Jesus
Jesus referred to as Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Christ, was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity, is described as the most influential person in history. Most Christians believe he is the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. All modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed although the quest for the historical Jesus has produced little agreement on the historical reliability of the Gospels and on how the Jesus portrayed in the Bible reflects the historical Jesus. Jesus was a Galilean Jew, baptized by John the Baptist and began his own ministry, he preached orally and was referred to as "rabbi". Jesus debated with fellow Jews on how to best follow God, engaged in healings, taught in parables and gathered followers, he was arrested and tried by the Jewish authorities, turned over to the Roman government, crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect. After his death, his followers believed he rose from the dead, the community they formed became the early Church.
The birth of Jesus is celebrated annually on December 25th as Christmas. His crucifixion is honored on his resurrection on Easter; the used calendar era "AD", from the Latin anno Domini, the equivalent alternative "CE", are based on the approximate birthdate of Jesus. Christian doctrines include the beliefs that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of a virgin named Mary, performed miracles, founded the Christian Church, died by crucifixion as a sacrifice to achieve atonement for sin, rose from the dead, ascended into Heaven, from where he will return. Most Christians believe; the Nicene Creed asserts that Jesus will judge the living and the dead either before or after their bodily resurrection, an event tied to the Second Coming of Jesus in Christian eschatology. The great majority of Christians worship Jesus as the incarnation of God the Son, the second of three persons of the Trinity. A minority of Christian denominations reject Trinitarianism, wholly or as non-scriptural. Jesus figures in non-Christian religions and new religious movements.
In Islam, Jesus is considered one of the Messiah. Muslims believe Jesus was a bringer of scripture and was born of a virgin, but was not the son of God; the Quran states. Most Muslims do not believe that he was crucified, but that he was physically raised into Heaven by God. In contrast, Judaism rejects the belief that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, arguing that he did not fulfill Messianic prophecies, was neither divine nor resurrected. A typical Jew in Jesus' time had only one name, sometimes followed by the phrase "son of <father's name>", or the individual's hometown. Thus, in the New Testament, Jesus is referred to as "Jesus of Nazareth". Jesus' neighbors in Nazareth refer to him as "the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon", "the carpenter's son", or "Joseph's son". In John, the disciple Philip refers to him as "Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth"; the name Jesus is derived from the Latin Iesus, a transliteration of the Greek Ἰησοῦς. The Greek form is a rendering of the Hebrew ישוע, a variant of the earlier name יהושע, or in English, "Joshua", meaning "Yah saves".
This was the name of Moses' successor and of a Jewish high priest. The name Yeshua appears to have been in use in Judea at the time of the birth of Jesus; the 1st-century works of historian Flavius Josephus, who wrote in Koine Greek, the same language as that of the New Testament, refer to at least twenty different people with the name Jesus. The etymology of Jesus' name in the context of the New Testament is given as "Yahweh is salvation". Since early Christianity, Christians have referred to Jesus as "Jesus Christ"; the word Christ was a office, not a given name. It derives from the Greek Χριστός, a translation of the Hebrew mashiakh meaning "anointed", is transliterated into English as "Messiah". In biblical Judaism, sacred oil was used to anoint certain exceptionally holy people and objects as part of their religious investiture. Christians of the time designated Jesus as "the Christ" because they believed him to be the Messiah, whose arrival is prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament.
In postbiblical usage, Christ became viewed as a name—one part of "Jesus Christ". The term "Christian" has been in use since the 1st century; the four canonical gospels are the foremost sources for the message of Jesus. However, other parts of the New Testament include references to key episodes in his life, such as the Last Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23. Acts of the Apostles refers to the early ministry of its anticipation by John the Baptist. Acts 1:1 -- 11 says more about the Ascension of Jesus. In the undisputed Pauline letters, which were written earlier than the gospels, the words or instructions of Jesus are cited several times; some early Christian groups had separate descriptions of the life and teachings of Jesus that are not included in the New Testament. These include the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel
Zadig
Zadig ou la Destinée is a novella and work of philosophical fiction by the Enlightenment writer Voltaire. It tells the story of a philosopher in ancient Babylonia; the author does not attempt any historical accuracy, some of the problems Zadig faces are thinly disguised references to social and political problems of Voltaire's own day. It was published as Memnon in Amsterdam and first issued under its more familiar title in 1748; the book makes use of the Persian tale The Three Princes of Serendip. It is philosophical in nature, presents human life as in the hands of a destiny beyond human control. Voltaire challenges religious and metaphysical orthodoxy with his presentation of the moral revolution taking place in Zadig himself. Zadig is one of Voltaire's most celebrated works after Candide. Many literary critics have praised Voltaire's use of juxtaposition. Zadig – The protagonist, a Babylonian philosopher. Sémire – Zadig's original love interest. Orcan – Zadig's rival for Sémire and nephew of a certain Minister of State.
