Books · Monarchies · Mores · Paris · People

How Napoleon handled papers and dictated to his secretaries, according to Andrew Roberts

Napoleon knew perfectly well how to set his priorities. Urgent tasks he took up at once; papers that were important but not pressing he laid in a pile to be dealt with later; and documents he did not consider important he threw on the floor. Whereas Louis XVIII had a

Art · Museums · Paris · Rome

Paris, Rue Saint-Merri

Judith and Holofernes, Michelangelo da Caravaggio, collection of the Palazzo Barberini

Bird and Tier e-scooters parked by the wall of the Archaeological Crypt in Paris, with Notre-Dame cathedral on the right.

Observations · Society · Paris

Paris to become the first European capital without e-scooters after a referendum

Paris Bans Electric Scooters for Good! Following the April referendum, in which 90% of participants voted against this appalling form of transport, Paris will become the first European capital entirely free of electric scooters. Good Lord, when will it come to pass in Moscow too?

NB! · Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

Drifting into the weekend with Gustave Caillebotte, acquired not long ago by the Musée d'Orsay for 3 million euros with the help of Bernard Arnault, who added a further 40 million from his company's coffers

Architecture · Observations · Paris

Of course, the ugly 210-metre Montparnasse skyscraper is not in fact all that close to the 330-metre Eiffel Tower, and one has to work rather hard to get the two buildings into the same frame, but all the same, looking at these photographs, it is easy to

Antique leather armchair on a metal frame with wheels and two side cranks with wooden knobs.

Museums · Paris

Wheeled armchair driven by hand cranks at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris

Wheelchair, 1720s, France. Propelled by turning the handles. Museum of Decorative Arts, Paris

A wooden roof truss hangs from a crane cable above the scaffolding of Notre-Dame de Paris, with the two towers behind it under a blue sky.

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Paris

Installation of oak roof beams at Notre-Dame de Paris, delivered from Brittany along the Seine

The long-awaited assembly of the timber roof structure of Notre-Dame de Paris. Beams from 200-year-old Breton oaks were delivered along the Seine, by the same route as during the original construction

Cinema · Paris · Pop Culture

Robert Altman's “Prêt-à-Porter” of 1994, the seventeenth film of Loren and Mastroianni

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in Robert Altman's 1994 film Prêt-à-Porter, or Ready to Wear, about the backstage world of fashion shows, featuring the leading celebrities of the day and a great many witty cameos. This is the 17th joint film for the legendary duo of

NB! · Art · Paris

Negress

Negress. Ilya Repin. Painted in Paris in 1875-1876.

NB! · Architecture · Maps · Monarchies · Paris

On the wall of Napoleon III's study hangs the new plan of Paris, enlarged to 20 arrondissements and rebuilt at the emperor's behest by Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann (the surname derives from the German Hausmann) in 1860

On the wall of Napoleon III's study hangs the new plan of Paris, enlarged to 20 arrondissements and rebuilt at the emperor's behest by Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann (the surname derives from the German Hausmann) in 1860. The Paris we see today came into being thanks

Faith · Art · Museums · Paris

Cain and Abel, Leonello Spada, 1614

The exhibition of Italian masterpieces "Naples in Paris" at the Louvre

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