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“... except in the vaguest way what the desirable stuff was. We gather that quite a lot is French – Louis Quinze and Louis Seize are mentioned once each (‘the sweetest Louis Seize’) – but we also hear of Venetian velvet and of ‘a great Italian cabinet’ in the red room, though with ...”

“... In August 1777 a crowd gathered in Port Louis, the capital of the Indian Ocean island of Ile de France (now Mauritius), for the execution of Benoît Giraud, otherwise known as ‘Hector the Mulatto’. Though the term ‘mulatto’ implied some ‘white’ parentage, Giraud was also described as a ‘free-born black’ from Martinique, an island on the other side of the French colonial empire ...”

“... an imposing bronze, earned comparison with the foremost animal sculptor of the period, Antoine-Louis Barye. Bonheur’s competence as a sculptor clearly assisted her modelling of powerful animal bodies in paint. She exhibited six works in the Salon of 1846 and was praised by the socialist critic Théophile Thoré: ‘Mlle Rosa Bonheur’s flock of sheep ...”

“... room. ‘It’s a mess, a train wreck, an incredible junk store.’ The centre of his ire was the Louis XVI salon. Here were masterpieces of art and furniture, acquired for ‘the sovereigns of Israel’ from dealers across Europe. And, ‘in the middle, like a trophy, there is the incomparable harpsichord of Marie Antoinette, which is heartbreaking to find ...”

“... in disarray: Macron had been trying to keep a ‘Jupiterian’ distance, while the prime minister, Edouard Philippe, and various members of his cabinet were shoved forward to condemn the violence and announce that there would be no change of position on fuel tax. But the gilets jaunes now had bigger, more nebulous ambitions than the price of fuel. The time had ...”

“... scathing documentary of French complicity, The Sorrow and the Pity (1969), or, in a different way, Louis Malle in his ambiguous portrait of a collaborator, Lacombe, Lucien (1974). If he was silent about what he had seen, he shared that silence with everyone who had lived through the war, whatever side they had been on. Melville himself made no secret of his ...”

“... Plate Series which has been bumped up to the new Colour Library format – the flap refers to Edouard Degas, which makes you wonder whether there will be a book on Edgar Manet. Meanwhile the remainder shops fill up with stacks of the Phaidon Colour Plate series. These I buy at a cut rate as I would not have bought them at full price, having been spoilt by ...”

“... impossible to settle in law, he was almost certain to be found guilty. ‘It is impossible,’ Louis Begley writes in his recent book about the affair, Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters, ‘to overstate Zola’s courage.’2 Zola’s trial was billed as the social event of the decade. It was the place where anyone who was anyone went to see and be ...”