Category: Politics & History

The great event during the Descartes brothers’ years at La Flèche was the interment of Henri IV’s heart in the school chapel in 1610. Henri IV had been assassinated by a Catholic religious fanatic named Ravillac, who was incensed at Henri IV’s plan to invade Germany to help Protestants against the Catholics of the Holy Roman Empire. Ravillac leaped into the king’s carriage and stuck a knife into the very heart that was now being ceremoniously delivered to the college church.

So the Jesuits and the Catholic League (who never forgot that Henri IV was formerly the Protestant king of Navarre) finally got Henri IV, who wanted to go to war with holy Spain. The view that the Jesuits and the Catholic League instigated the assassination, however, is not a very popular way of stating the matter among Catholic historians. What happened is that a student from the Jesuit college at Clermont in Paris had tried to assassinate Henri IV in 1596 and failed. Then Ravillac, another Catholic student, got him.

It is classic. The Jesuits had been teaching the perfidy of Henri IV for years. This or that priest had told his students that France would be better off if Henri IV was dead: Will no one rid us of this man? As has happened more than once in such circumstances, some dedicated young man decided to do the deed in the name of God. He acted alone. The Jesuits were not to blame.

—from Cogito Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes (2002), by Richard Watson

Coda

Despite the Jesuits’ hatred of Henri, his heart was interred, according to his wishes, at the collège he had founded, and was joined later by the heart of his queen, Marie de Medici. In 1793, during the Revolution, when Jesuits, Bourbon monarchs, and foreigner queens were equally despised,  both hearts were burned in the public square.

So it goes.

From the “Plus ça change . . . ” Dept: France experienced an epidemic of political violence in 1937, culminating in September and November.

The most spectacular bombing happened on 11 September, when two devices exploded in the Etoile district of Paris, causing significant material damage and killing two police constables. The culprits were two French men, René Locuty and Lêon Macon. Both men were members of the secret extreme right-wing group, . . . the “Cagoule.” Eugène Deloncle, a veteran of the 1930s extreme right, directed the Cagoule, while wealth French business interests bankrolled the organization. . . . The French police had long kept the Cagoule under surveillance, yet the authorities were motivated to act only when Deloncle launched an abortive coup on 15 November 1937. In January 1938, Minister of the Interior Marx Dormoy exposed to the French public the frightening scale of this terrorist organization’s plot against the Republic. Nonetheless, so thoroughly associated with “unFrenchness” was terrorism at this time that the existence of a French terrorist group was difficult to believe, a fact that Deloncle’s allies in the right-wing press and political establishment played upon.

—Chris Millington, The Invention of Terrorism in France, 1904-1939

Let’s see . . . terrorism associated with foreigners . . . right-wing groups secretly financed by rich right-wing businessmen . . . our own people wouldn’t do such things . . . . Sounds strangely familiar, eh? Same old song, different names.

And then Millington adds this: “If right and left perceived different enemies behind terrorism in France, each side considered the matter with reference to broader long-established anxieties over the “immigrant problem” and the porosity of French borders.”

Tell me about it!

E. F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful (1973) remains a fount of wisdom—wisdom which is in short supply today, and which we need. Desperately.

The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill our minds. If they are mainly small, weak, superficial, and incoherent, life will appear insipid, uninteresting, petty and chaotic. It is difficult to bear the resultant feeling of emptiness, and the vacuum of our minds may only too easily be filled by some big, fantastic notion—political or otherwise—which suddenly seems to illumine everything and to give meaning and purpose to our existence. It needs no emphasis that herein lies one of the great dangers of our time. —E. F. Schumacher

The economy is more important, so we must continue using fossil fuels.

The economy is more important, so we must stop wearing masks and tracking deaths from the pandemic.

The economy is more important, so we must continue degrading the environment.

The economy is more important, so we cannot stop doing business with murderous dictators.

The economy is more important, so we cannot prioritize human rights.

The economy is more important, so we cannot spend more on schools, hospitals, and low-income housing.

And so on.

