He was a Secretary of State for the Foreign Affairs in the United Kingdoms. He was one of the most brilliant ministers, one of the most skilled, one of the most efficient, one of the most reliable, but also, out of all the government, the one most prone to drinking. It was because of this weakness that he never became Prime Minister, when all his qualities should have seen him appointed.
He’s a minister, he’s drinking more than ever and he’s on official state visit to Equator. There’s a grand dinner at the presidential palace with all the national authorities. The minister is bored to tears and is drinking honestly more than is reasonable. He discreetly eyes the creature wearing a long red dress sitting next to him. He can barely see anything, his eyesight clouded by alcohol. The service is endless, the speeches even worst.
Finally a bit of music, a waltz. The minister springs up, leans over to invite the creature in red to waltz with him. Answers the creature: “It’s going to be a no for three reasons. First, you are completely drunk; second, this is not a waltz, it is the national anthem of Ecuador; third, I am not a woman, I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Quito”.
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MURDER AT ST. JAMES’S PALACE III
30 May 2020 - 5 mins
“Sellis’ torso was propped against the back of his bed, his head practically detached from his body. His sheets and nightshirt were bloodied. Precisely as you saw earlier, except he appeared to you standing upright while the footmen found the poor man on his bed. The guard sergeant immediately noticed that an open, bloodied razorblade…
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MURDER AT ST. JAMES’S PALACE II
30 May 2020 - 6 mins
Born in 1771, Prince Ernest Augustus of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Cumberland, was 39 years old. The son of King George III and Queen Charlotte of England, he was, like all the princes of the reigning Hanoverian dynasty, blond, tall, burly, and red-faced. One-eyed, he sheltered his gaze under bushy eyebrows. His beloved,…
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MURDER AT ST. JAMES’S PALACE I
30 May 2020 - 5 mins
It was thanks to Henry VIII that the monarchy settled at St. James’s, where it continues to reside, at least fictitiously, for to this day, the decrees of Queen Elizabeth II bear the words, “Given at our Court of St. James’s”. Over the centuries, Henry VIII’s palace has been reduced, half destroyed by fires, and…
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ANNE AND SARAH
24 May 2019 - 3 mins
In the winter of 1711, France and Louis XIV felt absolutely crestfallen. Frost had annihilated the harvest; it was so cold that people were dying in the streets; the Spanish War of Succession had been dragging on for more than ten years; there was no more money, troops, resources, and no more hope. France’s enemies…
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THE TRAGIC WRITER
28 October 2019 - 1 min
It has been a long time since I read “The Manuscript Found in Saragossa”, and yet I haven’t forgotten it. This novel, published at the turn of the 19th century, is a mixture of eccentricity, poeticism, and suspense. Written with a master’s hand, it is gripping; it cannot be put down, it is a truly…
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“THERE IS ROOM FOR ONE MORE”
31 January 2019 - 2 mins
I saw this story in a very old black and white film. I read it in a collection of stories published by Benson, and had read before that it in a collection of true tales, of which I cannot recall the author. It took place in England in between 1905 and 1910. A man is…
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THE BOURBONS OF BHOPAL
2 July 2018 - 3 mins
Many years ago, I stumbled upon the trail of a branch of the Bourbon dynasty, which would have settled down in Bhopal, India. It was hard to find traces, proofs, and yet the story appealed to me. I conducted long researches. If Bourbon they were, they did not belong to the official genealogical tree of…
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LADY JANE DIGBY
21 June 2018 - 6 mins
One woman became the very picture of romanticism, in this time when so many men, so many women aspired to be romantic. She was not a queen, although she reigned on the desert. Jane Digby was born into English aristocracy. Her father was a lord who possessed a vast castle. She was raised like all…
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The Massacre’s Surviving Cross
22 December 2021 - 2 mins
One July night in 1918, Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, their five children and a few servants and loyal companions were murdered, as everyone knows, in the cellar of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. A few days later, the White Army liberated the city from the Bolsheviks. Then began the investigation into the imperial family’s…
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GLEICHENBERG
31 October 2021 - 6 mins
“We are witches; we want to suffer punishment and be executed,” howled the chained women. There were about forty of them, excessively made-up and dressed in brightly coloured rags. Count Trautmansdorff, the illustrious lord in charge of life and death in Styria, watched them doubtfully. He knew these peasants, these farmers. He had vaguely heard…
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THE CASTLE OF TREASURE
21 September 2021 - 3 mins
Alexander was a lawyer at a Swiss bank in Geneva. He was immensely bored of it, as we well understand. One day, he dropped everything and took his family away to a new life. With his initiation, they purchased a large castle in the south of France, in Ariège, in the middle of a little-known…
