France Memoir

Par la chroniqueuse judiciaire et la créatrice du podcast "Fenêtre sur cour" d’Arte Radio. "La morale dans les affaires criminelles, ça n’existe pas, pas plus que les saints ou les démons, les héros ou les monstres. Chaque fois, c'est une histoire de gens ordinaires." Tous les chroniqueurs judiciaires se sont déjà vu poser cette question : "Comment fais-tu pour dormir la nuit ?" Ce livre est une réponse. Quand la journaliste Élise Costa décide d’écrire sur le crime, son quotidien en est bouleversé.

The Man in the Iron Mask has all the hallmarks of a thrilling adventure story: a glamorous and all-powerful king, ambitious ministers, a cruel and despotic jailor, dark and sinister dungeons - and a secret prisoner. It is easy for forget that this story, made famous by Alexandre Dumas, is that of a real person, Eustache Danger, who spent more than 30 years in the prison system of Louis XIV’s France - never to be freed. This narrative brings to life the true story of this mysterious man and follows his journey through four prisons and across decades.

In the early years of the 18th century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade-long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. Like Lewis and Clark's exploration of the American West, their incredible mission revealed the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery. Scaling 16,000-foot mountains in the Peruvian Andes, and braving jaguars, pumas, insects, and vampire bats in the jungle, the scientists barely completed their mission.

This is how Emmanuel Carrère, the magnetic journalist, novelist, filmmaker, and chameleon, describes his subject: "Limonov is not a fictional character. There. I know him. He has been a young punk in Ukraine, the idol of the Soviet underground; a bum, then a multimillionaire's butler in Manhattan; a fashionable writer in Paris; a lost soldier in the Balkans; and now, in the fantastic shambles of postcommunism, the elderly but charismatic leader of a party of young desperadoes."

Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne was painted by Édouard Manet and inspired Émile Zola, who immortalized her in his scandalous novel Nana. Her rumored affairs with Napoleon III and the future King Edward VII kept gossip columns full. But her glamorous existence hid a dark secret: She was no comtesse. She was born into abject poverty, raised on a squalid backstreet among the dregs of Parisian society. Yet she transformed herself into an enchantress.

"In December 1776, a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins a dazzling narrative account of Benjamin Franklin's French mission, the most exacting, and momentous, eight years of his life.

Passé au travers des mailles du filet de la formation française, Antoine Griezmann n'a jamais porté le maillot d'un club hexagonal. Jugé trop frêle, il a dû s'exiler en Espagne, à la Real Sociedad, pour accomplir son rêve de gamin et devenir footballeur professionnel. Désormais star incontestée de l'Atlético de Madrid et fer de lance de l'équipe de France, le meilleur joueur de l'Euro 2016 incarne la nouvelle génération bleue.

In the tradition of Agent Zigzag comes this breathtaking biography, as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the very best spy thrillers, which illuminates an unsung hero of the French Resistance during World War II - Robert de La Rochefoucald, an aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteur - and his daring exploits as a résistant trained by Britain's Special Operations Executive.

Aujourd'hui, en France, plus de 60 000 petites filles sont excisées. Chaque année 2 millions de jeunes filles sont excisées. 130 millions de femmes dans le monde ont subi ces mutilations. La tradition voudrait que l'excision augmente la fécondité des femmes, qu'elle garantisse la pureté et la virginité d'une fille ainsi que la fidélité d'une épouse... Dans les faits, cette mutilation barbare met en péril la vie des jeunes filles qui la subissent et les prive à jamais de plaisir, brisant leur vie de femme.

In the summer of 1942, 22-year-old Franci Rabinek - designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws - arrived at Terezin, a concentration camp and ghetto 40 miles north of her home in Prague. It would be the beginning of her three-year journey from Terezin to the Czech family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the slave labor camps in Hamburg, and Bergen Belsen. After liberation by the British in April 1945, she finally returned to Prague. Franci was known in her group as the Prague dress designer who lied to Dr. Mengele at an Auschwitz selection, saying she was an electrician.