Why? Because the only options to nuclear are 1) fossil fuels, or 2) no-growth, and neither of those is a viable option.

Nuclear power sucks, but only in the same way that everything else in an industrialized society does: multinational corporations, international banks, big tech. None of this is going away; the only hope is to manage it through sensible and effective regulation.

Wind and solar are great, but limited. Only nuclear power can supply enough energy to replace what we get now from oil, coal, and gas—as well as powering the inevitable growth in developing economies. France has been using nuclear power successfully for decades. It is long past time for the environmental movement to stop the fear-mongering about nuclear power and begin the hard work of expanding its use as quickly and safely as possible.

Not all regions need nuclear power, or are well suited to it. Coastal British Columbia, for example, prone to earthquakes and with plenty of capacity for wind- water-, and even solar-generated electricity, is not ideal for nuclear power. Eastern BC and Alberta, on the other hand, make a lot of sense for nuclear development, particularly in Alberta, where nuclear power could displace the oil and gas industry and re-train and re-employ its workforce.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/1/un-report-lists-companies-complicit-in-israels-genocide-who-are-they

The U.S. response: sanction the author of the report: https://apnews.com/article/francesca-albanese-gaza-genocide-sanctions-un-israel-ff0501f318b7dd0d923c30f10b639724.

Perfectly expresses the moment we are witnessing.

Source: https://www.aidaamer.com/?itemId=c7s6obglfrjh2iruhz1l854iwlixvw

As the French army falls back toward Paris in the face of an overwhelming German advance, the Minister of War, Adolphe Messimy, decides that the ineffective General Victor-Constant Michel must be replaced as Military Governor of Paris. At the same time, a majority of the newly-formed coalition government decide that Messimy must himself be replaced. Barbara Tuchman, in The Guns of August, picks up the story:

Michel stormed when asked by Messimy to resign, protested loudly and angrily and obstinately refused to go. Becoming equally excited, Messimy shouted at Michel that if he persisted in his refusal he would leave the room, not for his own office at the Invalides, but for the military prison of Cherche-Midi under guard. As their cries resounded from the room Viviani fortuitously arrived, calmed the disputants, and eventually persuaded Michel to give way.

Hardly was the official decree appointing Gallieni “Military Governor and Commandant of the Armies of Paris” signed next day when it became Messimy’s turn to storm when asked for his resignation by Poincaré and Viviani. “I refuse to yield my post to Millerand, I refuse to do you the pleasure of resigning, I refuse to become a Minister without Portfolio.” If they wanted to get rid of him after the “crushing labor” he had sustained in the last month, then the whole government would have to resign, and in that case, he said, “I have an officer’s rank in the Army and a Mobilization order in my pocket. I shall go to the front.” No persuasion availed. The government was forced to resign and was reconstituted next day. Millerand, Delcassé, Briand, Alexandre Ribot, and two new socialist ministers replaced five former members, including Messimy. He departed as a major to join Dubail’s army and to serve at the front until 1918, rising to general of division.

In Tuchman’s account, refusal to obey orders was rampant in the French army, from the Minister of War down to the lowliest private, but was frequently found as well  in the British and Russian armies. As in Tolstoy’s version of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia, Tuchman tells of continual miscommunication that, added to chronic failures of military discipline, leaves one persistent impression of the opening weeks of World War I, on all fronts: utter confusion.

Check back in late 2026 to see how this holds up:

• Trump’s fascist ICE raids, his trashing of government agencies, and his Neanderthal bullying foreign-policy initiatives will prove quite popular.
• He will “make deals” on his tariff threats and pass another big tax cut, so the economy will begin to rebound.
• In the mid-term elections Republicans will hold the Senate for sure and possibly keep their majority in the House, too, because the Democrats are hapless.

