History

“If he had lived instead of dying prematurely, he would have enjoyed the same upturn in fortunes as we did, for he was full of talent. He was as gifted as he was conscientious and when we lost...

It's the mellowest moment of a day in France, a delightful interlude between the day's activity and a pleasurable meal: l'heure de l'apéro. When a waiter says those magic words—Désirez-vous un apéritif?—think of it as...

One way of saying "I'm in trouble," in French is to declare "Je suis dans le pastis."

Learn about one of the greatest scams in history.

The tiny town of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon draws visitors from around the world who come to learn about "the king of cheeses".

Cleopatra bathed in it. It’s said that Nero’s second wife Poppea indulged in it too, and so did France’s king François I and Napoleon’s Josephine. The beatific benefits of asses’ milk are legendary. But...

Gardening is an ephemeral art form. Few gardens withstand the vagaries of time, and even fewer master gardeners, if remembered at all, are afforded the status of their counterparts in architecture and the other...

A Paris City Council vote by secret ballot in November 2014 effectively closed the book on the ‘Tour Triangle’, the most significant skyscraper project in the capital since the Tour Montparnasse opened more than...

By 1763, the French had lost the Seven Years’ War, and it was time for the British to make their territorial claims in the New World. They had two real options: they could claim Canada, where France still ruled vast...

We may think that the Google Campus is a novel social experiment, but already between 1859 and 1884 Jean-Baptiste Godin, self-made cast-iron magnate, built for his employees a ‘city’ of 2,000 inhabitants near the factory in...