___]]> Pamphlets]]> départements and then further to communes, which in 2013, numbered 36,681 (Paris, the country’s capital city, is a commune as well as a département). In 2017, the population of France and its overseas regions was almost 67 million. This map details the 86 départements that made up France in 1816, the year after Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at Waterloo. Each département was usually named after a physical feature such as a river or mountain. P.A.F. Tardieu, a member of a family of famous French engravers, produced the map.]]> ___]]> Maps]]> Le Temps on 14 February 1887 on what is perhaps today the cultural icon of Paris – and France: the Eiffel Tower. Conceived by engineers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, and finally patented by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923), this 324-metre structure was constructed between 1887–89 as the entrance to the Exposition Universelle, a world’s fair held to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution. The Tower is one of the most visited monuments in the world; 6.91 million ascended it in 2015.]]> ___]]> Pamphlets]]> La Princesse de Clèves (above) is credited as France’s first historical-psychological novel, marking a significant departure from the flimsy romances of old. Although first published anonymously in 1678, the work was later attributed to Madame de La Fayette (1634-1693), a prolific French novelist. While her years in the Austrian royal court formed her literary education, it was La Fayette’s time at the French court, and her fascination with the past king, Henry II, that became the basis for La Princesse de Clèves. The novel, a tale of adultery, was noted for its historical accuracy and scandalous intrigue.]]> ___]]> Books]]> Gentleman’s Magazine describes the final and decisive pincer move executed by the English to capture Montreal in September 1760. The French surrendered to England; and as the Magazine article states the English were now in ‘quiet possession of all North America’.]]> ___]]> Books]]> ___]]> Photographs]]> Les Belles Heures du Duc de Berry, perhaps one of the most famous Book of Hours in the world. Dutch painters Herman, John and Paul Limbourg were commissioned by John of Berry (1340-1416), a superb patron of the arts, to create this beautiful work. It was completed by another artist and Jean Colombe in 1485. The manuscript is now in The Cloisters library in New York. Just two of the 94 full-page illuminations are on display: the ‘Adoration of the Magi’ and ‘Flight into Egypt’.]]> [Jean Colombe]]]> Books]]> [Jean-Baptiste Dubos]]]> Books]]> des villes, des bourgs, des villages, et généralement de tous les lieux remarquables de la France’ – ‘cities, market towns, villages, and generally all of the remarkable places in France’. This engraving shows the spring in Fontaine de Vaucluse, a small town 25 kilometres from Avignon in the southeast of France. Vaucluse literally means ‘closed valley’, and it is at the end of the valley that the famous spring – ‘fontaine’ – is located, the biggest in France. Every year 630 million cubic metres of water flows from the spring, the bottom of which has never been ascertained. The little town is still a popular tourist destination today.]]> [Pierre Girault]]]> Books]]> [Richard Twiss]]]> Books]]> langue d’oc (in the south), langue d’oïl (north), and Gallo (the Celtic Breton area). In his dedication to this eight edition of The Complete French Master, Abel Boyer (c.1667-1729), an Anglo-French lexicographer, writes that French was ‘reckoned part of a genteel education’. Many of the 80-90 million native speakers of French today would heartily agree.]]> Abel Boyer]]> Books]]> L’Étranger carries one of the best opening lines in the literary world: ‘Mother died today’ (‘Aujourd’hui, maman est morte’ in the original). It was first published in a run of 4,400 copies in 1942. Translator Stuart Gilbert called the book The Outsider, rather than the more common The Stranger. The French Algerian-born Camus (1913–1960) paints a sunny pessimism of man and his lot: ‘In our society any man who does not weep at his mother’s funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death… I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.’ The year 2017 marks the 75th anniversary of the first printing of Camus’ work.]]> Albert Camus]]> Books]]> Caligula, his verse play about the tyrannical Emperor (reigned 37-41 AD), was written in 1837. In a somewhat ‘modern’ move, he had a trained horse on stage playing the role of Incitatus, the Emperor’s favourite. The 20 performances in 1837-38 did not save the drama. The play failed; the horse was hissed at. In this 1838 printing ‘Stella’ is played by the actress ‘Mlle Ida’, who was Ida Ferrer, later Dumas’ wife. Dumas went on to pen classics such as Les Trois Mousquetaires (1844) and Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1844). In 2002, Dumas was finally re-interred in the Panthéon, alongside his literary fellows Victor Hugo and Émile Zola.]]> Alexandre Dumas]]> Books]]> Modern Housewife, takes the form of an epistolary recipe exchange between two fictitious housewives, Eloise and Hortense.]]> Alexis Soyer]]> Books]]> Alexis Soyer]]> Books]]> Madame Déficit because of her infamous spending habits, she was one of the catalysts of the French Revolution, which ultimately led to the bloody downfall of the French dynastic line.]]> Antonia Fraser]]> Books]]> Auguste Logerot]]> Books]]> Costume History contains examples of the ‘over-the-top’ styles popularised by Marie Antoinette – impractical wigs and headwear (les poufs) worn with elaborate dresses. Today, Paris is still at the very centre of all things fashionable.]]> Auguste Racinet]]> With kind permission © 2015 TASCHEN GmbH, Hohenzollernring 53, D-50672 Köln, www.taschen.com]]> Books]]> Paris Impérial wrote: ‘Now that gas has reached the little streets of the big city, night truly is no more, because darkness has been banished.’ One who haunted the nocturnal delights of Paris was photographer Brassaï, real name Gyula Halász (1899–1984), who produced his Paris de Nuit (Paris by Night) in 1933. This work featured sixty images that depicted the darkest corners of Paris. As he stated: ‘My constant aim was to make people see an aspect of daily life as if they had discovered it for the first time.’ Here is his Notre-Dame from the windows on the Île Saint Louis, and a glimpse of the Boulevards at the Palace de l’Opéra.]]> Brassaï]]> Books]]> Le Spleen de Paris (or Petits Poèmes en prose) were written as a ‘pendant’, a completion of his more famous Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), published in 1857. Published posthumously in 1869, they intended to capture ‘the beauty of life in the modern city’ with subjects urban: an old woman; a dog; windows, mistresses; poor people hanging around eateries. In his preface to this limited edition, Aleister Crowley, the translator, calls Baudelaire (1821–1867) ‘the most divine, the most spiritually minded, of all French thinkers.’ Baudelaire’s ‘modernity’ influenced a whole generation of writers: Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé; he remains an important French poet.]]> Charles Baudelaire]]> Books]]> Donna Dickenson]]> Books]]> Edme Arcambeau]]> Books]]> pouf that depicted the bizarre, contemporary scene of Louis XVI’s inoculation against smallpox. In Langlade’s biography of the celebrated Bertin, he describes Marie Antoinette’s reign as ‘one of futility and chiffon’. Unfortunately, the Queen’s love of extravagance fanned the flames of the Revolution that would be her downfall.]]> Émile Langlade]]> Books]]> François de Mézeray]]> Books]]> Cravate frisée, the ‘Curly Cravat’.]]> François Levaillant]]> Engraving]]>