Here’s more Will Durant, paraphrasing Plato’s Republic in The Story of Philosophy:

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle. Aristocracy ruins itself by limiting too narrowly the circle within which power is confined; oligarchy ruins itself by the incautious scramble for immediate wealth. In either case the end is revolution. When revolution comes it may seem to arise from little causes and petty whims; but though it may spring from slight occasions it is the precipitate result of grave and accumulated wrongs; when a body is weakened by neglected ills, the merest exposure may bring serious disease (556). “Then democracy comes: the poor overcome their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing the rest; and give to the people an equal share of freedom and power” (557).

But even democracy ruins itself by excess—of democracy. Its basic principle is the equal right of all to hold office and determine public policy. This is at first glance a delightful arrangement; it becomes disastrous because the people are not properly equipped by education to select the best rulers and the wisest courses (588). “As to the people they have no understanding, and only repeat what their rulers are pleased to tell them” (Protagoras, 317); to get a doctrine accepted or rejected it is only necessary to have it praised or ridiculed in a popular play (a hit, no doubt, at Aristophanes, whose comedies attacked almost every new idea). Mob-rule is a rough sea for the ship of state to ride; every wind of oratory stirs up the waters and deflects the course. The upshot of such a democracy is tyranny or autocracy; the crowd so loves flattery, it is so “hungry for honey,” that at last the wiliest and most unscrupulous flatterer, calling himself the “protector of the people” rises to supreme power (565). (Consider the history of Rome.)

From the “Plus ça change” Dept—

Will Durant, in The Story of Philosophy, paraphrasing Plato’s Republic:

[After describing a rural paradise of simple, healthy, peaceful life] he passes quietly on to the question, Why is it that such a simple paradise as he has described never comes?—why is it that these Utopias never arrive upon the map?

He answers, because of greed and luxury. Men are not content with a simple life: they are acquisitive, ambitious, competitive, and jealous; they soon tire of what they have, and pine for what they have not; and they seldom desire anything unless it belongs to others. The result is the encroachment of one group upon the territory of another, the rivalry of groups for the resources of the soil, and then war. Trade and finance develop, and bring new class-divisions. “Any ordinary city is in fact two cities, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich, each at war with the other; and in either division there are smaller ones—you would make a great mistake if you treated them as single states” (423). A mercantile bourgeoisie arises, whose members seek social position through wealth and conspicuous consumption: “they will spend large sums of money on their wives” (548). These changes in the distribution of wealth produce political changes: as the wealth of the merchant over-reaches that of the land-owner, aristocracy gives way to a plutocratic oligarchy—wealthy traders and bankers rule the state. Then statesmanship, which is the coordination of social forces and the adjustment of policy to growth, is replaced by politics, which is the strategy of party and the lust for the spoils of office.

Yes, history keeps rhyming, and yes, the more things change the more they stay the same. Here is Will Durant setting the stage for the teachings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle:

[As for the Sophists,] there is hardly a problem or a solution in our current philosophy of mind and conduct which they did not realize and discuss. . . . In politics they divided into two schools. One, like Rousseau, argued that nature is good, and civilization bad; that by nature all men are equal, becoming unequal only by class-made institutions; and that law is an invention of the strong to chain and rule the weak. Another school, like Nietzsche, claimed that nature is beyond good and evil; that by nature all men are unequal; that morality is an invention of the weak to limit and deter the strong; that power is the supreme virtue, and the supreme desire of man; and that of all forms of government the wisest and most natural is aristocracy.

No doubt this attack on democracy reflected the rise of a wealthy minority at Athens which called itself the Oligarchical Party, and denounced democracy as an incompetent sham. . . . The Athenian oligarchic party, led by Critias, advocated the abandonment of democracy on the score of its inefficiency in war, and secretly lauded the aristocratic government of Sparta. Many of the oligarchic leaders were exiled: but when at last Athens [was defeated in the Peloponnesian War], one of the peace conditions imposed by Sparta was the recall of these exiled aristocrats. They had hardly returned when, with Critias at their head, they declared a rich man’s revolution against the “democratic” party that had ruled during the disastrous war.

