On this day was born, in 1850, Léon Hennique, a French Naturalist writer who studied painting before turning to writing. Here are two delightful sketches or snapshots capturing French life during the French Second Empire or early Third Republic.

Among the many news headlines today: "Trump media to enter booming prediction markets business..." Were Léon Bloy alive, he could apply for a gig job submitting predictions related to macro European politics, assuming he could stand it any better than he could the Gil Blas.

From Léon Bloy's Oct. 28, 1901 diary entry in _Cochons_: “Read the old booklet by Michelet: 'Poland and Russia,' published in 1852. Despite his unbearable Jacobin sentimentality, Micheletʼs little work interests me because of Russia...

I am the tenebrous – the widower – the disconsolate Prince of Aquitaine in a ruined tower: My only star is dead – and my lute, constellated, Bears the black sun of Melancholy. In the dark night of the tomb, you who consoled me, Grant me the Posillipo and the sea of Italy,...

The Perverted Peasant, or The Dangers of the City, by Restif de la Bretonne, tells the story of a virtuous & charming young man from the country who travels to the city to learn his trade (painting). Along the way he is corrupted by its ways. It is a tragedy in the strict sense.

On this day in 1734, Restif de la Bretonne was born in a small Burgundian village in France. A prolific author of numerous works, he wrote The Pornographer (1769) -- an epistolary novel that proposes a “plan of rules for prostitutes,” in which he coined the term “pornographer.”

“I am the veridical historian of the brilliant conquests of a beautiful young ladyʼs pretty little foot. O you! astonishment & terror of the universe, celebrated conquerors... Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan...

Longtime readers of Léon Bloy may sometimes wonder what he felt about the Biblical Job, “a man in the land of Uz” (which would seem to be Edom). The following reflections, from a letter to Henry de Groux, June 8, 1895, shed some light:

"What is Nationalism & What Do Nationalists Want?" by Alfredo Rocco has been released. It is currently available for purchase via Amazon, and will soon be available via other online retailers.

(Coming Soon) "What Is Nationalism & What Do Nationalists Want?" by Alfredo Rocco is the latest in our series of early 20th century works on Italian politics. Originally published in 1914, it discusses what nationalism is/isn't, objections & criticisms, whom it appeals to, etc...

Tomorrow, Sunday, October 12, will mark the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ landing in the Americas. Everyone knows this. What everyone does not know is that in the 19th century there was a movement within the Catholic Church to have him beatified.

"Here lies Louis XVII, Charles-Louis, Duke of Normandy, King of France and Navarre, Born in Versailles March 27, 1785, Died in Delft August 10, 1845." Such is the epitaph offered to the travelerʼs astonishment, on the stone of a humble grave in the cemetery of Delft, in Holland.

"A monument to Villiers de lʼIsle-Adam! To the author of Isis, Tribulat Bonhomet, Contes Cruels, The Future Eve, Axël – everything that he had written that was of the most bitter, the most slapping, the most belting, the most dog-whipping kind! And who spoke about it? Nobody."

Next week, Sunday, October 12, will mark the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ landing in the Americas. Everyone knows this. What everyone does not know is that in the 19th century there was a movement within the Catholic Church to have him beatified.

"I am very strongly convinced that democracies are no more viable today than monarchies, and that, fundamentally, *everything is rejected*, because we are on the verge of a mysterious epoch wherein God wants to act alone, just as he pleases." -- Léon Bloy, March 20, 1897

On this day in 1851 was born Théodore Hannon, Belgian poet, painter, scenarist, good friend of Felicien Rops. Of whom J.-K. Huysmans says, in _À Rebours_, that his “charming corruption inevitably resonated with des Esseintesʼ tastes.”

Evidently, the church bells had stopped sounding the hour for it was by means of an electric timer that the priest, these days, away from his bell tower, dialogues with divinity. An Angelus blackout. What difference did it make! Who thought about three Ave Mariaʼs anymore?

On this day in 1902, Léon Bloy wrote in his diary: “Feast Day of Saint Michael. Death of Zola... Divina virtute, in infernum detrude. (See the post-scriptum to Je MʼAccuse...) The sacrilegious churl was unable to finish his ʻfourth Gospel.ʼ SOMEONE had enough.”

A collection of essays, newspaper articles and interviews, discourses and polemics on the subject of Fascism by Giovanni Gentile (AD 1875-1944), the “philosopher of Fascism.” The collection was written (& transcribed) over the course of several years prior to its publication in book format in 1925.

“M. Émile Zola has chosen to work exclusively in the Disgusting. We have learned from him that one can delve considerably into human filth and that a book made of that alone could have the pretension of being beautiful..." -- d'Aurevilly, as reported by Léon Bloy in _Je M'Accuse..._

"I exited a theater where each evening I appeared in the loges dressed to the nines as a suitor. Sometimes the hall was full, sometimes it was empty. I was not interested in gazing down at a parterre peopled with thirty or so affected theater lovers,...

"Absolute negation of every present good and absolute certainty of recovering Eden after universal destruction. Revelatory enthymeme of life’s emptiness through deathʼs emptiness, last attempt of Pride, enjoining the X of Justice, once and for all, in the name of all earthly grief...

"When you receive this letter, my dear friend, I will have succeeded in killing my father. The poor man is agonizing and will die, it is said, before daylight. It is two o’clock in the morning. I am alone, in a neighboring room..." Thus begins _The Desperate Man_ novel from 1887.

@antisthenes.bsky.social Based on your moniker, you might be interested in this book by Charles Chappuis from 1854, recently translated into English (from the French): _Antisthenes: The Founder of Cynicism_. It's a good read.

