Mabel Dodge was the wealthy wife of the automobile manufacturer of the same name. In the 1930s, she had an extraordinary villa built in New Mexico on the High Plateaux in the city of Taos. This paradise attracted a great many eccentric artists and characters. Mabel Dodge received all who thought and created, notably D….
His name was Francis Bannerman. He had come to the United States from his native Scotland when he was three years old and he and his family lived in Brooklyn. He worked in trade. He had specialized in purchasing American army surplus. The American Civil War and then the Cuban war had indeed left behind…
Behind the hotel, which had once been the villa of Mabel Dodge in Taos, lay a vast prairie, which stretched out to the horizon where it met a range of lofty mountains. I asked the headmistress, the sharp-witted lady with the shaven head, how we could get onto the prairie to take a walk. “You…
The Beresford is one of the most magnificent buildings in New York City on Central Park West. That is where we settled when we arrived from Europe: in a large apartment with spacious, high-ceilinged rooms. It was light-filled, with a splendid view of the park. Marina, myself, and our two daughters were very happy there….
Briskly, he walks through the French Quarters, crosses Jackson Square, turns around the Saint Louis Cathedral and reaches the gates of the cemetery bearing the same name. Now, he is no longer in a hurry. He takes his time to dawdle amongst the graves, looking for the one on which to lie. The moon, shining…
As luck would have it, Marie Laveau soon after met the love of her life, Christophe Duminy de Glapion. She would never marry him, for the simple reason that he was white and that the law of the time forbade such an union, but they had many children – fifteen according to legend! In any…
Marie Laveau was born in 1794, baptised and registered at the parish. Her origins remain, truth be told, rather murky: in her white and black blood mixed. It was even suspected that she had Native American blood. Some even said she was the daughter of a white nobleman and a black slave. In 1819, as…
At an evening hosted by the countess Zichy-Ferraris in Vienna, in 1808, was to be found, among several elegant women of the high society, the charming Princess Schwarzenburg, born to the House of Aremburg. Prince Louis de Rohan was playing with his deck of cards; he believed himself to possess a great talent for fortune…
The trial of Elizabeth Bathory took place during the reign of King Rodolph II of Hungary. The great lady was desperate about preserving her youth. Witchcraft provided her with a magic remedy, and an astonishing degree of perversion was involved in her attempts to apply it. She had a considerable number of young girls kidnapped…
The alarm had been sounded. The guards, torches in hand, combed all the paths of the park. They found Isabellita, still unconscious, her nightclothes stained in blood. With great care, they took her back to the castle and brought her to her chamber. A few seconds later she emerged out of her unconsciousness, and was…