Art · Monarchies · Mores · Paris
People had danced in masks as early as the Renaissance, but the first masked ball as we know it appeared only at the court of the young Louis XIV, and it was held in the Louvre. The people in the centre of the hall hold hands and perform the old
The East · Geography · Monarchies · Society
The Roman Empire and the Mongol Empire at their height. The maximum population of the Roman Empire was around 75 million, or 20 people per square kilometre. The Mongol Empire at its peak reached 100 million, or around 3 people per square kilometre. Today the population density of Europe is
NB! · Archive · London · Monarchies
Aristocracy · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · People
The mystery of the death of Mary Vetsera, the Austrian noblewoman and beloved of Crown Prince Rudolf, the only son of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, remains unsolved to this day. The young baroness was found dead together with Crown Prince Rudolf on 30 January 1889. There are many
NB! · Art · Monarchies · People
Catherine the Great at sixty-two. Portrait by Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder
NB! · Monarchies · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour
If anyone has forgotten what Camilla, England's Queen Consort, looks like. Incidentally, she is almost a contemporary of Alla Pugacheva: there are just 2 years between them.
Aristocracy · Monarchies · People
Elena Kirby, Countess of Dvina, holding her great-nephew Prince Alexander Romanov, with Georgy Mikhailovich Romanov beside her. The Countess of Dvina is the elder half-sister of Maria Vladimirovna Romanova. Elena Kirby was born in 1935, of the first marriage of Leonida Georgievna Bagration-Mukhransky to the American millionaire
NB! · Art · Monarchies · People
Faith · Monarchies · Mores · Society · People
In 1955, when Queen Elizabeth's younger sister Margaret turned 25, she was due to marry her beloved, Colonel Peter Townsend. But the marriage did not take place, by the decision of the Queen: as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, she could not countenance the marriage of
Archive · Art · Monarchies · Mores · Humour
To waste your time before a Glass Exposes oft a monstrous Ass! An English satire on the Prince Regent, surrounded by foreign tailors recommended by Prince Esterházy. The pointedly boundless lower deck of the future King George IV, at that time Regent of Great Britain in place of his incapacitated
Monarchies · Mores · People · Pop Culture
The Poltimore Tiara was bought by Queen Elizabeth II's younger sister Princess Margaret in 1959 for £5,500, which in today's money is almost 130,000. Margaret wore this tiara at her wedding to Antony Armstrong-Jones, incidentally the author of her legendary photo session. After
Books · Monarchies · Mores · Saint Petersburg
The wedding was preceded by agonising negotiations between Queen Victoria and the Romanovs. It is this wedding that is mentioned in Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina. "...Vronsky ...had been attached to a foreign prince who had come to Petersburg, and it was his duty to show him