"Look at that devotee with the muzzle of a crocodile whose gossip-mongering gob has devoured twenty reputations; see that penitent with the face of a famished hyena, clinging to every confessional, laborer of terror and provocatrice of misfortune...

On this day in 1901, Léon Bloy, ever faithful, ever suffering, wrote in his diary: "Lamentable trip to the Mont-de-Piété for a derisible result. The Republic spends tens of millions [of francs] to welcome the Russian Tsar and his wife and to expulse the religious. Usquequo?"

On this day in 1945, Yu Dafu (郁達夫: AD 1896-1945) found an early death. He is one of the few Chinese authors we know to have written in a decadent style. Of his works, we present “A Silver Grey Death” (short story) and "Drowning" (novella) (aka "Sinking") @yudafu @decandentism

Now available: _Filippo Corridoni_ by Alceste de Ambris. AFAWK, it is the only book currently available in English on the charismatic revolutionary syndicalist. In the photograph on the back cover one can see Benito Mussolini standing sheepishly behind the gesticulating speaker

"The State is nothing if not the unity & therefore the personality of human society: a unity that is more alive & impulsive where and when society is unified by the bond & concept of national culture, & presents itself as a “national society” or as a “Nation.” -- Sergio Panunzio, 1937

Coming soon: _Filippo Corridoni_ by Alceste de Ambris is a biography of Filippo Corridoni (AD 1887-1915), the charismatic, indefatigable Italian revolutionary syndicalist, and head of the Syndicalist Union of Milan.

The next book we publish will be a very short biography on the even shorter life of a charismatic, indefatigable Italian revolutionary & national syndicalist, about whom little is known, and even less published, who met his death on the Italian front in the Great War.

[Italian] Fascism, "its essentially historical nature...", "is the product of two crises: 1. The general crisis of Socialism throughout Europe, made more acute in Italy by the economic and social conditions particular to our country... 2. The crisis of war and post-war Italy"

Not nearly so salacious as we used to be (maybe), said not so much in apologia, but as assertion (syllogistic proofs of the Trinity seem more stimulating to us nowadays than tribadism), nathless, in the spirit of fairness to all authors thus far published by us in translation...

Léon Bloy was born 179 years ago today. In honor of his birthday, we would like to showcase a work of his that was perhaps dearest to his heart: _She Who Weeps_: The story of Our Lady of La Salette, originally published in 1908, but begun many years earlier.

"The nation is by far the best thing humanity has created, having found itself stuck btwn the two instincts: association & conflict. [It] is the imperfect realization of the law that nature puts forward: an internal peace for an external war. When an internal war is wanted, people become pacifists."

Summer was not adorable After that infernal winter And what an unfavorable spring! And autumn begins badly. Bah! we warmed ourselves By blending our souls together. Poverty, our companion, – We really could do without it, – Vainly leads the campaign...

100 years ago to the day, French author, explorer, & visionary Jean Raspail was born. Many of his works concern nations of people who became, or were or are about to become, extinct; ways of life and peoples that, once lost, could never be brought back again. #dystopian #jeanraspail

July 4 and July 14 are upon us. Many are reflecting on the years 1776, 1789, and all that followed. Others, like ourselves, are thinking on simpler, more beautiful things from a bygone age — like _Fanchette’s Pretty Little Foot_ & her adventures in Paris in 1768.

The morning sun gently warms and gilds The still humid ears of rye and wheat, And the air has kept its coolness overnight. One exits with no purpose but to exit; one passes Along the river w/ its waves of golden grasses, Down a stretch of lawn that borders ancient alders. The atmosphere is brisk...

On this day in 1914, less than one month before the outbreak of WWI, Léon Bloy wrote the following entry in his diary: “ʻNo more cretins!ʼ said the Doctor Serge Voronoff. It suffices to graft the thyroid gland of an ape onto a backward child... #leonbloy #WWI

Italy, in 1918, was a constitutional monarchy w/ a liberal parliamentary (bicameral) system. It had a monarch (w/ important constitutional powers) but operated under liberal-democratic norms. The legislature comprised a lower house (of deputies) & an upper house (of senators).

In these days of turmoil in the Middle East, the question of the Jews is on many peopleʼs minds. And in the West, less tumultuous perhaps, but no less troublesome, the question of Christians, Catholic or Protestant, is also on peopleʼs minds, in one mode or another.

"The sonorous ocean Throbs under the eye Of the mournful moon And throbs still, While a sinister And brutal lightning bolt Tears the bister sky With a long bright zigzag, And each blade In convulsive bounds Along the reefs Goes, comes, gleams and clamors...

On this day, in 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte and his Grande Armée began their invasion of Russia. A sobering example of how much, & how little, has changed in the world, since then. But this book is more than a history, it is an eschatology, a soteriology, & a prime example of...

On this day in 1902, Léon Bloy wrote this: "I have an inconceivable, extraordinary friend [in Moravia], a very poor Czech who sends me a pint of his blood every time he supposes that I am about to die – a wire of money, o my admirers of France! It will be brought up at the Last Judgment." #leonbloy

Our latest book is William of Ockham's _Fallacies_, which is Book 4 of Part 3 of _Summa Logicae_ (Summary of Logic). William of Ockham was an English medieval, Franciscan monk, philosopher, logician and nominalist. _Summa Logicae_ was his main tract or treatise on nominalistic logic.

On the eve of war or peace (hard to tell), itʼs often helpful to look back in history to make sense of the present or inform the future. Giovanni Gentile, in September 1918, reviewing _La Volontà_, said this: “And let us hope that these pious words resound throughout the country:...