Azora – Zadig's second love interest. Cador – Zadig's confident and faithful friend. Moabdar – The King of Babylon. Astarté – Queen of Babylon, Zadig's final love interest. Sétoc – An Egyptian merchant and Zadig's master while he is enslaved. Almona – A widow. Arbogad – A brigand. Jesrad – An angel who disguises himself as a retired philosopher and hermit Zadig, a good-hearted, handsome young man from Babylonia, is in love with Sémire and they are to marry. Sémire, has another suitor: Orcan, who wants her for himself. Zadig tries to defend his love from Orcan's threat. Sémire abhors this injury. Shortly after, Zadig makes a full recovery and falls into the arms of another woman, with whom he is married, but who promptly betrays him. Disillusioned with women, Zadig turns to science but his knowledge lands him in prison, the first of several injustices to befall him. Indeed, the conte derives its pace and rhythm from the protagonist's ever-changing fortunes which see him rise to great heights and fall to great lows.
Upon his release from prison, Zadig rises in favour with the king and queen of Babylonia and is appointed prime minister. He is forced to flee the kingdom, when his relationship with king Moabdar is compromised: Zadig's reciprocated love for queen Astarté is discovered and he worries that the king's desire for revenge might drive him to kill the queen. Having reached Egypt, Zadig kills an Egyptian man while valiantly saving a woman from his attack on her. Under the law of the land, this crime means, his new master, Sétoc, is soon impressed by Zadig's wisdom and they become friends. In one incident, Zadig manages to reverse an ancient custom of certain tribes in which women felt obliged to burn themselves alive with their husbands on the death of the latter. After attempting to resolve other religious disputes, Zadig enrages local clerics who attempt to have him killed. For him, though, a woman that he saved from being burned intervenes so that he avoids death. Almona marries Sétoc, who in turn gives Zadig his freedom and he begins his journey back to Babylonia in order to discover what has become of Astarté.
En route, he is taken captive by a group of Arabs, from whom he learns that king Moabdar has been killed, but he does not learn anything of what has become of Astarté. Arbogad, the leader of the group of Arabs, sets him free and he heads for Babylonia once more, equipped with the knowledge that a rebellion has taken place to oust the king. On this journey he meets an unhappy fisherman, about to commit suicide as he has no money, but Zadig gives him some money to ease his woes, telling us that source of his own unhappiness is in his heart, whereas the fisherman's are only financial concerns. Zadig prevents him from committing suicide and he continues on his way. Zadig stumbles upon a meadow in which women are searching for a basilisk for their lord, ill, ordered by his doctor to find one of these rare animals to cure his sickness; the lord has promised to marry the woman. While there, Zadig sees a woman writing "ZADIG" in the ground, he identifies her as Astarté, his former lover recounts what happened to her since Zadig fled Babylonia: she lived inside a statue when he left, but one day, she spoke while her husband was praying before the statue.
