Status Updates From The French Mind: 400 Years ...

I never realized Baudelaire was such a romantic…. His banned obscene poems notwithstanding

“It is better to be hated than to be unknown” as a response to criticism for commissioning dozens of portraits of yourself for every social event 🤣

Baudelaire disliked Brussels because there were no shop windows, nothing to see, the streets 'were unusable’.

I was so surprised to read such interesting accounts of the lives of Princess Mathilde & Marie d'Agoult, the latter of whom was an accomplished author, salon owner, and left her husband to be with the musician Liszt. George Sand was also an interesting study, even just appearing in accounts of the rumours she spread to Balzac.

This chapter about “Madame Deficit” and the grain and governance crises leading up to the French Revolution were illuminating…

Reading about the French “libertine” perspective on love and intimacy is depressing. No thanks!

The journey to French women using fashion as a way to assert individualism, though they remained excluded from politics, was fascinating.

Some highlights so far:
1- Venetian and Parisian glass-making war.
2- All of these… “special parties” happening in the open in 17 c. France
3- The rise in popularity of perfume in France & Louis XIV’s influence behind it.