Paul Kingsnorth wrote a very intelligent post reflecting on the symbolism and significance of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.

What happened today was a rolling, dense mat of symbolism, replete with historical meaning, anchored in a very particular nation and time period. What did it symbolise? Above all, I think, it symbolised something that our culture has long stopped believing in, and as such can’t really process effectively, or even perhaps quite comprehend. This was brought home to me by one particular moment in the ceremony.

You can see that moment in the photograph above. It’s a view from the height of the tower of Westminster Abbey, looking down onto the Queen’s coffin below. The Abbey is, of course, laid out in the shape of the cross, and the coffin was set down at the meeting point of the nave and the transept, where the two arms of the cross meet. At one point in the proceedings, the camera showed us this view, and then focused in on the scene, and the impression was that of some energy flowing down from above and into the coffin, then out across the marble floor and into the gathered crowd.

It struck me then that this was an accurate visual image of the world which this Queen’s death marks the final end of, and it struck me too that this must be one of the reasons why her passing has had such a huge impact – one way beyond the person she actually was. What we were seeing as the camera panned down was a manifestation, through technological trickery, of the ancient notion of sacral kingship.

This notion was the rock which the political structure of all medieval societies was built, and in theory at least it is still the architecture which supports the matter of Britain, whose bishops still sit in parliament with the power to amend laws, and whose monarch’s crown is adorned with a cross. Authority, in this model of society, flows downward, from God, and into the monarch, who then faces outward with that given power and serves – and rules – his or her people.

Forget for a moment whether you’re a Christian, or a monarchist, or indeed whether you just think this is so much humbug designed to disguise the raw exercise of power. I’m not trying to make a case here: I am trying to understand something that I think at least partly explains how we have got here.

The point of the model of sacral kingship is that all true power resides in and emerges from the great, mysterious, unknowable, creative power at the heart of the universe – the power which we call, for want of a better word, ‘God.’ Any power that the monarch may exercise in this temporal realm is not ultimately his or hers. At the end of the funeral today, the orb and the sceptre, symbolising the Queen’s spiritual and temporal authority, were removed from the top of her coffin, along with the crown, and given over to the care of the church. At that point, Elizabeth became symbolically what she had always been in reality, and we all are – small, ordinary people, naked before God.

This notion – that any power exercised by a human ruler ultimately derives from the spiritual plane – is neither British nor European. It is universal. Pharaonic Egypt recognised it, and so did Native America. The Anglo-Saxons believed it and so did the Japanese Emperors. Cultures large and small, imperial and tribal, on all continents over many millennia, have shared some version of this understanding of what the world is. Power, it tells us – politics, it insists – is no mere human confection, because the world is no mere human confection. There is something – someone – else beyond it, and if we are silent, in these cathedrals or in these forests, we can hear it still. Those who take power in this world will answer to it at the end. It is best that they know this now.

What is meaningful about this royal death is that the late Queen really believed this. So, I think, does her son, the new King. But the society around him very much does not. The understanding now is that authority flows upward from below, from ‘the people’ and into the government, which supposedly governs on our behalf. In this model there is no sacred centre, and there is no higher authority to whom we answer. There is no heavenly grant of temporary office which will one day be returned, and a tally made. There is only raw power, rooted in materiality, which in itself has no meaning beyond what we ascribe to it. There is only efficiency. There is only management. There are only humans.

RTWT

In 1847, Nicholas Charles Oudinot, Marshal of France, 1st Duke of Reggio, also Count Oudinot, died at the age of 80 at Paris. Present in many great battles of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire (he won especial distinction at Zurich and Genoa in 1799 and 1800 respectively, and later at Friedland (1807)). The battle of Wagram (1809) got him his Maréchal’s baton, and his Dukedom. His last active service was in the French intervention in Spain in 1823.

The Duke is known to have been wounded 34 times in battle, being cut by swords and sabres, hit by artillery shell fragments, and at least twelve bullets over the course of his military career.

His wounds never slowed him down, on the battlefield or in other respects (married twice, father of 11 children).

—————–

He reminded me of someone else.

Queen Elizabeth with corgi earlier this year.

The Daily Mail has affectionate anecdotes about the Queen’s last Summer and last days at Balmoral.

Shortly before arriving in Scotland she asked to be taken down to the mews at Windsor Castle where her stud groom Terry Pendry had continued to look after the horses, even though she was no longer riding them. …

She just wanted to see them, although when she was invited to sit on a pony she agreed. She was helped up into the saddle and then a groom suggested walking the horse around the indoor riding school. The Queen did four laps and it must have been the first time she had been on a leading rein since she learned to ride as a child.

During July’s heatwave she asked for a sun-lounger to be put out for her in the garden at Windsor. At Balmoral, where the weather was less warm, she spent more time sleeping, often retiring for a nap after lunch.

Although frail, she remained alert and chatty almost until the end. The Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rt Rev Dr Iain Greenshields dined with her on Saturday and again on Sunday lunchtime. He spoke of her ‘good spirits’ and ‘engaging’ company. Dr Greenshields, who preached at Braemar and Crathie parish church where the Queen used to worship, said she was ‘absolutely on the ball’.