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A GHOST AT SANDRINGHAM
14 July 2021 - 4 mins
My father, Christopher, had the most profound affection for his aunt, Queen Alexandra of England, wife of King Eduard VII, and frequently stayed at the various English palaces. In the early years of the twentieth century, he found himself at Sandringham for the weekend, where he had a strange experience that I was reminded of…
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THE WHITE WITCH OF ROSE HALL
20 September 2020 - 17 mins
Rose Hall is the most famous manor (in Europe, you would call it a castle) in Jamaica. It was built in 1770, cost thirty thousand pounds – an incredible amount at the time! – and was considered the most beautiful residence on the island. Rose Hall was damaged during the slave revolt in 1831, to…
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SAVONAROLA AND THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION
12 July 2020 - 4 mins
It was 1992. Spain had organised, at great expense, a splendid international exhibition in Seville to celebrate the 500th anniversary of its discovery of the Americas. All over the city, a multitude of demonstrations, exhibitions, and performances took place. We requested, in particular, to visit an exhibition that brought together works of art, paintings, furniture,…
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THE TALISMAN OF POPE BORGIA
24 June 2019 - 2 mins
I have always had a weak spot for Pope Alexandre VI Borgia. History has smeared his name with horrid deeds; but I suspect that such a campaign was led in part by protestant propaganda. I had shared this theory with my youngest daughter Olga who was given zero for writing it in her homework….
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THE MURDEROUS PAINTER
29 March 2019 - 1 min
Fifteen years ago, I visited the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. I happened upon the section devoted to 19th century painting where there was a rather small painting, remarkably well painted, of a man who looked young and yet whose diabolical energy – horridness, cruelty, meanness – struck me so, that it overwhelmed me….
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A Great-Uncle’s Treasure
11 December 2021 - 2 mins
The other day, I went to the American hospital for a check-up. I came across Dr Ribadeau-Dumas. I remembered his surname because it was the same as one of my schoolmates as a child. He remembered me because he examined my arteries ten years ago. “You gave me the book about your great-uncle that you…
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THE TZAR’S TREASURE
1 December 2020 - 6 mins
At the beginning of 1917, Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children found themselves left with a handful of loyal servants who refused to abandon them when they were imprisoned in their home at Alexander Palace. Then, in July of that year, the interim government decided to send the Russian Imperial Family…
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THE WHITE LADY OF THE HOHENZOLLERN
17 August 2020 - 3 mins
In July 1857, King Frederick William IV of Prussia and his queen were on their way to the springs of Marienbad when they stopped in Saxony to visit the king and queen who were not only cousins but friends. At that time, the Saxony Court was at the summer residence of Pillnitz Castle where the…
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KIZKALESI CASTLE
17 December 2019 - 1 min
Many years ago, while travelling along the southern coast of Turkey, I stopped in the ancient village of Silifke, the Seleucia of Antiquity. Across it, in the middle of the sea, stood the towers of an imposing medieval castle that seemed to emerge from the water. Legend has it that in memorial times, be it…
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EVRIKLES
2 September 2019 - 7 mins
I was searching with Fivos for an illustrious character that lived in Palaipolis during the Roman Era. “No one known,” he tells me. In fact, barely anything is known of the city’s history. The only character tied to the Roman Kythira was called Evrikles. It was at a time in Egypt when Cleopatra and Mark Anthony…
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FROM PRINCE VLAD TO DRACULA
21 August 2019 - 2 mins
In the 15th century, Prince Vlad reigned over the Romanian province of Wallachia. He had had difficult beginnings. He was a prisoner of the Ottoman court. His father was assassinated, and his brother was turned against him. He was an intelligent, cultured man, he adored music and was an exemplary builder. Palaces and convents are…
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PHOTOS OF THE SPANISH ROYAL FAMILY
17 August 2018 - 3 mins
Infant Alfonso of Orleans and his wife princess Beatrice of Great Britain, uncle Ali, aunt Bee. He belongs to the Spanish branch of the Orleans family; he was an exceptionally gifted pilot, original, always unexpected, adored by his nephews and nieces, including me. She was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, a famous beauty like her…
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THE HANDSOME COUNT OF KÖNIGSMARCK
30 May 2018 - 3 mins
The one born under the name of Georges I King of England and his wife and first cousin Sophia Dorothea of Celle did not get along well. They had been forced into this arranged marriage and, since the first day they had met, it had been clear that this union was not to be a…