France

The Duc de Rohan, write D.C. Norwood and G.A. Rothrock, returned from his Venetian exile to be given an important command by Cardinal Richelieu.

Poet, novelist, journalist and international commentator; Joanna Richardson portrays Théophile Gautier, a man who typifies the restless energy of the social period in which he lived.

Joanna Richardson portrays one of the greatest of nineteenth-century pictorial journalists, Constantin Guys; a remarkably perceptive artist, to whom Charles Baudelaire consecrated his most famous work in prose.

‘A sort of giant’, with immensely long arms and legs and a mop of bristling red hair, Felix Nadar employed his creative gifts in several different arts and sciences.

‘The poor King was thoroughly French in character, possessing all the liveliness and talkativeness of that people.’ So wrote Queen Victoria about the King of the French. Joanna Richardson offers her portrait of the man at the head of the July Monarchy, whose reign lasted from 1830 until 1848.

Joanna Richardson describes the life and work of the French father of science fiction.

Though he exercised little political influence, Victor Hugo’s genius and his ardent championship of liberty had made him a legendary figure long before his death.

In his memoirs Chateaubriand denounces Napoleon. But, asks Douglas Hilt, is it not a figure of grandeur and vision that emerges?

‘I sought in the Balzac...’ wrote the artist, ‘to represent in sculpture that which was not photographic... to imitate not only form but also life itself’. By Michael Greenhalgh.

The visit of the Baroque master in 1665, writes Michael Greenhalgh, coincided with a rejection of Italian influence by French taste.