This plaque in Geneva’s Old Town reads: “Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in this house on June 28, 1712.” And then at the bottom in smaller print: “Refurbished façade.” I remember as a student sometimes feeling intimidated by Rousseau, because his influence seemed to be everywhere. No matter what other authors Read More …
L’homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers. “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” This quotation from the beginning of The Social Contract, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), is one of those that used to be on display in the town of Montmorency, a Read More …
If you owned a newly-renovated 48-room hotel in the Latin Quarter of Paris and wanted to give it a catchy name that would ensure a full house all year round, would you call it “French Theory”? Really? I wouldn’t, but perhaps that just shows my lack of marketing savvy. Of Read More …
The Lorraine Museum (Musée Lorrain) is a regional museum located in two buildings just a short walk north of Place Stanislas in Nancy. The first of these buildings is the former palace of the Dukes of Lorraine, which now houses a large collection of paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, scientific instruments Read More …
In the 1st arrondissement of Paris, equidistant from the Louvre, the Palais Royal and the Bourse de Commerce, there is an elegant nineteenth-century passage called Galerie Véro-Dodat, with wood-panelled shop fronts, black marble columns and paintings on the ceiling. The Galerie was named after its developers, who by coincidence were Read More …
In July 2014 I took a guided walking tour (in French) of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of Paris. We met at the exit of the Métro station Mabillon, because this is a small station with only one exit, so there was no danger of anyone picking the wrong one. Our guide Read More …
Unlike his younger colleague Rousseau (whom he couldn’t stand), the great French writer and philosopher François Marie Arouet (1694-1778), better known by his pen name Voltaire, was not born in Geneva. He was born in Paris but lived much of his life in exile because of various controversial books he Read More …
A little park at the Place du Bourg-de-four in Geneva is the site of a remarkable statue, not of Rousseau or Calvin or the founder of the Red Cross, but of a naked, emaciated, melancholy young woman named Clémentine. The statue was created by the Swiss sculptor Heinz Schwarz (1922-1994), Read More …
The composer André-Modeste Grétry (1741-1813) was born in Liège, and his birth house has been turned into a small museum. Grétry was extremely popular during his lifetime. He composed about fifty operas, mainly comic operas, none of which I have ever seen or heard. I went to the museum on Read More …
After the excellent guided tour of Rousseau’s house we had a ten-minute break before the next tour began. Purely by chance I had come to Montmorency on the one day of the month when there was a guided tour of the temporary exhibition on the composer André-Modeste Grétry (1741-1813). Although I Read More …