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Hotel Chevalier is a 2007 short film written and directed by Wes Anderson. Starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman as former lovers who reunite in a Paris hotel room, the 13-minute film acts as a prologue to Anderson's 2007 feature The Darjeeling Limited. It was shot on location in a Parisian hotel by a small crew and self-financed by Anderson, who initially intended it to be a stand-alone work. Its first showing was at the Venice Film Festival première of the feature film on September 2, 2007, and it made its own debut later that month at Apple Stores in four U.S. cities.

The day after the film's première, it was made freely available from the iTunes Store for one month, during which time it was downloaded more than 500,000 times. The film garnered acclaim from reviewers, who compared it favorably to The Darjeeling Limited and praised its richness, poignancy, and careful construction. (Full article...)

Gabriel Urbain Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist, and music teacher of the Romantic Music era and genre. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, and nocturnes for piano. Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his greatest works in his later years, in a harmonically and melodically much more complex style.

Fauré was born into a cultured but not particularly musical family. His talent became clear when he was a small boy. At the age of nine, he was sent to a music college in Paris, where he was trained to be a church organist and choirmaster. Among his teachers was Camille Saint-Saëns, who became a lifelong friend. After graduating from the college in 1865, Fauré earned a modest living as an organist and teacher, leaving him little time for composition. When he became successful in his middle age, holding the important posts of organist of the Église de la Madeleine and director of the Paris Conservatoire, he still lacked time for composing; he retreated to the countryside in the summer holidays to concentrate on composition. By his last years, Fauré was recognised in France as the leading French composer of his day. An unprecedented national musical tribute was held for him in Paris in 1922, headed by the president of the French Republic. Outside France, Fauré's music took decades to become widely accepted, except in Britain, where he had many admirers during his lifetime.

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Le souper de Beaucaire was a political pamphlet written by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1793. With the French Revolution into its fourth year, civil war had spread across France between various rival political factions. Napoleon was involved in military action, on the government's side, against some rebellious cities of southern France. It was during these events, in 1793, that he spoke with four merchants from the Midi and heard their views. As a loyal soldier of the Republic he responded in turn, set on dispelling the fears of the merchants and discouraging their beliefs. He later wrote about his conversation in the form of a pamphlet, calling for an end to the civil war. (Full article...)

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  The French franc is a former currency of France and Monaco and, alongside the Spanish peseta, a former de facto currency in Andorra. The first franc was a gold coin introduced in 1360, which showed King John II of France on a richly decorated horse, earning it the name franc à cheval. A later coin, showing Charles VII on foot, under a canopy, was named the franc à pied. The decimal franc was established by the French Revolutionary Convention in 1795 as a decimal unit, and became the official currency of France in 1799. France joined the euro in 1999, and the franc was replaced by euro notes and coins in 2002.

  This picture shows a 100-franc gold coin, dated 1889, with a "winged genius" designed by Augustin Dupré on the obverse. Only a hundred proof coins of this design were minted.

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  The Bathers is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Paul Cézanne, first exhibited in 1906. The painting is the largest of a series of paintings of bathers by the artist, and is considered a masterpiece of modern art. He worked on the painting for seven years, and it remained unfinished at the time of his death. Often considered Cézanne's finest work, it is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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  Self-Portrait with Halo and Snake is an 1889 oil on wood painting by French artist Paul Gauguin, which represents his late Brittany period in the fishing village of Le Pouldu in northwestern France. It shows Gauguin against a red background with a halo above his head and apples hanging beside him as he holds a snake in his hand while plants or flowers appear in the foreground. The religious symbolism and the stylistic influence of Japanese wood-block prints and cloisonnism are apparent. The work is one of more than 40 self-portraits he completed. It is held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

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  Les raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Scrapers) is an 1875 oil on canvas painting by French impressionist Gustave Caillebotte. Measuring 102 by 146.5 centimetres (40 in × 57.7 in), it depicts three men scraping the floor of what is thought to be Caillebotte's own studio, apparently engaged in conversation. According to the Musée d'Orsay, where the painting is held, this is one of the first paintings to feature the urban working class, and indeed the subject matter proved scandalous at the time.

