Category Archives: History

Madame Jeanne Guyon: The Accused Witch Who Defied King Louis XIV

By Culture& Stuff | Published: April 11, 2012

Culture&Stuff’s very first guest post, by Nancy Carol James, PhD French culture in the 17th century demonstrated an amazing energy for spiritual and religious questions. One great genius from this time, the mathematician Blaise Pascal, pondered the question, what is a human being in the infinite? In other words, what is a human being who [...]

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Théroigne de Méricourt: ‘The fatal beauty of the revolution’. Part Two.

By Culture& Stuff | Published: March 4, 2012

When we left Théroigne de Méricourt at the end of part one, she was beginning to sense a new energy in the streets of Paris in the spring of 1789. Like so much of social and political life at the time, this energy seemed to coalesce and find its fullest expression at the heady Palais Royal, where Théroigne [...]

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Also posted in 18th Century, Biography, French History, Paris | Tagged Biography, french revolution, history of paris, women | Leave a comment

Théroigne de Méricourt: ‘The fatal beauty of the revolution’. Part One.

By Culture& Stuff | Published: February 8, 2012

If the Austrian Emperor’s interrogator, François de Blanc, hadn’t already heard so much about the revolutionary prisoner, Théroigne de Méricourt, it’s unlikely a man like him would have believed much of the story she spun him. Stripped of the myth and legend that already surrounded the key events of her life, even the version of [...]

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Also posted in 18th Century, Biography, French History, Paris | Tagged Biography, french revolution, Paris | Leave a comment

Dolly Wilde, a Ghost in Paris

By Culture& Stuff | Published: November 13, 2011

In 1920s Paris, pained, fuzzy-headed morning afters must have been as defining a feature of life as the sparkling night befores that brought them on. On some of these grey mornings there were some unfortunates, still hours away from achieving verticality and spooling the evening’s events through their minds trying to fill in the blanks, [...]

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Also posted in 20th Century, Biography, French History, Paris | 2 Comments

Marie Antoinette on Trial: Your Cut-Out-and-Keep Guide to Reading the Trial, Part 4

By Culture& Stuff | Published: October 9, 2011

In the last part of the guide to Marie Antoinette’s trial, I looked at the way she dealt with the completely unexpected and totally secret interrogation which was sprung upon her two nights before the trial proper was to begin. The challenge that faced her on the morning of 14th October was very different. This [...]