—From The Story of Philosophy, by Will Durant

1789:

Among all the possible causes for the French Revolution that historians have proposed over the past two centuries, three stand out. First, the financial irresponsibility of Louis XVI severely limited his options when the crisis arrived. Second, the French nobility, blinded by their arrogance, failed utterly to understand that a few short-term accommodations might, in the long-run, preserve their status. Third, a series of droughts and other agricultural disasters pushed the country from a general depression into a disastrous situation in which thousands faced ruin and starvation, while the government failed to take any useful action. Other factors may have played a role, but these three seem sufficient to explain the cataclysmic events of 1789.

2025:

Among all the possible causes for the collapse of the Fifth Republic, three stand out. First, the financial irresponsibility of several successive governments severely limited President Macron’s options when the crisis arrived. Second, the French elite, blinded by their arrogance, failed utterly to understand that substantive change was required. Third, the COVID-19 pandemic combined with the impacts of climate change to prolong a dismal economic situation, while the government failed to take any useful action. Other factors may have played a role, but these three seem sufficient to explain the cataclysmic events of 2025.

The left-of-centre parties in Western democracies are failing because both their economic policies and their social policies have alienated the majority of middle-class voters. 

By embracing globalization and deregulation of financial markets they have spiked the income- and wealth-gaps, leaving the middle class, at best, treading water; more usually, actually losing wealth and income against inflation; and at worst, jobless and unemployable after the export of manufacturing jobs to developing economies overseas. 

At the same time they have adopted increasingly marginal social policy reforms that have alienated many voters, generated backlash, and left the minority groups they aimed to help little better off than before. The two trends go together, of course: economic resentments feed social resentments, and vice versa. 

Meanwhile the upper-class elites of the Left have been padding their stock portfolios, planning their next exotic holiday travel, and hobnobbing with celebrities at gala dinners. The geniuses who championed globalization seemed utterly oblivious to the families thrown into poverty by the closure of factories. All they noticed, apparently, was the cleaner air and water. They have allowed public education to flounder for generations, while sending their own children to private schools. They have failed to lift marginalized communities—indigenous people, immigrants, people of colour—out of endemic poverty, while they and their families live in posh suburban communities equipped with parks, recreation facilities, and state-of-the-art security systems. 

These failures have produced apathy among marginalized minorities, along with a majority population dominated by low-information, low-skilled citizens ready to welcome populist demagogues and vote for them—and decidedly not ready to listen to well-reasoned policy discussions by guys in $500 suits who seem to know nothing at all about the way most people are living. The populist demagogue in the $500 suit who sounds like he is just as pissed off as they are seems a better bet. 

And that’s the way it is, as Walter Cronkite used to say, in December 2024.

As Adam King has explained in his article in The Conversation, here—

https://theconversation.com/canada-post-strike-highlights-labour-struggle-over-gig-economy-and-precarious-work-244469

—the strike by Canada Post workers results largely from the proliferation of “gig economy” businesses that to date have successfully evaded the usual requirements to pay their workers properly, provide benefits, and allow them to unionize.

The government needs to regulate these businesses and force them to treat their employees properly instead of pauperizing them by calling them “independent contractors” and thereby dragging down the entire system of social welfare that generations have fought so hard to establish.

I strongly support the Canada Post strikers, and I urge both federal and provincial governments to take action immediately to end the exploitative practices of “gig economy” businesses.

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. . . .

Whenever I become discouraged (which is on alternate Tuesdays, between three and four) I lift my spirits by remembering: The artists are on our side! I mean those poets and painters, singers and musicians, novelists and playwrights who speak to the world in a way that is impervious to assault because they wage the battle for justice in a sphere which is unreachable by the dullness of ordinary political discourse.

—Howard Zinn,

from A Power Governments Cannot Suppress and “Artists of Resistance”

Hitler’s power and success never ceased to astonish Mussolini. There was something unreal, something that didn’t make sense about the triumph of this Bohemian psychopath. In his heart of hearts, Mussolini saw Hitler’s success as a bizarre freak, an aberration on the part of world history. . . .

Novikov . . . [after seeing a Nazi army officer on the street] said to himself three words he would remember again and again. “Clown!” Then correcting himself: “Madman!” Then correcting himself once more: “Thug!”