The king's country was invaded and both Astarté and his new wife, were taken prisoners by the same group. The king's wife agrees to formulate a plan along with Astarté to help her escape so that she would not have a rival for the king. Astarté ends up with Arbogad, the same robber that Zadig encountered, who sold her to Lord Ogul, her current master. In order to secure Astarté's release from Ogul, Zadig pretends to be a physician, he offers Lord Ogul to bring him a basilisk. Astarté returns to Babylonia where she is pronounced queen before a competition begins to find her a new king. Zadig is secretly given white armor and a fine horse to compete with by Astarté. Zadig in his white armor triumphs in the contest which takes place between four anonymous knight
Saint-Genis-Pouilly
Saint-Genis-Pouilly is a commune in the Ain department within the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of eastern France. It is located at the foot of the Jura Mountains. Bordering the Swiss frontier, it is part of the cross-border area of Geneva. With a population of over 9,000 inhabitants, it is one of the ten most populous towns in the department of Ain. A large portion of CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics, is located within the territory of Saint-Genis-Pouilly. CERN is the world's largest fundamental physics research laboratory and its presence has been responsible for the development of the community of Saint Genis since the middle of the 1960s. Saint-Genis-Pouilly is composed of two hamlets; the two market towns have both continued to expand and now merge into one, however the two hamlets still remain separate from each other and from the two towns. The elevation of the commune varies from 419 m to 502 m; the commune is situated at the limit between the plains surrounding Geneva and the first foothills of the Jura.
As indicated on the map opposite, the communes surrounding Saint-Genis-Pouilly are: Thoiry, Crozet, Chevry, Prévessin-Moëns and Satigny. Many water courses traverse or border Saint-Genis-Pouilly: Lion, Nant de l'Ecra, Bief de la Janvoin, Grand Journans and Petit Journans. In 2005 and 2006, these water courses were subject to a ban on water extraction as a result of the drought. In 2004, only the Allondon and the Lion would have been restricted; the depth of the Allondon is measured at Saint-Genis-Pouilly by a network HYDRO station which transmits these readings by telephone. The meteorological station situated at Geneva International Airport, furnishes measurements of the weather relevant to Saint-Genis-Pouilly; this station is situated only 6.5 km at a similar altitude. Data from this station is available in real time from MétéoSuisse. Saint-Genis-Pouilly, like the whole of the Pays de Gex and the Canton of Geneva, knows the touch of the Joran, the cold wind which descends towards Lac Léman from the high Jura, where it sometimes provokes a storm.
According to a study made in 2002, commissioned by the Department of Agriculture and the Forests of Ain, Saint-Genis-Pouilly is classed in a zone at risk from flooding. According to another official publication, the commune is classed in a zone at risk from torrential downpours and rapid flooding. However, according to the list of major risks to Saint-Genis-Pouilly published on the portal of the website of the Ministry of Ecology, "Prevention of major risks", the commune is classed in a zone at risk from overcrowding from man's activities; these three different qualifications of risk cannot be explained. Along with the other communes in the canton of Gex, Saint-Genis-Pouilly is classed in seismic zone Ib, to say that the seismic risk is low. A new classification is being prepared by the Ministry of Ecology, but it does not seem that this will change the classification of the communes in the Pays de Gex; that part of the Allondon valley, found within the territory of the commune constitutes a natural zone with interesting ecology and flora.
The commune is wooded. It was in 1887 that the current name, Saint-Genis-Pouilly, first appeared on the State civil registers. Saint-Genis-Pouilly was called Pouilly-Saint-Genis. Before that, the two towns were separately identified; the spelling Saint-Genix had been used. In his historical Atlas, G. Debombourg placed Pulliacum in the epoque of the second reign of the Bourgogne and he placed the church of Pouilly-St-Genis on the religious maps. In these "Preuves" he cites a text of 993. A diary of 1698 mentions a certain Balthazard as a noble of Prengin, in the Pays de Gex. Between 1601 and 1789 mention is made of the Baronnie of Saint-Genist. Names of the area with a Gallo-Romanic origin, Pulliacum, with the suffix -acum from the root name Paulius or Pollius. Towards the end of this time, Saint Genis took on a greater importance, its takeover of the Postes Royales kickstarted the growth of the town and Pouilly-Saint-Genix soon became Saint-Genis-Pouilly. Pregnin figures in the Procès-verbaux du Directoire.
