Word: rochefoucauld
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When the news of the storming of the Bastille reached Versailles, the hapless Louis XVI expressed the hope that this was a mere revolt. "No, sir," replied the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, "it's a great revolution." For the sake of the House of Windsor, we must trust that those advising the royal family at this unhappy time will also be blunt. The national outpouring of affection and grief for the "people's princess" could be dismissed as a form of collective hysteria that will die away as surely as the echo of muffled funeral bells. No tumbrels loom...
...things that would never be considered politically correct and are sometimes difficult to swallow, but he is fiercely unapologetic. He speaks with a forthrightness and integrity that not even flourishes of rhetoric can disguise. He is also marvelously entertaining and has a way with maxims that would put La Rochefoucauld to shame. One priceless example: "Love sits on a dungheap, and woe to him that slips...