The horses in the Duch de Coeur had to be retrained recently to learn new routes around Languedoc, which previously carried most of the traffic that moved between regions. This brought backmemories of comments heard over the past 5 years that the carriages have been used. Out of 75,000 carriage trips by thousands of individuals, only 4 people have commented about the carriages driving on the left hand side of the road. Three of these people were French and wanted to clarify that France does NOT drive on the 'wrong' side of the road like the British.

As far back as the ancient Greeks and Romans, traffic in most parts of the world kept to the left. Even in the new colonies in North America, trafficalso stayed tothe left. This went beyond custom insome places. Driving on the left was the law in Rome as of 1300 and in 1756 on theLondon Bridge. Most people are right handedso it makes sense to stay to the left for right-handed greetings and self-defense (e.g. swords)in on-coming traffic.Most people are also more aware of threats coming from their right rather than their left, so dangers from on-coming traffic coming too close can be handled more readily. So it appears that the British (and one third of the current world)have it right and the rest ofthe world has it wrong.

Learn about the "turning point" in traffic direction at the Duch de Coeur site!

Some people have been surprised at the snow and frozen canals in the duchy, especially as far south as Provence and Languedoc. Both southern areas are uncomfortably hot during the summer, and yet during the winter, the canals are frozen! We checked some records and found that this has been going on intermittently for centuries:

1507 - Port of Marseilles (Provence) was entirely frozen - 3 feet of snow fell

1565 - Rhone frozen entirely at Arles

1568 - 11 Dec., loaded carts crossed the Rhone on the ice.

1570, 1571 - End of Nov 1570 to end of Feb 1571, carts could pass across iced rivers in Languedoc/Provence
1594 - Sea frozen at Marseilles and at Venice (at least -20C)
1621-1621 Venetian fleet hemmed in by the ice in the channels of Venice
1638 galleys in the port of Marseilles blocked in by ice
1655, 1656 - Seine frozen from the 8th to 18th December and again on 29th Dec to 28th Jan.
1657, 1658 - Seine entirely frozen
1662, 1663 - Frost lasted at Paris from 5th Dec to 8th Mar
1676-1677 2 Dec - 13 Jan, Seine frozen 35 days

1684 Thames frozen at London to 11 inches thick
1709 Gulf of Venice and Mediterranean frozen at Genoa, Marseilles, Cette (Languedoc)
1716 Thames frozen - Great number of shops and stalls were established on the river
1740 Thames frozen

Since as recently as 1742, the Seine has been frozen at least 7 times:

1742 -10C
1744 -9C
1762 -9C
1766 -9C
1767 -16C
1776 -12C
1788 -12C

1749-1781 - temperature never dropped below -9C at Provence, but dropped to -17C in Marseilles!

Seawater typically freezes at about -2C. Most canals are freshwater, including much of the Canal du Midi which is fed from a mountain lake, so the freezing temperature is 0C.

OOC - from The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c. - 8 January, 1825

Low temperature at Provence for 1749-1781 has been corrected. The original source of this information is from the 27th volume of the "Annales de Chimie et de Physique" which according to William Darby in his book "View of the United States - Historical, Geographical, and Statistical" prints the extract with negative numbers while the Gazette printed some of the numbers (like the Seine temps) without negative signs.

His Excellency, Dr. Franklin,We have heard that you have been once again elected President. Congratulations on your third win and presumably final year in the service to your state. I believe you indicated earlier that the constitution limited terms to 3 years.I write to you as the result of a delay by our esteemed friend, Madame Evie de Mailley Achemi, who was at last accepted to the Academie Royale des Sciences. As you know, her work is important for France to compete with the fine craftsmanship by the English instrument makers, who have far taken the lead in this area. Our poor directory of the Paris Observatory, Jean-Dominique, Comte de Cassini has tried in vain to find someone as capable as Madame de Mailley to produce optiks for his telescope. Alas, it is feared that the back roads in the Languedoc are in poor condition after yet another exceptionally harsh winter.This leads me to my concern that after speaking with Captians of ships that have sailed the world, that the earth continues to cool. It is as if we are experiencing a little Ice Age! Shipmasters have reported that glaciers at the foot of Franz Josef in the New Zealand Alps advanced into the rain forest in the last decade. Here in France, not only have the glaciers destroyed villages seemingly overnight, but we have experienced harsh weather that has destroyed crops, frozen our waterways as far south as the Languedoc and Provence, and consequently left many of our peasants dead.Last year was a good harvest year, but as you know, the government is severely in debt (needless to say that much of that was for your country's benefit). Our short-sited leaders encouraged exports of our grain reserves to other countries to help pay for the debt. Our farmers have yet to fully embrace the potato and enclosures as England has done, leaving us vulnerable should we experience yet another bad harvest year.It seems that our weather is dangerously unstable and could lead to mass food shortages, especially considering that our population has grown to an incredible 27 million! We can only hope that we do not experience another year as we did between 1693 and 1694 and again in 1709.Do you have any theories regarding this weather pattern? Are we to prepare ourselves for living in caves as many in Touraine have done?On a positive note, the day is crisp yet clear. The roads are drying, the fields are becoming green, and all signs of ice are now gone. We have seen many on a quest to find some broken shards of glass. Surely I am missing something, but my wife, the duchesse, has been sending them out and the people seem to be excited to swim underwater through caverns in near frigid temperatures, stand in mucky swamps, then track mud through the ballroom. Very odd behavior that can only be attributed to cabin fever.In any case, we are about to announce that we will resume the hefty RP$ prize for scientific achievements at the academy. Let us hope that Madame de Mailley finally makes it to the academy, since she is likely a leading contender, along with Dr. Adonis Adamski.Sincerely yours,Bedrich PanacekDuc de Coeur

Due to events in RL, both the director of the Academie Royale de Musique and the performer for this week's opening of the Duch de Coeur Opera House will be unavailable. Launcelot Tenebaum will be on hiatus for some time. However, Zachh Cale will return soon as one of the regular duchy performers. The Opera House Grand Opening will be rescheduled.