The name of Saint-Genis, as in the case of Saint-Genis-Laval comes from Saint Genest, a Roman comedian from the second half of the 3rd century, martryed under Diocletian. The Roman colony Colonia Iulia Equestris founded by Julius Caesar between 50 and 45 BC extended as far as Thoiry and included the territory, to become Saint-Genis-Pouilly; the villa of Pouilly had been occupied by a rich family. The place called les châtelets, situated to the north of Pregnin took its name, without doubt, from the presence in the 2nd century of a small fort situated on the Roman road running along the Jura. A priory was established at Pouilly at the end of the 10th century. In 1301, the Seigneur of Saint-Genis renewed his allegiance to the Dauphin. Cassini's map of 18th century Geneva, based on measurements taken by Calon de Felcourt between 1759 and 1761, shows the town of Poui
Playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; the word "wright" is an archaic English term for a builder. The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words and other elements into a dramatic form—a play; the first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in a pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, thought to refer to John Marston: Epigram LXVIII — On Playwright PLAYWRIGHT me reads, still my verses damns, He says I want the tongue of epigrams. Playwright, I loath to have thy manners known In my chaste book. Jonson described himself as a poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and so were regarded as the province of poets; this view was held as late as the early 19th century.
The term "playwright" again lost this negative connotation. The earliest playwright in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks; these early plays were for annual Athenian competitions among play writers held around the 5th century BC. Such notables as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Aristophanes established forms still relied on by their modern counterparts. For the ancient Greeks, playwriting involved poïesis, "the act of making"; this is the source of the English word poet. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Poetics, in which he analyzed the principle of action or praxis as the basis for tragedy, he considered elements of drama: plot, thought, diction and spectacle. Since the myths, on which Greek tragedy were based, were known, plot had to do with the arrangement and selection of existing material. Character was determined by action. Tragedy is mimesis—"the imitation of an action, serious", he developed his notion of hamartia, or tragic flaw, an error in judgment by the main character or protagonist, which provides the basis for the "conflict-driven" play.
The Italian Renaissance brought about a stricter interpretation of Aristotle, as this long-lost work came to light in the late 15th century. The neoclassical ideal, to reach its apogee in France during the 17th century, dwelled upon the unities, of action and time; this meant that the playwright had to construct the play so that its "virtual" time would not exceed 24 hours, that it would be restricted to a single setting, that there would be no subplots. Other terms, such as verisimilitude and decorum, circumscribed the subject matter significantly. For example, verisimilitude limits of the unities. Decorum fitted proper protocols for language on stage. In France, contained too many events and actions, violating the 24-hour restriction of the unity of time. Neoclassicism never had as much traction in England, Shakespeare's plays are directly opposed to these models, while in Italy and bawdy commedia dell'arte and opera were more popular forms. In England, after the Interregnum, restoration of the monarchy in 1660, there was a move toward neoclassical dramaturgy.
One structural unit, still useful to playwrights today, is the "French scene", a scene in a play where the beginning and end are marked by a change in the makeup of the group of characters onstage, rather than by the lights going up or down or the set being changed. Popularized in the nineteenth century by the French playwrights Eugène Scribe and Victorien Sardou, the most schematic of all formats, the "well-made play" relies on a series of coincidences that determined the action; this plot driven format is reliant on a prop device, such as a glass of water, or letter that reveals some secret information. In most cases, the character receiving the secret information misinterprets its contents, thus setting off a chain of events. Well-made plays are thus motivated by various plot devices which lead to "discoveries" and "reversals of action," rather than being character motivated. Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House is an example of a well-made structure that began to integrate a more realistic approach to character.
The character Nora's leaving is as much motivated by "the letter" and disclosure of a "past secret" as it is by her own determination to strike out on her own. The well-made play infiltrated other forms of writing and is still seen in popular formats such as the mystery, or "whodunit." Full-length play: Generally, two or three acts with an act break that marks some kind of scene change or time shift. These acts are divided into scenes, which are defined by shifts in time and place; this type of structure is called episodic. Episodic plays contain scene changes and require careful attention to transitions, so as to maintain entails a more causal relationship between units and is defined by the unity of time, and/or action. Short play: A more popular format the short play does not have an intermission and runs over an hour, but less than an hour-and-a-half. One-act play: A useful form for experimental work with less reliance on character development and arc; these remain under an hour in length.
In the US the 10-minute play
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role in the self-definition of Western civilisation; that tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form. From its origins in the theatre of ancient Greece 2500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction of the work of Aeschylus and Euripides, as well as a large number of fragments from other poets. A long line of philosophers—which includes Plato, Saint Augustine, Hume, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Freud, Camus and Deleuze—have analysed, speculated upon, criticised the genre. In the wake of Aristotle's Poetics, tragedy has been used to make genre distinctions, whether at the scale of poetry in general or at the scale of the drama.