In June 2015 Alberto Manguel prepared to leave his centuries-old village home in France's Loire Valley and reestablish himself in a one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Packing up his enormous, 35,000 volume personal library, choosing which books to keep, store, or cast out, Manguel found himself in deep reverie on the nature of relationships between books and readers, books and collectors, order and disorder, memory and reading.

A language barrier is no match for love. Lauren Collins discovered this firsthand when, in her early 30s, she moved to London and fell for a Frenchman named Olivier - a surprising turn of events for someone who didn't have a passport until she was in college. But what does it mean to love someone in a second language? Collins wonders, as her relationship with Olivier continues to grow entirely in English. Are there things she doesn't understand about Olivier, having never spoken to him in his native tongue?

L'opposition entre de Gaulle et Mitterrand met dos à dos un homme qui lutte contre l'effondrement d'une civilisation et un individu qui se moque que celle-ci disparaisse pourvu qu'il puisse vivre dans ses ruines à la façon d'un satrape. Le premier donne sa vie pour sauver la France ; le second donne la France pour sauver sa vie. L'un veut une France forte, grande et puissante, à même d'inspirer une Europe des patries ; l'autre la veut faible, petite et impuissante, digérée par l'Europe du capitalisme. L'un ressuscite Caton ; l'autre réincarne Néron.

In the wake of a bizarre, shocking accident in Paris, Jayne finds herself back in the city in a strange limbo. Ignoring the past, she tries to move forward. There is theatre. Love. New friendships. A new neighborhood. But the accident haunts her, forcing her to confront herself and the experience in ways she could never have predicted. A tale of survival and the untold joys of life's curveballs, My Sweet Guillotine captures love and trauma with profound insight. Confronting, funny, strange and real, this is a book about life, death and reinvention, rendered in exquisite prose.

Joan of Arc: The Story of the Defender and Patron Saint of France is more than just a history book—it's a journey of discovery. It is a bridge that connects us to the past, allowing us to walk through history, understanding the socio-political dynamics of Joan's time, and how they reverberate even today. It's a mirror that reflects our present, making us ponder upon the role of women, faith, and nationalism in society.

Exploring a critical and often neglected period of Napoleonic history between 1812 and 1814, Napoleon: The End of Glory offers a more complete picture of the Emperor's decline and fall than any previous work. Price analyzes the political, military, and diplomatic events of the period, from Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 to the multiple failed attempts by Austria to broker peace. He illuminates the dynamic relationships between Napoleon and the wily Austrian foreign minister Metternich-whose desire for equilibrium within the European states system clashed with Napoleon's unshakeable belief in hegemony and subjection.

Tome 3 : Polotsk - La beresina - Leipzig - Waterloo. On a laissé Marbot en Portugal, combattant à Torrès Védras, à Fuentes de Ońoro ; dans ce tome, on va le retrouver franchissant le Niémen avec la Grande Armée... "J'engage le colonel Marbot à continuer à écrire pour la défense et la gloire des Armées françaises et en confondre les calomniateurs", écrivait Napoléon dans son testament.

Voltaire, born François-Marie Arouet in Paris, France, was a writer and leading figure of the Enlightenment. His insistence that all authority could and must be questioned was so radical, he ended up in prison several times and was ultimately exiled. Voltaire’s writings were instrumental in influencing the American and French revolutions. Man as a being with natural rights was a radical concept at the time, but one which the American founding fathers embraced. Voltaire’s anger was specifically directed at the arbitrary powers of the state and the church.

In many ways it is fitting that Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) is one of the best known figures of the French Revolution. The early years of the Revolution were fueled by Enlightenment ideals, seeking the social overthrow of the caste system that gave the royalty and aristocracy decisive advantages over the lower classes. Few were as vocal in their support of Enlightenment ideals as Robespierre. But the Reign of Terror became the most memorable aspect of the Revolution, and Robespierre's position made him the Reign of Terror's instrumental figure.

The profoundly inspiring and fully documented saga of Joan of Arc, the young peasant girl whose "voices" moved her to rally the French nation and a reluctant king against British invaders in 1428, has fascinated artistic figures as diverse as William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Voltaire, George Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, Carl Dreyer, and Robert Bresson. Was she a divinely inspired saint? A schizophrenic? A demonically possessed heretic, as her persecutors and captors tried to prove?