Architecture · Observations · Paris · Pop Culture
Louis Vuitton, as ever, on an unattainable height. I do not know how I contrived to miss this news in January, when Virgil Abloh presented at the Louis Vuitton show during Paris Fashion Week two three-dimensional capes bearing architectural monuments, as part of the autumn-winter menswear collection. One
Books · Observations · Mores · Paris
The French writer Gandon recounts the German occupation of France. Among the hardships and horrors of those years he lists, on a par with the executions, grey bread, moonshine in place of wine, roasted barley in place of coffee, and cakes of buckwheat flour as hard as stone. It reads,
NB! · Architecture · Art · Observations · Paris
NB! · Archive · Society · Paris
Observations · Society · Paris
In places, Paris really does look like a field of ruins. The paving on the Place de la Concorde, for instance, now looks just so. Public works are perhaps the most frequent complaint my Parisian acquaintances make against the administration of Anne Hidalgo, who has run the city since 2014
Monarchies · Mores · Paris · People
Monarchist sentiment in France remains strong to this day, and the view of Louis XVII as an innocent victim has taken hold of many minds. Thus there is well-founded talk that a monument ought to be raised to Louis-Charles, Louis XVII, dedicated also to all infant and child
Monarchies · Paris · People
Louis-Charles of France, second son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, was confined in a dungeon and for several years subjected to torture. After the execution of his parents he was regarded as King of France, Louis XVII. A remarkable child, filled with courage, dignity and intelligence, he lived
Architecture · The East · Monarchies · Heritage · Paris
Diagram of the erection of the Luxor Obelisk in Paris, presented by Muhammad Ali, ruler of Egypt, to France and to Charles X, the last of the Bourbons to reign in fact, in the 1830s. The engraving on the other side of the pedestal shows the dismantling of the obelisk
Art · Books · Paris · People
The French surgeon Samuel-Jean de Pozzi (1846-1918) is sometimes called one of the handsomest men of his day. In his university years he even earned the nickname Siren. Pozzi's life was a most entertaining one, and it is no accident that Julian Barnes devoted his latest
Architecture · Heritage · Society · Paris · Nature
The original roof of Notre-Dame, a masterpiece of engineering, was built in the twelfth century from 13,000 oaks, which is why it was called la forêt (the forest), while the spire was rebuilt in the nineteenth century. After Macron announced that traditional techniques and materials had been chosen
Architecture · Heritage · Paris · Nature
In France, 200-year-old oaks that are to be felled for the reconstruction of the spire of Notre-Dame de Paris have been blessed. For the restoration of the 96-metre spire, enormous oaks have been chosen, fifty metres tall, with trunks more than a metre in diameter, from
Art · Monarchies · Paris · People
Napoleon during the sacking of the Tuileries on 10 August 1792. Painting by Maurice Réalier-Dumas. In time Napoleon would come to be ashamed of the horrors he witnessed and took part in. From the wall, Louis XVI gazes down at the then lieutenant Buonaparte, in a recent portrait of