Versailles
Few rulers can have rejoiced in a less appropriate sobriquet than Augustus the Strong
The 17th-century Elector of Saxony was notoriously vain and incompetent, and his reckless bid for the Polish crown was disastrous for all concerned
The glory and the misery of Louis XIV’s France
I was flicking through an old copy of The Spectator the other day, one of the issues containing contributors’ ‘Christmas…
BBC1’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems deliberately designed to flush out purists
Spoiler alerts aren’t normally required for reviews of Shakespeare — but perhaps I’d better issue one before saying that in…
Out of time and harsh: the historical treatment of the female composer
Just a few weeks ago, Germany’s VAN magazine published an interview with the composer Olga Neuwirth. In it she describes…
The strange death of Louis XIV
At the beginning of the summer of 1715 Louis XIV complained of a pain in the leg. In mid-August gangrene…
A Little Chaos review: Kate Winslet emotes her little socks off
A Little Chaos is a period drama directed by Alan Rickman and starring Kate Winslet as a woman charged to…
How the smile came to Paris (briefly)
In 1787 critics of the Paris Salon were scandalised by a painting exhibited by Mme Vigée Le Brun. The subject…
The queen, the cardinal and the greatest con France ever saw
You usually know where you are with a book that promises the story ‘would violate the laws of plausibility’ if…
Thanks to Audio Description, the blind have the best seat in the house
I did not mean to snort so loudly. There I was watching the amazing Simon Russell Beale in King Lear…
