Cinema · Moscow · Observations · Paris

Chairs like those of the Tuileries Garden in the film “Five Evenings” and in Soviet Moscow

In Nikita Mikhalkov's film "Five Evenings" there is a shot of one of Moscow's public gardens with exactly the same chairs that are the calling card of the Tuileries Garden in Paris; anyone who has been there even once has a photo in such

Observations · Mores · Society · Paris · Humour

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo signs a crab shell, and the origin of the word cutlet

Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris with newly sprouted presidential ambitions, signs a crab's shell. She writes: Vive La France! At least it is not a half-eaten cutlet, that is, a steak haché (if you ask a waiter in France for a cutlet, and the word really was

NB! · Museums · Palaeontology · Paris · Nature

A Mammoth's Leg from the Natural History Museum in Paris

Architecture · Art · Museums · Observations · Heritage · Paris

Online catalogue of sculptures in the gardens of Versailles and Trianon with an interactive map

I have a great many complaints about the municipal improvement of Paris; my heart aches at the antics of the luckless Anne Hidalgo. Versailles, by contrast, as a near and respected province, has been very fortunate, both in the status quo of its historic precincts and in the preservation of

Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Paris

Remember the Man in the Iron Mask?

Remember the Man in the Iron Mask? Today is the anniversary of the death of the mysterious prisoner who for more than thirty years was hidden in French prisons under various names, in almost complete isolation from human company and constantly masked, on pain of instant death should his face

Books · Paris · People

I accept everything I am given, except my age

The French writer Louise de Vilmorin

NB! · Archive · Books · Paris · People · Humour

For lovers of the inapposite but grandiloquent turn of phrase: yes, you can now say you have seen Marcel Proust in his coffin

NB! · Interviews · Art · Paris · People

The new issue of Elle France carries a major interview with Annie Leibovitz

The new issue of Elle France carries a major interview with Annie Leibovitz. Solène Delos spoke to Annie on the occasion of her being awarded the William Klein Prize and the opening of Leibovitz's exhibition at the Académie des Beaux-Arts

NB! · Archive · Art · Paris · Humour

Alphonse Mucha snaps Paul Gauguin playing the harmonium in his studio without trousers

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Art · Paris

Models of Old Paris, including a model of the Île de la Cité as it stood in the sixteenth century, made in the early twentieth century by the topographical artist Gaston Renault

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Paris · People

Arrival of Napoleon's coffin aboard the ship La Belle Poule (The Pretty Hen), 15 December 1840

Arrival of Napoleon's coffin aboard the ship La Belle Poule (The Pretty Hen), 15 December 1840. Eugène Isabey

Society · Paris · People

Marshal Pétain, who was preparing to retire in 1914 and unexpectedly saw his career take off with the outbreak of the First World War, was given power over France at the age of 84

Marshal Pétain, who was preparing to retire in 1914 and unexpectedly saw his career take off with the outbreak of the First World War, was given power over France at the age of 84. Already prime minister at that moment, after the fall of France Pétain became a dictator. A