—Stalingrad, by Vasily Grossman (1952)

Hitler, Hinkel, Drumpf, Trump: variations on a theme. Why does the fascist clown madman thug appeal to millions of people? All our astonishing science and technology will mean nothing if we cannot answer this question and put fascism finally, permanently in the past.

Even the best army is doomed to fail when it is required to perform impossible tasks, that is, when it is ordered to campaign against the national existence of other peoples.

—General Friedrich Paulus, commander of the German 6th army who surrendered to the Russians in the Battle of Stalingrad.

Perhaps Vlad Putin and Bibi Netanyahu should take note.

Meteorologists are scrambling to make sense of the what experts call the most dangerous instance of bizarre weather events seen so far.

“The climate isn’t changing,” one of them says. “It has changed.”

Hurricane Trump, readers may recall, seemed to have finally disappeared in early 2021. “We thought the worst was over then,” says Dr. Jeremiah Sunshine, head of the National Hurricane Center.

Now, however, to the experts’ amazement, Hurricane Trump has returned and is heading not for a particular city or region, but straight towards the entire United States! Hurricane watchers say that unless Trump changes course at the last minute, it will wipe out much of the US and then head straight for Western Europe. Only Moscow, Pyongyang, and Budapest would appear to be safe. They are calling this incredible phenomenon “Hurricane Trump II.”

Hurricane Trump first appeared in 2015 in New York City. Veering southward, it struck Washington, D.C., inflicting what commentators kept calling “unprecedented” damage. Environmental regulations were blown to pieces, while corporate profits soared out of sight. The federal budget exploded, and the national debt disappeared into the stratosphere along with corporate profits. The Republican Party took a direct hit, and has been out of commission ever since. International allies were battered mercilessly, while adversaries, strangely, seemed to sail serenely through the chaos. In the midst of all this, the COVID-19 pandemic threw everything into a confusion that was made even worse by Hurricane Trump, which spewed denials, bleach, and horse pills in every direction while bodies piled up in temporary storage trucks and hospitals were overwhelmed by the number of patients and the lack of essential supplies. Hurricane Trump continued throughout the 2020 election year and into 2021, when it smacked right into the US Capitol on January 6th. The resulting injuries, deaths, broken windows, pilfering, and filth seemed to mark the climactic end of the storm, and despite all the damage there was a widespread feeling that the ordeal was finally over.

The reappearance of Hurricane Trump three years later cannot be accounted for. Climate scientists are reconfiguring their models and projections, trying to understand a new reality in which hurricanes, long after they appear to be over, return like boomerangs, stronger than ever. “I am sorry to say that we have little understanding of what is happening,” says Dr. Sunshine. “We can only advise people to board up their windows, pile up the sandbags, avoid pregnancy or any other condition requiring gynecological care, try not to be an immigrant or even to look like one, fill up the gas tank, and be ready to flee at a moment’s notice.” Asked if anything else can be done, Dr. Sunshine paused thoughtfully. “Well,” he said, “it couldn’t hurt to vote. Might not help, but it couldn’t hurt. At this point, it’s certainly worth a try.”

It’s not a line, or spectrum, from right to left, but a circle where the extremes meet at the top and the moderates mush together at the bottom. Understood in this way, things begin to make sense: the love affair of the American far-right with Putin of Russia and Kim Jong Un of North Korea, and Mr. Trump’s mish-mash of name-calling against his enemies, and the difficulty distinguishing between “corporate liberals” and “moderate conservatives,” for example.

Despite overwhelming evidence of the wide-ranging risks of COVID-19, a great deal of messaging suggests that it is no longer a threat to the public. Although there is no empirical evidence to back this up, this misinformation has permeated the public narrative.

The data, however, tells a different story.

COVID-19 infections continue to outnumber flu cases and lead to more hospitalization and death than the flu. COVID-19 also leads to more serious long-term health problems. Trivializing COVID-19 as an inconsequential cold or equating it with the flu does not align with reality.

