The end of the week is always a relief, don't you think? You are free to spend your next 2 days as you please. Sleeping until it pleases you (or if you have children or dogs, until it pleases them), spend time with friends and being at your own leisure.
Today, I went to work as per the usual, taking the same bus, riding the same train, walking the same route to work. Redundancy is easy, since you needn't concentrate on anything surrounding you. Maybe that's a problem, I feel disconnected from the world sometimes, but make no effort to plug in. After work, I am more willing to reconnect, not in the mornings. Not a chance.
This evening I was at Symposium with 3 good friends to celebrate one friend not having pneumonia, but rather bronchitis. Any reason to celebrate is a good reason I should think.
My week was just a bit draining tis all. I have to get ready to move for next week. I don't need to bring much, just my clothes, and a money saving spirit (I haven't been praying to that one lately).
Joan Valois, Queen Consort of France (7 April 1498- 15 December 1498)
was born on this day April 23, 1464
died February 4, 1505
Joan was born the second daughter of Louis XI and Charlotte of Savoy. At the age of 12, she was married to her father's second cousin, Louis of Orleans, whom had a very distant claim to the throne. However, Joan's brother, Charles VIII, died in 1498 without any male heirs, and since Salic Law prohibited women from inheriting the throne, they had to go through the male lineage to find a suitable candidate and Louis was that person.
Whilst, technically, Joan had a greater claim to the throne, it was Louis that would take it. Not soon after ascending the throne, he was trying to repudiate Joan and annul the marriage, in order to marry Charles' widow, Anne of Brittany. He had claimed that Joan was malformed, ugly and that he was unable to consummate the marriage. Understandably so, Joan was horrified and fought fiercely against these claims, providing men who said that the King boasted that he had "mounted my wife three or four times during the night". Later, the King claimed that he had been a victim of sorcery, whereby he claimed that his sexual performance was inhibited by it. To which Joan replied as to how he would know it is like to make love to her?
Unfortunately for Joan, the pope Alexander VI granted the annulment.
After this bitter defeat, Joan stepped aside and retreated to her dowry estate of Bourges. In 1502, she founded, "Sisters of the Annonciade", a Franciscan order of religious contemplatives. Joan did good works, devoted herself to God and religion and prayed for her husband.
She was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1950.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_France,_Duchess_of_Berry
Accessed on April 24, 2010
Illustrious Dames of the Court of the Valois Kings
Katharine Prescott Wormeley Translator
Year: 1912
Pages: 215-216
No comments:
Post a Comment