Marie de Rabutin-Chantal Sévigné]]> Books]]> ___]]> Photographs]]> [Richard Twiss]]]> Books]]> Astérix. Written by René Goscinny (1926-77) and illustrated by Albert Uderzo (b. 1927), Astérix was first published in the new comic, Pilote, in October 1959. It was so popular that the first of many stand-alone albums, Astérix Le Gaulois, was published in 1961; by 1977, 55 million albums had been sold. Somewhat bereft after Goscinny’s death in 1977, Uderzo was unsure whether to continue with the little Gaul and his fellow villagers, but he did and only retired from drawing and writing Astérix in 2011. To date, 36 Astérix books have been published and translated into more than 100 languages.]]> R. Goscinny]]> Comic books]]> 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]]> Hardouyn]]> Manuscripts]]> 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]]> École des Beaux Arts on account of her gender, Claudel attended the Académie Colarossi in Paris, in the 1880s. She then set up her own atelier, with fellow female artists to share costs. Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), came into her life as a teacher in 1882, and after he recognised her abilities, Claudel became one of his assistants. She also became Rodin’s muse and eventually his lover, but their relationship was troubled; Rodin refused to leave his de facto partner, Rose Beuret. In 1913, after showing signs of paranoia and delusional behaviour for several years, Claudel’s family committed her to an asylum. She was still incarcerated when she died 30 years later.]]> Odile Ayral-Clause]]> Books]]> Candide. Published almost simultaneously in five countries in early 1759, the satire was promptly banned. The book is famous for its ultimate theme: ‘we must cultivate our garden’; in contrast to the Leibnizian optimism, taught to the protagonist, Candide as a young man, that ‘all is for the best’. Voltaire died on the 30th May 1778. In 1791, he was enshrined in the Panthéon in Paris that is now a resting place for the remains of many distinguished French citizens.]]> Voltaire]]> Books]]> École des Beaux Arts in Paris, he worked as an architectural ornament sculptor but continued to produce his own artworks. Rodin’s style eschewed the more idealised, neo-classical portrayal of the human form for a more naturalistic approach, something that did not initially endear him or his artwork to the ‘establishment’. Despite this, and accusations of surmoulage – a form of plagiarism – Rodin cemented his reputation as an artist of renown by 1900. He worked in plaster, bronze, clay, marble, and on paper; his most famous works are ‘The Kiss – Le Baiser’ (marble; 1889) and ‘The Thinker – Le Penseur’ (bronze; 1904) both housed in the Musée Rodin which is still open in Paris today.]]> Georges Grappe]]> Catalogues]]> Marcel Haedrich]]> Books]]> Robertus Stephanus) took up printing. In 1539, he became ‘typographer Royal’, having produced many fine works, especially those by the Church Fathers and classical writers. In fact, the reign of François I (1515-1547) is called the ‘Golden Age of French typography’. In 1550, Estienne fled to Geneva, and was the first to divide the chapters of the Bible into numbered verses. This less than elegant Cicero is one of his small format Parisian productions.]]> Marcus Tullius Cicero]]> Books]]> Germain Brice]]> Books]]> New Description of Paris, first published in French in 1684 and then translated into English in 1687, offered to lead its readers ‘directly to such Sights as they most Fancie’. This engraving depicts a section of the city from the Île de la Cité, one of two remaining natural islands in the Seine.]]> Germain Brice]]> Books]]> Essais (Essays), digressive self-reflective musings covering everything from ‘Smels and odours’, ‘Friendship’, and ‘Of Exercise or Practise’, to (as here) ‘Of Idleness’ and ‘Of Lyars’, were first published in French between 1580 and 1588. In 1603, John Florio (1553-1625), language tutor at the Court of James I, translated them into English. This is the second English edition of 1613. In the past, those influenced by Montaigne’s Essays have included fellow Frenchmen Descartes, Pascal, and Rousseau.]]> Michel de Montaigne]]> Books]]> 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]]> Fables are like a basket of strawberries. You begin by selecting the largest and best, but, little by little, you eat first one, then another, till at last the basket is empty’. So wrote the famed memorialist Madame de Sévigné (1626–1696) on Jean de La Fontaine’s Fables, produced in several volumes from 1668 to 1694. The 239 stories – many of them morality tales that highlight the foibles of human nature – derive from classical fabulists such as Aesop and Phaedrus, earlier French writers like Rabelais and Clément Marot, and from the East, like this one: ‘The Bear and the Gardener’ (L’ours et l’amateur des jardins), a tale warning against making foolish friendships. La Fontaine’s work is a classic and requires little enhancement. However, in 1868, Gustave Doré (1832-1883), the French artist, produced his timeless illustrations for the text. This is a late 19th century English language reprint.]]> Jean de La Fontaine]]> Books]]> La culture maraîchère (market gardening), in and around the city of Paris in the 19th century, carried on the intensive and innovative gardening techniques of La Quintinie from the 17th century. French market gardens were typically only two acres of land at most, but they could produce up to ten crops per year with the use of walled gardens, cloches, growing frames, and large quantities of manure. The author of this book, former Manchester printer Thomas Smith, was involved in an early 20th century gardening scheme in England. A French maraîcher was brought to a farm in Essex to teach the inventive French techniques used to produce as much as possible from a small piece of land. Here is Smith’s plan for his ‘French Garden’, consisting of 20 beds in total.]]> Thomas Smith]]> Books]]> Donna Dickenson]]> 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]]> Picasso]]> Sketches]]> [Jean-Baptiste Dubos]]]> Books]]> François de Mézeray]]> Books]]> Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière was a 36-volume treatise on the intricacies of countless branches of scientific endeavour. The work presented ground-breaking ideas on evolution and climate change, and frequently placed Buffon at odds with theological societies. In this particular volume, Buffon outlines his theory on the origin of the Earth, concluding it to be 70,000 years older than the date officially sanctioned by the Church.]]> Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon]]> Books]]> Jodocus Sincerus [Justus Zinzerling]]]> Books]]>