And here, rising out of the criminal world of Paris, a miasma of fear and suspicion, is the gradual revelation of occult crimes – covens of witches and warlocks practicing “the old religion,” conducting black masses, arranging murders and abortions, concocting magic potions, aphrodisiacs, and poisons for their masked noble clients – as a poison psychosis strikes Versailles, ultimately threatening the very person of Louis himself.Most dramatic of all, the role of Montespan: the King’s Favorite, mother of his five “legitimized” children, an arrogant, highborn, voluptuous beauty, who dazzled Saint-Simon with the wit and brilliance of her conversation; whose intellect made her an arbiter of taste in a court embellished by a Molière (her protégé) and a Lully; whose pearls outshone the Queen’s; whose train was borne by a duchess; who by her strength and charm held the restless Louis bound to her for a decade.In the massive Poisons Affair inquiry that brought the most ancient names of France to trial, the name of Montespan was by royal edict forbidden to be mentioned, and evidence was destroyed. But the day-to-day private journals kept secretly in shorthand by the able and meticulous chief of the Paris police, Nicholas de Lay Reynie, escaped destruction – and they raise the question: To what extent was Montespan, the uncrowned Queen of France, implicated in these grave crimes?Using – brilliantly – the technique that distinguishes her earlier works, presenting her story through the diaries and letters of the principal actors and their contemporaries, Frances Mossiker illuminates this mystery and brings richly to life the antithetical worlds – the royal heights and the grotesquely sinister depths of seventeenth-century society – that came violently together in one of the greatest dramas of French history. [From the book jacket.]

    These are the dates of the beginning of official interest in Western learning and of the expulsion of Siebold from the country, the first stage of a crisis that could be resolved only by the opening of the country of the West. The century and more included by the two dates was a most important period in Japanese history, when intellectuals, rebelling at the isolation of their country, desperately sought knowledge from abroad. The amazing energy and enthusiasm of men like Honda Toshiaki made possible the spectacular changes in Japan, which are all too often credited to the arrival of Commodore Perry.The author chose Honda Toshiaki (1744-1821) as his central figure. A page from any one of Honda's writings suffices to show that with him one has entered a new age, that of modern Japan. One finds in his books a new spirit, restless, curious and receptive. There is in him the wonder at new discoveries, the delight in widening horizons. Honda took a kind of pleasure even in revealing that Japan, after all, was only a small island in a large world. To the Japanese who had thought of Chinese civilization as being immemorial antiquity, he declared that Egypt's was thousands of years older and far superior. The world, he discovered, was full of wonderful things, and he insisted that Japan take advantage of them. Honda looked at Japan as he thought a Westerner might, and saw things that had to be changed, terrible drains on the country's moral and physical strength. Within him sprang the conviction that Japan must become one of the great nations of the world.

    No one favored a peacetime army. Yet the years that followed saw the young nation embark on a dramatic surge of expansion that not demanded the military as national protectors. Sword of the Republic is the story of the army in its new multicultural role as agents of the republic during the period 1783-1846.It is the story of federal troops called up to enforce paper possession with physical occupation when treaty and purchase opened up the region from the Appalachians west to the Mississippi and the vast new frontiers in the Louisiana Territory. The duties of these soldiers were to protect the settlers and to establish a military presence that maintained American rights with honor in the face of Indian intransigence and British and Spanish scheming. These soldiers, in accomplishing their mission, became farmers, roadbuilders, scientists, and lumbermen: pioneers of the new West.At Fallen Timbers, Tippecanoe, and the Thames, the federal military forces met the early challenge from the Indian nations and their British allies. Military control of strategic points on the Great Lakes and western rivers enforced American control of the fur trade. Army endeavors shored up crumbling territorial edges where Spanish an British officials or traders weakened American power. Sword of the Republic recounts vividly the Blackhawk War and the Florida War. It details the construction of western forts and tells the tragic story of the removal of Indians from the East. It is a chronicle of the transition from wilderness to hard-core settlement.

    This fascinating book collects all the known documentary records relating to Blake's long and productive life. Distinguished Blake expert, G. E. Bentley, Jr., editor of the first edition of Blake Records and Blake Records Supplement, brings together new and updated material on Blake's life, career, family, friends, and patrons. The result of decades of research, this book is comprehensive, accessible, and highly enlightening.

    From the beginning he showed a useful knack for cultivating influential literary friends and for giving audiences what they were sure to like. Early in 1693, his first comedy, The Old Batchelour, pleased the public at Drury Lane, and critics hailed the appearance of a new talent in the theatre who gave a shark edge to the theatrical conventions at the time. Much was expected of Congreve's second offering, The Double Dealer, mounted later the same year. Its surprisingly bitter tone disconcerted many listeners, however, and the play drew only moderate praise. But this setback proved temporary, and Congreve found his reputation regained with Love for Love, and in 1700 his finest comedy of manners The Way of the World. After this he wrote no more comedies. Aware of changing tastes in his audience, and annoyed by critical squabbles over the question of morality in his plays, he retired at the age of thirty to the life of a gentleman of leisure.

    

    Full treatment of great operas and ballets as well as Rameau’s life and musical times, acoustic and harmonic theories, link to Lully, influence on Gluck, other topics. Numerous useful appendixes, indexes and an extensive bibliography. Over 300 musical examples.