Unlike the rest of the boys, we have concrete information on Lesgle's background, yet for some reason, it appears this has not been fully explored. As I go on, in order to distinguish between father and son, the father will be referred to as M. Lesgle, and the son will referred to by his nickname, Bossuet ( Read more... )

Hello, nerd fandom! I've needed to do this for ages, and I've finally got it typed up in translation for those who haven't been able to utilise the resources in French ( Read more... )

Hi guys ( Read more... )

I can recommend the work of Charles Marville.
There's some excellent examples online on this Paris site and in the GettyI was pleased to find a couple of images of the Rue Tirechappe, now vanished under (I think) the Rue de Pont-Neuf (meeting the Rue Saint-Honoré): in the Hugoverse, in the 15C this was the Frollo family home, to which 19-year-old ( Read more... )

Read this and laugh (or weep).

(x-post to silverwhistle, prouvaire)

Earlier this year, there was a very odd production in Dresden of Schmidt's Notre Dame, updated to 1930s US, with a Jean Harlow/Roxie Hart-esque Esméralda…
Here's an English-language review and the opera house's own page on it.
There's a trailer for it here.
On the plus side, Claude is (correctly) in his 30s and (as the book demands!) gets his kit ( Read more... )

I've started to get into Ninety-Three, and in parts it makes me scream.
Boys, boys… You spend all night in prison debating the philosophy and ethics of revolution, instead of doing something useful like planning an escape?!!!
And Victor, did it never cross your mind that there's a serious "squick" factor in having a girl with a chest/shoulder ( Read more... )

In the 1950s, the 19C ballet La Esméralda was given a makeover, with additional music and more book-plot. This variant (which is sometimes called Gudule's Daughter, as it reinstates the Pâquette subplot) has been revived in Moscow at the Stanislavskii Music Theatre.
There's also a Royal Swedish Opera Ballet, Ringaren i Notre-Dame, from which ( Read more... )

Centre d'études du 19e siècle français - Joseph Sablé - Centre for 19th Century French Studies, University of Toronto, has lots of stuff on archive.org! Free!

(x-post to old_french_lit

I was lucky enough to pick up a secondhand copy of this fairly cheap (because it was in French, so hard to sell in the UK!), but here it is on line. Enjoy.