Ave Maria
Today if the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. I would like to share two musical renditions of the great marial prayer, the Ave Maria
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Malware warnings: false positives. And Happy Pentecost Monday!
I am VERY happy to report that we have identified the source of the virus warnings some readers were getting while visiting this blog. The site itself is clean, as we thought, but a line of code had been embedded into my footer in early May to ward off the effects of the worm that [...]
Malware warnings on the blog
Dear Readers, This past month has not been a happy time for this blog. I was hacked three times in two weeks while being hosted at Godaddy. At first Godaddy blamed its clients for using updated versions of WordPress, for having weak passwords, etc. Neither applied to me, or to most victims of the hacking. [...]
The last days of Anne Boleyn
Just as I was writing my latest post on the 400th anniversary of the assassination of the bon roy Henri IV, I was finishing C.W. Gortner’s beautiful Confessions of Catherine de Medici (more on this one soon…) Also rereading Madame de Lafayette’s Princesse de Clèves, featuring, among other historical characters, the same Catherine and her [...]
Claude and Camille giveaway: and the winner is…
Esme, who is in for a treat, the great love story of Claude and Camille Monet.
Coming tomorrow: a guest post by Stephanie Cowell, author of Claude and Camille
Whenever visiting the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, I was always struck by the deathbed portrait of Madame Monet by her husband Claude. “Pretty” pastel colors, as in many Impressionist paintings, but at the same time a sense of infinite sadness, of utter bereavement. I knew of the passionate love between Claude and Camille, his many [...]
Welcome to the new Versailles and more!
I have been working very hard these past few months to bring you this new blog, and it is heartening to see at long last the result of these efforts. Where should I begin? You may notice we now have 7 articles on the home page. I picked some long time favorites, and a few [...]
Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday and Lent
Yes, Tuesday was Mardi Gras, yesterday was Ash Wednesday and we have now entered the season of Lent. An opportunity to look back at last year’s posts on these topics: – The boisterous celebration of Carnival in Paris, – The hardly more decorous happenings in Versailles, where, under Louis XV, the Ball of the Yew [...]
Winter…
It is snowing on Paris and much of France, and my readers on the East Coast are facing extreme weather. What better way to keep warm (apart from a bowl of hot chocolate) on a day of bitter cold than looking at 18th century art? So I will post this Fragonard, L’hiver (Winter) from the [...]
Merry Christmas!
The past week has left me little time for posting, between extra work to be completed at the office before year end, research on my third novel and, last but not least, the school break. Now I will be heading for Tours and Bordeaux for a family reunion to celebrate the holiday season. So I [...]
