“MEN AND WOMEN who did almost nothing for a large part of the year tend not to figure prominently in history books. Studies and museums naturally highlight enterprise and undervalue the art of remaining idle for months on end.” — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
“If the mystery can be reduced to one solution, it lies in a simple coincidence: Rimbaud's interest in his own work had survived the… — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
“MEN AND WOMEN who did almost nothing for a large part of the year tend not to figure prominently in history books. Studies and… — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
“above all, simplify the French language and abolish irregular verbs – a measure that would have rescued countless schoolchildren from the despotism of pernickety pedagogues.” — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
Les Misérables etches Hugo's view of the world so deeply in the mind that it is impossible to be the same person after reading… — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
“Invalids were habitually hated by their carers. It took a special government grant, instituted in 1850 in the Seine and Loiret départements, to persuade… — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
“The paysans had no flags or written histories, but they expressed their local patriotism in much the same way as nations: by denigrating their… — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
“As the shabby section of the audience rose to its feet, waving its hats and food-wrappers, a rich, stale smell wafted through the auditorium.… — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
“For the rest of her life, she lives in a low, dark house of white stone. It has a wide tiled roof and a… — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
“In those days, long before, a view over the rooftops of Paris was an unaffordable luxury. The apartment he had shared with a mousy… — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
“effects of her husband’s lovemaking, but only one reliable method exists, and anyone who has come home after dark on the back road by… — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
“highly codified and formal foreign language known as French – a language which, according to many French-speakers, almost no one speaks correctly. In the… — Graham Robb Copy Share Image