In the modern era, tragedy has been defined against drama, the tragicomic, epic theatre. Drama, in the narrow sense, cuts across the traditional division between comedy and tragedy in an anti- or a-generic deterritorialisation from the mid-19th century onwards. Both Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal define their epic theatre projects against models of tragedy. Taxidou, reads epic theatre as an incorporation of tragic functions and its treatments of mourning and speculation; the word "tragedy" appears to have been used to describe different phenomena at different times. It derives from Classical Greek τραγῳδία, contracted from trag-aoidiā = "goat song", which comes from tragos = "he-goat" and aeidein = "to sing". Scholars suspect this may be traced to a time when a goat was either the prize in a competition of choral dancing or was that around which a chorus danced prior to the animal's ritual sacrifice. In another view on the etymology, Athenaeus of Naucratis says that the original form of the word was trygodia from trygos and ode, because those events were first introduced during grape harvest.
Writing in 335 BCE, Aristotle provides the earliest-surviving explanation for the origin of the dramatic art form in his Poetics, in which he argues that tragedy developed from the improvisations of the leader of choral dithyrambs: Anyway, arising from an improvisatory beginning, grew little by little, as developed whatever of it had appeared. In the same work, Aristotle attempts to provide a scholastic definition of what tragedy is: Tragedy is an enactment of a deed, important and complete, of magnitude, by means of language enriched, each used separately in the different parts: it is enacted, not recited, through pity and fear it effects relief to such emotions. There is some dissent to the dithyrambic origins of tragedy based on the differences between the shapes of their choruses and styles of dancing. A common descent from pre-Hellenic fertility and burial rites has been suggested. Friedrich Nietzsche discussed the origins of Greek tragedy in his early book The Birth of Tragedy. Here, he suggests the name originates in the use of a chorus of goat-like satyrs in the original dithyrambs from which the tragic genre developed.
Scott Scullion writes: There is abundant evidence for tragoidia understood as "song for the prize goat". The best-known evidence is Horace, Ars poetica 220-24. Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the theatrical culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE, continued to be popular until the beginning of the Hellenistic period. No tragedies from the 6th century and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in the 5th century have survived. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus and Euripides. Athenian tragedies
Jacques Clément
Jacques Clément was a French conspirator and the killer of king Henry III. He was born at Serbonnes, in today's Yonne département, in Burgundy, became a Dominican lay brother. During the French Wars of Religion, Clément became fanatically religious and an ardent partisan of the Catholic League. Viewing Protestantism as heresy, he talked of exterminating the Huguenots and formed a plan to assassinate Henry III, his project was encouraged by some of the heads of the League, in particular Catherine de Guise, the Duchess Montpensier. He was assured of worldly rewards. Having obtained letters for the king, he left Paris on 31 July 1589 and reached Saint-Cloud, the headquarters of Henry, besieging Paris, on 1 August 1589. Clément was admitted to the king's presence, while he was presenting his letters he told the king he had an important and confidential message to deliver; the attendants withdrew and, as Clément leaned in to whisper in Henry's ear, he mortally wounded him with a dagger concealed beneath his cloak.
The assassin was killed by the returning attendants, but Henry died early in the morning of the following day. Clément’s body was quartered and burned. Although seen by supporters of Henry III as a fanatical, brutal act, the assassination was viewed with different feelings in Paris and by the partisans of the League. Clément was seen as a martyr and was praised by Pope Sixtus V, his praise was such that canonization was discussed, although Clément has not, at least as yet, achieved sainthood. See E Lavisse, Histoire de France, tome vi.. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Clément, Jacques". Encyclopædia Britannica. 6. Cambridge University Press. P. 490
Henry III of France
Henry III was King of France from 1574 until his death and King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1573 to 1575. Henry was the thirteenth king from the House of Valois, the sixth from the Valois-Orléans branch, the fifth from the Valois-Orléans-Angoulême branch, the last male of his dynasty; as the fourth son of King Henry II of France, he was not expected to inherit the French throne and thus was a good candidate for the vacant throne of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, where he was elected King/Grand Duke in 1573. During his brief rule, he signed the Henrician Articles into law, recognizing the Polish nobility's right to elect their monarch. Aged 22, Henry abandoned Poland-Lithuania upon inheriting the French throne when his brother, Charles IX, died without issue. France was at the time plagued by the Wars of Religion, Henry's authority was undermined by violent political parties funded by foreign powers: the Catholic League, the Protestant Huguenots and the Malcontents, led by Henry's own brother, the Duke of Alençon, a party of Catholic and Protestant aristocrats who jointly opposed the absolutist ambitions of the king.
