paris in 1628. He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of sixteen, and was appointed to read lectures on literature in the college of Clermont at Paris, and on rhetoric at Tours. He afterwards became private tutor to the two sons of the duke of Longueville. He was sent to Dunkirk to the Romanist refugees from England, and in the midst of his missionary occupations published several books. In 1665 or 1666 he returned to Paris, and published in 1671 _Les Entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugène_, a critical work on the French language, printed five times at Paris, twice at Grenoble, and afterwards at Lyons, Brussels, Amsterdam, Leiden, &c. The chief of his other works are _La Manière de bien penser sur les ouvrages d'esprit_ (1687), _Doutes sur la langue française_ (1674), _Vie de Saint Ignace de Loyola_ (1679), _Vie de Saint François Xavier_ (1682), and a translation of the New Testament into French (1697). His practice of publishing secular books and works of devotion alternately led to the _mot_, _"qu'il servait le monde et le ciel par semestre."_ Bouhours died at Paris on the 27th of May 1702. Entry: BOUHOURS
FOURNET, JOSEPH JEAN BAPTISTE XAVIER (1801-1869), French geologist and metallurgist, was born at Strassburg on the 15th of May 1801. He was educated at the École des Mines at Paris, and after considerable experience as a mining engineer he was in 1834 appointed professor of geology at Lyons. He was a man of wide knowledge and extensive research, and wrote memoirs on chemical and mineralogical subjects, on eruptive rocks, on the structure of the Jura, the metamorphism of the Western Alps, on the formation of oolitic limestones, on kaolinization and on metalliferous veins. On metallurgical subjects also he was an acknowledged authority; and he published observations on the order of sulphurability of metals (_loi de Fournet_). He died at Lyons on the 8th of January 1869. His chief publications were: É_tudes sur les dépôts métallifères_ (Paris, 1834); _Histoire de la dolomie_ (Lyons, 1847); _De l'extension des terrains houillers_ (1855); _Géologie lyonnaise_ (Lyons, 1861). Entry: FOURNET