In this portrait of Gaston of Orléans, he is wearing the crown of a prince of the blood an elaborate lace jabot and an ornate doublet.

Sandy invented the mobile. His kinetic sculptures, delicately balanced, suspended shapes move in response to touch or air currents.

Sculpted by world famous Surrealist, Max Ernst, The Baby turtle Hatchlings. were born almost sixty years ago to adorn the basin of his wonderful Fountain in Amboise.

I find the bronze sculpture, ‘Danseuse’ on display in Tours Musée des Beaux Arts mysterious.

One of the reasons, apart from the usual displacement activities, it takes so long to write a book is because of the rabbit holes the writer tumbles down along the way, often because of accidentally stumbling over just one sentence read somewhere or other a long time ago.

It’s often hard to unscramble fact from fiction regarding the history of the French royal family. Not so in the case of the assassination of Henry III, the last Valois king.

Max Ernst, the French Surrealist, died on his birthday, 1 April 1976. He loved the irony. It was, you might say, surreal.

Anne of Beaujeu, Regent of France, invited a young man with the extraordinary name of Perkin Warbeck to the French Court at Château Amboise.