Henry III was himself a politique, arguing that a strong and religiously tolerant monarchy would save France from collapse. After the death of Henry's younger brother Francis, Duke of Anjou, when it became apparent that Henry would not produce an heir, the Wars of Religion developed into a succession crisis, the War of the Three Henrys. Henry III's legitimate heir was King Henry III of Navarre, a Protestant; the Catholic League, led by Henry I, Duke of Guise, sought to exclude Protestants from the succession and championed the Catholic Charles, Cardinal of Bourbon, as Henry III's heir. In 1589, Jacques Clément, a Catholic fanatic, murdered Henry III, he was succeeded by the King of Navarre who, as Henry IV, assumed the throne of France after converting to Catholicism, as the first French king of the House of Bourbon. Henry was born at the royal Château de Fontainebleau, the fourth son of King Henry II and Catherine de' Medici and grandson of Francis I of France and Claude of France, his older brothers were Francis II of France, Charles IX of France, Louis of Valois.
He was made Duke of Angoulême and Duke of Orléans in 1560 Duke of Anjou in 1566. He was his mother's favourite, his elder brother, grew to detest him because he resented his better health. The royal children were raised under the supervision of Diane de Poitiers. In his youth, Henry was considered the best of the sons of Catherine de' Medici and Henry II. Unlike his father and elder brothers, he had little interest in the traditional Valois pastimes of hunting and physical exercise. Although he was both fond of fencing and skilled in it, he preferred to indulge his tastes for the arts and reading; these predilections were attributed to his Italian mother. At one point in his youth he showed a tendency towards Protestantism as a means of rebelling. At the age of nine, calling himself "a little Huguenot", he refused to attend Mass, sang Protestant psalms to his sister Margaret, bit the nose off a statue of Saint Paul, his mother cautioned her children against such behaviour, he would never again show any Protestant tendencies.
Instead, he became nominally Roman Catholic. Reports that Henry engaged in same-sex relations with his court favourites, known as the mignons, date back to his own time, he enjoyed intense relationships with them. The scholar Louis Crompton maintains; some modern historians dispute this. Jean-Francois Solnon, Nicolas Le Roux, Jacqueline Boucher have noted that Henry had many famous mistresses, that he was well known for his taste in beautiful women, that no male sex partners have been identified, they have concluded that the idea he was homosexual was promoted by his political opponents who used his dislike of war and hunting to depict him as effeminate and undermine his reputation with the French people. His religious enemies plumbed the depths of personal abuse in attributing vices to him, topping the mixture with accusations of what they regarded as the ultimate devilish vice, homosexuality, and the portrait of a self-indulgent sodomite, incapable of fathering an heir to the throne, proved useful in efforts by the Catholic League to secure the succession for Cardinal Charles de Bourbon after 1585.
Gary Ferguson found their interpretations unconvincing: "It is difficult to reconcile the king whose use of favourites is so logically strategic with the man who goes to pieces when one of them dies." Katherine Crawford, by contrast, emphasizes the problems Henry's reputation encountered because of his failure to produce an heir and the presence of his powerful mother at court, combined with his enemies' insistence on conflating patronage with favouritism and luxury with decadence. In 1570, discussions commenced arranging for Henry to court Queen Elizabeth I of England. Elizabeth 37, was expected by many parties in her country to marry and produce an heir. However, nothing came of these discussions. In initiating them, Elizabeth is viewed by historians as having intended only to arouse the concern of Spain, rather than contemplate marriage seriously; the chance of marriage was further blighted by differing religious views and his opini
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