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Mores
NB! · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Paris
I remember how, at the house of Georges Clemenceau, a lady could not make out who it was with the salamanders
I remember how, at the house of Georges Clemenceau, a lady could not make out who it was with the salamanders. Whereupon I, in short trousers, explained that the salamander is the emblem of Francis I, and that it often lurks in his portraits
NB! · Museums · Observations · Mores · Humour
I look at this little commode from the Château de Chambord and cannot see how such exhibits square with the myth that at Versailles, for instance, courtiers relieved themselves behind curtains in the corridors
I look at this little commode from the Château de Chambord and cannot see how such exhibits square with the myth that at Versailles, for instance, courtiers relieved themselves behind curtains in the corridors. The eternal story of the lift versus the lavatory
NB! · Faith · Art · Mores · Humour
A Nun of Diminished Social Responsibility Captured in Two Paintings, "Nun on Her Knees", by the Eighteenth-Century Austrian Court Painter Martin van Meytens
Archive · Monarchies · Mores · Humour
A representative delegation arrived from Russia for the wedding of Princess Victoria and Prince Ernst, headed by the Tsarevich Nicholas, with his uncles Paul, Sergei and Vladimir and their Grand Duchesses, the royal family's confessor Father John and even
A representative delegation arrived from Russia for the wedding of Princess Victoria and Prince Ernst, headed by the Tsarevich Nicholas, with his uncles Paul, Sergei and Vladimir and their Grand Duchesses, the royal family's confessor Father John and even a domestic teacher of Russian. Why all this? Most
NB! · Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies · Mores
Queen Victoria, Edward VII, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsarevich Nicholas with his bride-to-be Alix of Hesse, and others, at Coburg on 21 April 1894, at the wedding of Princess Victoria Melita and Ernest of Hesse
Books · Mores · People · Humour
Balzac's love affairs and his epistolary romance with Evelina Hanska
The notion that Balzac remained a virgin until the age of forty, and that he is forever being dragged into all manner of lists of celibates, deserves to be treated with suspicion. It is especially odd, of course, to imagine that he could have lost his virginity at forty: potbellied,
NB! · Archive · Books · Mores · People
Proofs of “The Lily of the Valley” with Balzac’s Corrections and the Women Behind Its Heroines
"The Lily of the Valley" with Balzac's corrections before printing. In this novel he portrayed the ladies he loved: Laure de Berny as Madame de Mortsauf and Countess Sara Guidoboni-Visconti as Lady Arabella Dudley
Aristocracy · Books · Monarchies · Observations · Mores
Louis XIV's Control over the Court in the Books of Norbert Elias and Nicholas Henshall
Found an interesting take on the role of Versailles and Louis XIV's personal will in the life of the French court. Many authors, with varying degrees of skill, describe how the monarch arranged the daily lives of his courtiers, how he meddled in their private affairs and strove
NB! · Monarchies · Mores · People
The lovely daughter of the King of Poland, Marie Leszczyńska, became Queen of France, but was made wretched by the countless infidelities of Louis XV
The lovely daughter of the King of Poland, Marie Leszczyńska, became Queen of France, but was made wretched by the countless infidelities of Louis XV. One of his mistresses was the far less attractive Madame de Pompadour
Observations · Mores · Humour
A hand slipped into a lady's muff as an erotic gesture of the 19th century
My favourite detail: in the nineteenth century, slipping one's hand into a lady's muff was considered a vividly erotic gesture. I cannot vouch for the nineteenth century, but even today it sounds far too forward
Aristocracy · Monarchies · Mores · People
Anne of Brittany, heiress of the duchy who married two kings of France
The only daughter of Duke Francis II was born in the castle of the Dukes of Brittany at Nantes and in time, the ruler having no sons, became by decision of the nobility the heiress of Brittany. This made her one of the most powerful women of her age and