—https://theconversation.com/long-covid-puzzle-pieces-are-falling-into-place-the-picture-is-unsettling-233759

Updated July 21—now that Biden has announced he won’t run for re-election. Buckle up for a sexist / racist hullabaloo! If the Dems unite behind Harris, they have a chance. Otherwise, it’s Project 2025 time. (See bold-faced bullet point, below.)

• Joe Biden has been the most progressive president in history and has pushed back against corporations, the super-rich, and the Israeli government (not nearly enough to satisfy anyone outraged by the genocide of Palestinians, but plenty enough to piss off the pro-Netanyahu folks (see below). He is also elderly, and a terrible public speaker, thus a) turning off a huge proportion of know-nothing voters who like their celebrities young, cool, and glib; and b) providing ample fodder for a media feeding-frenzy. Yesterday we learned that he has COVID again, which will only add to the frenzy.
• The corporate Dem crowd of billionaires who don’t want regulation or taxation of the rich any more than their right-wing MAGA billionaire brethren are trying to get rid of both Biden and Harris.
• The AIPAC pro-Israel nuts who will do anything to put a pro-Bibi president in the White House are for Trump.
• The low-information “moderates” and “independents” who will determine the outcome of the election do not like or trust Kamala Harris because she is a) a woman, and b) non-white.
• The black women voters who were essential to Biden’s razor-thin wins in swing states in 2020 will not turn out for the Democratic candidate if Harris is dumped.
• If Biden and Harris are dumped, the candidate who emerges just weeks before the election will have no campaign organization on the ground and no money. The Democratic billionaires will throw some money, but will not be able to repair the lack of campaign organization that takes at least a year to build. Plus the party will be divided by factions bitterly blaming each other for the debacle.
• If Biden steps down and Harris becomes the presidential nominee, she will have to a) get the corporate Dems and party power brokers on her side, b) somehow retain the support of union members who have been strongly pro-Biden, and c) overcome the anti-woman, anti-Black prejudice among crucial “swing” voters.
• Season all of this with mass-media click-bait sensationalism (Trump is great for business if you are in corporate media) and hysterical social media disinformation. Let simmer for a few weeks, and voila!—we’re all in the soup.

Melvyn Bragg’s “In Our Time” broadcast about the sack of Rome in 1527 inspired me to do a little digging in the History of Atrocities department.

From Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization:

Charles [V, King of Spain and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire], still remaining in Spain, and moving his pawns with magic remote control, commissioned his agents to raise a new army. They approached the Tirolese condottiere, Georg von Frundsberg, already famous for the exploits of the Landsknechte—German mercenaries—who fought under his lead. Charles could offer little money, but his agents promised rich plunder in Italy. Frundsberg was still nominally a Catholic, but he strongly sympathized with Luther, and hated [Pope] Clement as a traitor to the Empire. He pawned his castle, his other possessions, even the adornments of his wife; with the 38,000 gulden so obtained he collected some 10,000 men eager for adventure and pillage and not averse to breaking a lance over a papal head; some of them, it was said, carried a noose to hang the Pope. . . . 

In Milan the imperial commander was now Charles, Duke of Bourbon; created constable of France for bravery at Marignano, he had turned against Francis when the King’s mother, as he felt, had cheated him of his proper lands; he went over to the Emperor, shared in defeating Francis at Pavia, and was made Duke of Milan. Now, to raise and pay another army for Charles, he taxed the Milanese literally to death. He wrote to the Emperor that he had drained the city of its blood. His soldiers, quartered upon the inhabitants, so abused them with theft, brutality, and rape that many Milanese hanged themselves, or threw themselves from high places into the streets. Early in February, 1527, Bourbon led his army out of Milan, and united it with Frundsberg’s near Piacenza. The conglomerate horde, now numbering nearly 22,000 men, moved east along the Via Emilia, avoiding the fortified cities, but pillaging as it went, and leaving the countryside empty behind it. . . .

