Francis I, King of France, hated Charles V of Austria, The Holy Roman Emperor, with every fibre of his being. He hated him even more after 1525 following the disastrous (for Francis) Battle of Pavia when a crowing Charles locked Francis in prison.

It’s a year now since French chanteuse Denise Le Brun took her final curtain and joined her friends, Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel and Marcel Marceau in Showbiz Heaven.

A Photographic exhibition by Mark Playle

Catherine, painted as the wicked witch of the west by some biographers, was loved by her daughters Elisabeth and Claude, her son-in-law Charles (Claude’s husband) her sister-in-law Marguerite, Diane of France (Henry II’s illegitimate daughter) and Christine her beloved grand-daughter.

Henri Cartier-Bresson: A Tribute.

Leonardo da Vinci and Renaissance perfume.

In 1912, visiting a relative in Tours, François Coty, the perfume man, fell in love with the Loire Valley.

In November 1791 Wordsworth popped over to France to see the Revolution.