Kurt Reichenbaugh’s Reviews > Europe: A History > Status Update

In one year, 1810, Napolean ordered 162 bottles of his favorite neroli-based cologne water from the parfumier Chardin. In a famous letter, he once begged Josephine not to bathe for two weeks before they met, so that he could enjoy all her natural aromas. When she died, he planted violets on her grave, and wore a locket made from them for the rest of his life. He was an unabashed odomane.

"From its high point early in the 1680s...Louis XIV's Great Experiment produced ever diminishing returns. The wars, the religious persecutions, the deaths of all the great personalities, were accompanied by failures of a more deep-seated nature. Both the French state and French society were showing signs of a long wasting disease."

hmmm...wonder what's gonna come of that!

Religious reformation, art, philosophy and syphilis.

Witchcraft developed in parallel to Christian mysticism, and for some of the same reasons. Witches, black and white, were undoubtedly a hangover from the pagan animism of the pre-Christian countryside...What is more, by openly entering into combat with witchcraft, the Church inadvertently fostered the climate of hysteria in which alleged witches and sorcerers thrived. hmmm...How little things have changed.

The Middle Ages: The Christian Empires split into East vs West. Vikings raise hell, the Charlemagne dynasty breaks, and Feudalism takes hold. For most, life is miserable. "One might also presume that a feeling of powerlessness over their personal lives added to medieval people's preoccupation with religion - in particular to their strong belief in the afterlife, and to their morbid cult of death."

Christianity argues with itself. Islam arrives on the scene. Theodora raises eyebrows. Who is wrong, who is right? Rome crumbles.

The Roman Empire succumbs to corruption and barbarians. The birth of Europe approaches.