On May 6 . . . the swarm entered from a confusing variety of directions; some were hidden by the fog; others so mingled with fugitives that the Castle cannon could not strike them without killing the demoralized populace. Soon the invaders had the city at their mercy.

As they rushed on through the streets they killed indiscriminately any man, woman, or child that crossed their path. Their bloodthirst aroused, they entered the hospital and orphanage of Santo Spirito, and slaughtered nearly all the patients. They marched into St. Peter’s and slew the people who had sought sanctuary there. They pillaged every church and monastery they could find, and turned some into stables; hundreds of priests, monks, bishops, and archbishops were killed. . . . Every dwelling in Rome was plundered, and many were burned, with two exceptions: the Cancelleria, occupied by Cardinal Colonna, and the Palazzo Colonna, in which Isabella d’ Este and some rich merchants had sought asylum; these paid 50,000 ducats to leaders of the mob for freedom from attack, and then took two thousand refugees within their walls. Every palace paid ransoms for protection, only to face later attacks from other packs, and pay ransom again. In most houses all the occupants were required to ransom their lives at a stated price; if they did not pay they were tortured; thousands were killed; children were flung from high windows to pry parental savings from secrecy; some streets were littered with dead. The millionaire Domenico Massimi saw his sons slain, his daughter raped, his house burned, and then was himself murdered. “In the whole city,” says one account, “there was not a soul above three years of age who had not to purchase his safety.”

Of the victorious mob half were German [Lutheran]s, of whom most had been convinced that the popes and cardinals were thieves, and that the wealth of the Church in Rome was a theft from the nations, and a scandal to the world. To reduce this scandal they seized all movable ecclesiastical valuables, including sacred vessels and works of art, and carried them off for melting or ransom or sale; relics, however, they left scattered on the floor. One soldier dressed himself as a pope; others put on cardinals’ hats and kissed his feet; a crowd at the Vatican proclaimed Luther pope. The Lutherans among the invaders took especial delight in robbing cardinals, exacting high ransoms from them as the price of their lives, and teaching them new rituals. Some cardinals, says Guicciardini, “were set upon scrubby beasts, riding with their faces backward, in the habits and ensigns of their dignity, and were led about all Rome with the greatest derision and contempt. Some, unable to raise all the ransom demanded, were so tortured that they died there and then, or within a few days.” One cardinal was lowered into a grave and was told that he would be buried alive unless ransom were brought within a stated time; it came at the last moment. Spanish and German cardinals, who thought themselves safe from their own countrymen, were treated like the rest. Nuns and respectable women were violated in situ, or were carried off to promiscuous brutality in the various shelters of the horde. Women were assaulted before the eyes of their husbands or fathers. Many young women, despondent after being raped, drowned themselves in the Tiber.

The number of deaths cannot be calculated. Two thousand corpses were thrown into the Tiber from the Vatican side of Rome; 9800 dead were buried; there were unquestionably many more fatalities. . . .

Plague had visited Rome in 1522, and had reduced its population to 55,000; murder, suicide, and flight must have reduced it below 40,000 in 1527; now, in July of that year, plague came back in the full heat of summer, and joined with famine and the continued presence of the ravaging horde to make Rome a city of horror, terror, and desolation. Churches and streets were littered anew with corpses; many of these were left to rot in the sun; the stench was so strong that the jailers and prisoners fled from the castle parapets to their rooms; even there many died of the infection, among them some servants of the Pope. The impartial plague struck the invaders too; 2500 Germans in Rome died by July 22, 1527; and malaria, syphilis, and malnutrition cut the horde in half. . . .

On December 7, after seven months of confinement, Clement left Sant’ Angelo, and, disguised as a servant, made his way humbly out of Rome to Orvieto, apparently a broken man. . . .

Losing all hope of aid from the League, Clement offered his full surrender to Charles; and on October 6 he was allowed to re-enter Rome. Four fifths of the houses had been abandoned, thousands of buildings were in ruins; men were amazed to see what nine months of invasion had done to the capital of Christendom. . . .

The story of civilization, indeed.