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  Lithograph credit: Jean-Baptiste Singry; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Joséphine Fodor (13 October 1789 or in 1793 – 10 August 1870) was a French lyrical artist (soprano) with Hungarian and Dutch ancestors. Her family moved to Saint Petersburg when she was an infant, probably because of the French Revolution. After marrying in 1812, Fodor and her husband moved back to France when Saint Petersburg came under attack during the French invasion of Russia. She performed roles for the Opéra-Comique in Paris, later being engaged by the Comédie-Italienne, and also appeared in London, Venice, Naples and Vienna. Experiencing problems with her voice, she gradually ended her operatic career and withdrew from the stage. This lithograph depicts her in 1815.

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  An écorché (flayed figure) of a horseman and his horse, prepared by anatomist Honoré Fragonard and on display at the Musée Fragonard d'Alfort in Paris. Fragonard was the first professor of anatomy at the École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort (National Veterinary School of Alfort) and prepared thousands of anatomical pieces. In 1771, after six years of teaching, he was dismissed from his post for being a "madman".

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  A Lantern of the Dead in Sarlat-la-Canéda, Dordogne, France. Such small stone towers are found chiefly in the centre and west of France. They are often thought to have indicated cemeteries through lights exhibited at the top of the structures.

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  Graziella is an 1852 novel by the French author Alphonse de Lamartine. It tells of a young French man who falls in love with the eponymous character, a fisherman's granddaughter, during a trip to Naples, Italy; they are separated when he must return to France, and Graziella dies soon afterwards. The novel received popular acclaim; an operatic adaptation had been completed by the end of the year, and the work influenced paintings, poems, novels, and films. This 1878 oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Jules Joseph Lefebvre shows Graziella sitting on a rock, fishing net in hand, gazing over her shoulder at a smoking Mount Vesuvius in the distance. The painting is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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  Saint George Palace is an historic building in the city of Rennes, France. Built in 1670, it was used as an abbey residence, replacing a much older abbey building that stood on the same site. During the French Revolution the abbey was closed and the property was seized by the government. Since 1930 the building has been listed as a monument historique of France. It now houses the fire services for the city and other civil administrative offices.

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  Louis XVI of France (1754–1793) was King of France (later King of the French) from 1774 until his deposition in 1792. His early reign was marked by attempts to reform France in accordance with Enlightenment ideals, including ultimately quashed efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille, and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics. However, after several years of national debt and financial and food crises, Louis was arrested during the insurrection of 10 August 1792, found guilty of high treason, and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793.

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  Homme au bain ("Man at His Bath") is an oil painting completed by the French Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte in 1884. The canvas measures 145 by 114 centimetres (57 in × 45 in). The painting was held in private collections from the artist's death until June 2011, when it was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Interpretations of the painting and its male nude have contrasted the figure's masculinity with his vulnerability.

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  A map of the the French city of Brest, dated to around 1700. Located in the Finistère department of Brittany, Brest lies in a sheltered bay close to the western extremity of metropolitan France. Originally named Bresta, possibly derived from a Celtic word meaning hill, the city came under the rule of the duke of Brittany in 1240. From 1342 to 1397 the city was under English rule, and became part of France in 1491 when a marriage unified Brittany with the French crown. Cardinal Richelieu designated the city a major naval base in 1631, a status it retains today. The city centre was mostly rebuilt after heavy Allied bombing during World War II.

In the news

• ...that the illuminated French 13th-century Histoire ancienne (detail of illustration pictured) told the history of the world in prose with moralizing verse?
• ...that Lycée Pierre-Corneille was founded in 1593 to educate children "in accordance with the purest doctrinal principles of Roman Catholicism"?
• ...that the monastery of Champmol was founded in 1383 as the dynastic burial-place of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy, but only ever contained two monumental tombs?