Books · Paris

Victor Hugo on his birth in Besançon in Valery Bryusov's Russian translation

Victor Hugo's poem “Ce siècle avait deux ans! Rome remplaçait Sparte” is best known in Russian in the translation by Valery Bryusov, which begins with this stanza: Our century was two years old; Rome was replacing Sparta: Napoleon was already showing through Bonaparte, And the narrow mask that

Architecture · Heritage · Paris · Nature

Parc de Sceaux in a Paris suburb, laid out by André Le Nôtre in the late 17th century

Winter in the Parc de Sceaux on the outskirts of Paris. The park was laid out in the late 17th century by André Le Nôtre, one of the most celebrated landscape architects in the world and the creator of the parks and gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte, Versailles, the Tuileries,

NB! · Aristocracy · Interviews · Monarchies · Paris · Society Pages

Paris Match managed to prepare, in time for the betrothal, a lengthy interview with the "tsarevich", Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, and Rebecca, christened in July 2020 as Victoria Romanovna, Bettarini

Paris Match managed to prepare, in time for the betrothal, a lengthy interview with the "tsarevich", Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, and Rebecca, christened in July 2020 as Victoria Romanovna, Bettarini. We await the print version

Gilded relief in an oval frame of reeds showing two nude men swimming and a child running along the shore.

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Observations · Paris · Humour

Swimming lesson scene on a relief panel from Louis XV's bathroom

A most inspiring relief on a panel from the bathroom of Louis XV. The mood is Versailles. What these nude athletes are up to, I think you have guessed for yourselves: they are staging a highly original scene of a swimming lesson. The child, as is only proper, strives to

Aristocracy · Mores · Paris · Humour

When the Duke of Vendôme accused Marshal de Bassompierre of plotting against Richelieu, hinting at the marshal's secret marriage to the sister of the Duke of Guise with the words "You will doubtless take the side of Monsieur de Guise, because you kiss his

When the Duke of Vendôme accused Marshal de Bassompierre of plotting against Richelieu, hinting at the marshal's secret marriage to the sister of the Duke of Guise with the words "You will doubtless take the side of Monsieur de Guise, because you kiss his sister, Madame de

Pixel-art image of a man in a bowler hat on the corner of a pink building wall beside a wrought-iron street lamp.

NB! · Art · Cinema · Paris

Pixel portrait of Charlot as played by Charlie Chaplin on rue Charlot in Paris

Street art on Rue Charlot in the Jewish quarter of Paris. A greeting from the tramp Charlot, as played by Charlie Chaplin

Architecture · Cinema · Paris · People

France5tv recently screened the cult documentary "1974, une partie de campagne" (a nod to the story by Guy de Maupassant) by Raymond Depardon, about the presidential campaign of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who died on 2 December at the age of 94

France5tv recently screened the cult documentary "1974, une partie de campagne" (a nod to the story by Guy de Maupassant) by Raymond Depardon, about the presidential campaign of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who died on 2 December at the age of 94. The film is of interest

Art · Paris · Pop Culture · Humour

On 24 November Christie's will offer the baton of Marshal Alphonse Juin, made in 1952 by the house of Arthus-Bertrand, and with it a wildly charming trifle: a lipstick case belonging to the marshal's wife, Marie Gabrielle Cécile Bonnefoy, made in the form

On 24 November Christie's will offer the baton of Marshal Alphonse Juin, made in 1952 by the house of Arthus-Bertrand, and with it a wildly charming trifle: a lipstick case belonging to the marshal's wife, Marie Gabrielle Cécile Bonnefoy, made in the form of a

Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

The banker's wife Sophie Couteux du Molay with her children, a miniature of 1787 by Jacques-Antoine Lemoine called The Balcony

The banker's wife Sophie Couteux du Molay with her children, a miniature of 1787 by Jacques-Antoine Lemoine called The Balcony. It is in the collection of the Louvre. I am very fond of the slanting, carelessly fixed blinds, and of the boy holding the cord in his

NB! · Art · Museums · Paris · Nature

If loyalty, then canine

If loyalty, then canine. So vivid a characterisation that the subject of a dog lying at its master's grave needs no explanation. A little-known painting by the animalier Alfred de Dreux, 1850, acquired by the Louvre in 2001.

Science · Mores · Paris · People

The French Pantheon once saw a joint burial, connected with the first woman admitted to that mausoleum, Sophie Berthelot, who in the scale of French history was remarkable only for being the faithful wife of the outstanding French physicist and chemist…

The French Pantheon once saw a joint burial, connected with the first woman admitted to that mausoleum, Sophie Berthelot, who in the scale of French history was remarkable only for being the faithful wife of the outstanding French physicist and chemist Pierre Marcellin Berthelot, familiar to us at least from

Books · Observations · Heritage · Society · Paris

While in Russia they timidly wind down discussion of moving the long-suffering body of Lenin from Red Square, and all but ignore the dismantling of the necropolis at Novodevichy Convent, in France the subject of famous graves is at the centre of attention

A petition is being put to the President for re-interment in the national Pantheon; it has already been signed by 10 former ministers of culture and various eminent figures of the intelligentsia. The subject is two notable nineteenth-century poets, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. The romance of Rimbaud