Baron de Montesquieu

Well, in History class...I just landed myself with another project. No one wants to talk about History, unless it somehow relates to wars and deaths that affected thousands of people all over the country or world. There could also be some historical characters in countries such as King Henry VIII, famous for having a total of six wives, landed him with only one son, who died at a young age, and two daughters, the future Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I.  So I for one, might as well as talk about this historical figure I will be “impersonating” as for a debate.

My historical figure is Baron de Montesquieu. Charles Louis de Secondat (Baron de Montesquieu) was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1689 to a wealthy family. He later went to college and studied science and history, eventually becoming a lawyer in the local government. De Secondat's father died in 1713 and he was placed under the care of his uncle, Baron de Montesquieu. The Baron died in 1716 and left de Secondat his fortune and his title of Baron de Montesquieu. He gained fame in 1721 with his Persian Letters, which criticized the lifestyle and liberties of the wealthy French as well as the church. However, Montesquieu's book On the Spirit of Laws, published in 1748, was his most famous work. It outlined his ideas on how government would best work. 


      Montesquieu believed that all things were made up of rules or laws that never changed. He set out to study these laws scientifically with the hope that knowledge of the laws of government would reduce the problems of society and improve human life. According to Montesquieu, there were three types of government: a monarchy (ruled by a king or queen), an aristocracy (ruled by the noble or wealthy class), and a republicanism (ruled by elected leaders). Montesquieu believed in democracy, which is now used today in the US government.

Queen's Own Fool p.3

Continuing on with the previous post....

During the Lord Darnley' reign, no one complained, however, Nicola rants on about insulting Lord Darnley to Davie. Davie however, doesn’t mind serving him, as he now has the power on the government, owning the seal indicating of the king. With much envious people around him, Nicola warns him that his life may be taken. Later on, with much displeasure, his death starts, loosening the queen’s control on the counsel.

With that, the queen sends Nicola to the King Darnley, as she fears for the king’s safety. As what she feared was true, because as Nicola travels to the king, there was an explosion, causing the death of Darnley, and everyone in Scotland now blames the queen. With constant revolts and accusing Darnley's death at the queen, they were off to have the assistance of Lord James, the queen's previous adviser.
With the situations, Queen Mary was to marry Bothwell, who was rumored to be the one who had murdered Darnley. With that, the queen was to be imprisoned, moving from a miserable castle to another, until Nicola planned her escaped. With 2 tries, they succeeded. However, with that, Queen Mary ordered Nicola to go and be somewhere happy with Joseph, Davie’s twin.

They did, living in the countryside, finding news about the Queen Mary, reuniting the troupe, hearing Nicola’s death months after he sold her to Queen Mary. In the author’s note, Queen Mary was imprisoned for being a threat to the throne and was beheaded. After Queen Elizabeth I’s death and with no successors, the throne was given to Queen Mary’s son, James Stuart.

In overall of this extremely long summary that took 3 blogs in total to cover the book, I enjoyed it, to the very end. I think it was very unfortunate of how Queen Mary was accused for Lord Darnley’s death, when really was just worry for him, and lost her love to him for a long time. With wit in her mind, Nicola shows intelligence that exceeds many women in her time, and would have been a lady in waiting if she was noble born.

The Queen's Own Fool p.2

Nicola Ambruzzi is a 13-year-old orphan living and performing with her uncle's troupe when they are summoned off the street to entertain at the court of Francis II, the young king of France. The troupe's performace didn’t turn out as entertaining to the court, but Nicola’s clever words attracts the attention of the queen, Mary, also known as Mary, Queen of Scots. The queen engages Nicola as a jester, or fool, that will always speaking truth to her. She is called "La Jardiniere" because the queen discovered her in the palace gardens.

At first, Nicola feels as if she has walked into a fairy tale, so relieved is she to be warm, dry, well-fed, and far away from the blows of her uncle's cane. But her illusion soon ends as she was weary of traveling from palace to palace, frightened when there was sudden outburst from those who were rebellious. Later then Francis II dies, and Mary, no longer Queen of France, leaves for Scotland's throne. Nicola, now devoted to her queen, plucks up her courage to go along instead of coming back to Italy.

In Scotland, Nicola finds that Mary is less listened to by her counsel and later on accepts Lord Henry Darnley's proposal of his marriage. Nicola mistrusts and despises the Lord Henry, but does not want to sacrifice her queen’s happiness. Around this time she befriends the ill-fated David Riccio, Mary's new music master and, eventually, her secretary and adviser. He listens to Nicola’s complaints and insults against Lord Henry, now king of Scotland. He doesn’t show it, but he admits to Nicola that he also does not want to serve to a king like Henry, who started to grew apart from Queen Mary as he barely comes home, goes out and play, hunt, and sometimes being in other women into the palace. Everyone knew of his true nature and doesn’t want their queen to discover his recent actions.


To Be Continued….

New Statement of Purpose

Over the past 2 months, I have steadily been improving on my grammar and I have been using the topics I was planning on writing about on my blogs. I might not plan on writing blogs on traveling because I do not have much detail to the locations I have been to. However, it’s still a possiblity that I might work on traveling. I will continue on writing about books, movies, and foods.

As I read through my previous blogs, I realized that I do a lot of explaining on the topic rather than giving more of my opinions on the topic. I would really want to improve on this. Now that I have 2 months worth of experience in posting, I will make sure that I will steadily improve on my grammar, increase in vocabulary, and giving more of my opinions on future topics I will be posting on the blogs. I am thinking about writing about some historical figures, mainly in the medival times, because it’s very interesting to see what they have overcome hardships and achieve their goals.(or maybe to see whether or not they were beheaded for some unreasonable argumentation)

There is also the fact that I haven’t improved much or the fact that I haven’t been trying hard enough in some of my blogs and I sometimes feel upset the fact that I am only working on the blogs just for the grade and not enjoying it. I think its because I have been having a lot of assignments that have been pushing me to the edge and not having as much time on writing on the blog and is considered “sloppy and last minute” work in my opinion.

I would also like more topic ideas and I’m opened to any suggestions. As long as it is easy and you would most likely have a lot of opinions on that topic, I would gladly accept and hope it would be enjoyable.