Without Lifting A Finger

 Versailles 2019. Fountain. #rlswihart13 #rlswihart @rl_swihart #versailles #france #poetry #readmorepoetry #travel #art #beauty #history 

 More from Versailles. #rlswihart13 #rlswihart @rl_swihart #poetry #readmore #beauty #france #followfollowsaidtheswallow

Richard Charles Cobb   CBE   (20 May 1917 – 15 January 1996) was a British historian and essayist, and professor at the   University of Oxford . He was the author of numerous influential works about the   history of France , particularly the   French Revolution . Cobb meticulously researched the Revolutionary era from a ground-level view sometimes described as " history from below ". Cobb is best known for his multi-volume work   The People's Armies   (1961), a massive study of the composition and mentality of the Revolution's civilian armed forces. He was a prolific writer of essays from which he fashioned numerous book-length collections about France and its people. Cobb also found much inspiration from his own life, and he composed a multitude of autobiographical writings and personal reflections. Much of his writing went unpublished in his lifetime, and several anthologies were assembled from it by other scholars after his death. (Wik...

It all got worse (it always does); indeed, it reached a poignant climax in 1989, when Cobb was so disgusted by the Bicentennial celebrations that the Revolution’s great historian resolved never to write about France again. This was a sad, love-lost, and possibly naïve decision. Renan said that “getting its history wrong is part of being a nation,” and a nation rarely gets its history as wrong as when congratulating itself on a famous yet intensely contradictory event. Cobb might have known this. But it is a measure of the largeness and precision of his love for the country that it could in the end so disappoint him.

Even if it was just a random hit, Réunion deserves some attention. * Réunion [ discuss spelling ] ( French : La Réunion , IPA:  [la ʁeynjɔ̃]  ( listen ) ; previously Île Bourbon ) is a French island located in the Indian Ocean . It is situated east of Madagascar and about 175 kilometres (109 mi) southwest of Mauritius , the nearest island. As of 2014, its population numbered 844,994 inhabitants. [ 1 ] Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France. Like the other four overseas departments, it is also one of the 27 regions of France , with the modified status of overseas regions , and an integral part of the Republic with the same status as those situated on the European mainland . Réunion is an outermost region of the European Union and, as an overseas department of France, a part of the Eurozone . [From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9union ]

PAINS aux RAISINS , a photo by Mary.Do on Flickr. My preferred breakfast fare.

Pain aux raisins ( French pronunciation: ​ [pɛ̃ o rɛ.zɛ̃] ), is a breakfast food often eaten in France that is directly translated to raisin bread . It is also colloquially known as snail bread in Australia. Pain aux raisins is a member of the pâtisserie viennoise family of baked foods. In France, it is typically a variant of the croissant or pain au chocolat , made with a leavened butter pastry with raisins added and shaped in a spiral with a crème pâtissière filling. However, in many areas of Northern Europe and North America, it is generally made with sweetened bread dough or brioche dough, rather than pastry. It is often consumed for breakfast as a part of a Continental breakfast . [From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_aux_raisins ]

Vernon - 09 , a photo by LittleMsMagic on Flickr. Bikepath from Vernon to Monet's Giverny. We're planning for mid-June.