‘She was talking about her past, her love for Balmoral, her father, her mother, Prince Philip, horses, very much engaged with what was happening in the church and what was happening in the nation, too.’

He described how she took him to the window and she was ‘looking over her gardens with great pride and affection’.

The sidebar links tell us that David Beckham stood 13 hours in the queue to view the Queen’s casket, (like a true-born Englishman) declined a offer to jump to the head of the line from a Member of Parliament, and then was photographed wiping a tear from his eye at the coffin.

The above vissage is said to be the death mask of a never-identified young girl found drowned in the Seine in Paris in the late 1880s. The pathologist in the Paris morgue, the story goes, was so taken by her beauty that he preserved her features with a plaster death mask.

Wikipedia:

In the following years, numerous copies were produced. The copies quickly became a fashionable, albeit morbid, fixture in Parisian Bohemian society. Albert Camus and others[who?] compared her enigmatic smile to that of the Mona Lisa, evoking much speculation as to what clues the seemingly happy expression, perceived as eerily serene, on her face could offer about her life, her death, and her place in society.

Critic Al Alvarez wrote in his book on suicide, The Savage God: “I am told that a whole generation of German girls modeled their looks on her.” According to Hans Hesse of the University of Sussex, Alvarez reports, “the Inconnue became the erotic ideal of the period, as Bardot was for the 1950s. He thinks that German actresses such as Elisabeth Bergner modeled themselves on her. She was finally displaced as a paradigm by Greta Garbo.”

L’Inconnu has additionally been referenced repeatedly in European and American fiction, in film, in ballet, and in music.

And finally,

The face of the unknown woman was used for the head of the first aid mannequin Resusci Anne. It was created by Peter Safar and Asmund Laerdal in 1958 and was used starting in 1960 in numerous CPR courses. For this reason, the face has been called “the most kissed face” of all time.”

Isaac Levitan, Autumn. Hunter, 1880, Tver regional picture gallery, Tver.

HT: Sea Run.

Last November, the information came out in connection with a secret internal report that Yale now had more administrators than faculty or students:

The numbers:

5,042 administrators

——————————————

“I think we don’t yet have a Vice President for the rights of the left-handed, but I haven’t checked this month.” — Professor Leslie Brisman.

——————————————

The report discussing this astounding proliferation of bureaucracy (and its negative impact on teaching) was never released and quickly swept deeply under the Woodbridge Hall rug.

But these things have a way of coming out, despite coverup efforts and, what do you know? somebody evidently leaked the damaging report to the alumni reform organization “Fight for Yale.”

Sample:

“[T]here are currently 31 people with the title of ‘Vice President’ (or ‘Associate Vice President’) at Yale and also 7 with the title of ‘Vice Provost’; this may be compared to only 5 Vice Presidents in 2003-4 and 14 in 2012-13. Table 4 provides some
other counts of people with titles with the words ‘student affairs,’ ‘student engagement,’ ‘student life,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘strategic initiatives,’ or ‘sustainability’ in their job titles. …”

This, this! is running for the Senate from Pennsylvania.

John Fetterman’s last name sounds like the name of a good old Pennsylvania Dutchman, but take one look at him. He’s got a skinhead and a billy goat goatee. His arms are covered with tattoos. And he’s out there giving speeches, running for the highest office in the Commonwealth, wearing workout clothes. The SOB looks like a recently released brig rat running for head of the local outlaw biker chapter, not for Senator.

Unbelievable! Who would vote for that?

On top of everything else, he’s a Gen X-er who is really more like a millennial. He sponged off his parents until he was 49 (he’s now 53), and like fellow leftist Bernie Sanders from Vermont, he went from being a bum to being a town mayor, after winning the primary by one vote and then running as as a democrat unopposed.

Even better, running in Pennsylvania, he’s pro Gun Control, wants to release more felons from jail, and he hates fracking. You can imagine his position on Coal.

Fetterman belongs in California, not PA.

HT: Karen L. Myers.

1/ UTW – Operational Update: ZSU Counter Offensive in the Donbas, 04-10 Sep. The ZSU is engaged in what may likely become the most stunningly successful counteroffensive since the IDFs OPERATION GAZELLE during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. #ukrainecounteroffensive #UkraineWillWin pic.twitter.com/nrC8cg02ia

— Jomini of the West (@JominiW) September 10, 2022

Babylon Bee:

LONDON — In his first official royal decree, King Charles has replaced Meghan and Harry in the line of succession with two of the late Queen’s corgis.

“Fluffy here shall immediately assume the title of Duke,” said Charles, presenting the corgi with a scepter. “There now! Who’s a good future King of England?”

The nation of England erupted into celebration upon hearing the news. “After the sadness of the past week, it feels good to have something to be happy about,” said citizen Gerald Funderburk. “The thought of the monarchy falling into the hands of Harry or Meghan, those blithering idiots…we can all rest a little easier tonight knowing the kingdom will be in good hands. Or paws.”

RTWT

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, Entry of Pope Urban II into Toulouse in 1096, 1900, Capitole de Toulouse.