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“... mentioned have matured into a style informed by a concept of modal tonality), and from Messiaen to Pierre Boulez – whose orchestral Rituel in memoriam Maderna (1974) rescinds ‘total serialism’ and plumps (as Dominique Jameux explains) for a seven-note mode. To set beside this image of ‘Fauré the progressive’ (to adapt another Schoenbergian ...”

“... kind of positivist and exclusively political history. Almost a century later, the seven volumes of Pierre Nora’s Lieux de mémoire, of which this is the latest to be translated, stand comparison with Lavisse at least in ambition and scope. Sumptuously produced and copiously illustrated, they contain 130 articles by the most distinguished contemporary ...”

“... international standards of human rights. The conference was opened by the prime minister, Michele Pierre-Louis, who was appointed despite a scurrilous campaign by opposition forces, who argued that appointing a lesbian to such a prominent position was a violation of Haitian manhood. Pierre-Louis had been the director of an ...”

“... published an exposé accusing Kouchner of various intellectual, political and financial misdeeds. Pierre Péan is best known for having revealed that the dictator Jean-Bédel Bokassa, of the Central African Republic, had given diamonds worth millions of francs to Giscard d’Estaing, and for uncovering the extent of Mitterrand’s work for the Vichy ...”

“... that is funny, sort of, in a queasy-making way, but not particularly apt. A West German fag named Pierre asks: ‘But can you imagine anything more frightful than choosing to be a frightful spotty homosexual and wear horrible plastic clothes and live in the German Democratic Republic?’ When someone points out that no one chooses anything in the GDR, ...”

“... flailing about in sheds until two pieces fit together more or less by chance. It turns out that Pierre Michaux, who made iron parts for carriages in a workshop near the Champs-Elysées, and whose velocipedes ‘with pedals and a brake’ appeared in Paris in 1867, was not the inventor of the bicycle. He was the manufacturing partner of two brothers from ...”

“... what they called the ‘invasion métèque’, the foreign invasion. In 1994, the journalist Pierre Péan brought much of this to light in Une Jeunesse française: François Mitterrand, 1934-47. The president claimed that his early association with the nationalist right was the result of his upbringing in the Charente. In 1939 Mitterrand joined the ...”

“... of the French, they use the word ‘Cartesian’. But they ought rather to say ‘Laplacian’. Pierre Simon Laplace was born into a prosperous rural family in 1749; he trained for the priesthood; and in 1773 was elected to the Académie. He had recently composed a series of astonishingly assured calculations about the application of probability calculus to ...”

“... socialism. He also attempted (something which is greatly to his credit) to save the life of Pierre Laval, about whose execution de Gaulle was to show fewer scruples. In 1947 he served a final term as leader of the provisional government. Visiting the United States, he confirmed his deep-seated affection for Britain and America. He died in 1950 and ...”

“... 1780s choked off the oxygen of legitimacy necessary to the survival of the monarchy. He endorses Pierre Bayle’s remark of the late 17th century that ‘the tongue and the pen of one man alone are sometimes more useful for a cause than an army of 40,000 soldiers,’ though Darnton has in mind not one man but a few handfuls of hacks. Walton, a student of ...”

“... in 1974 an upbeat first-person account of his crime written by a 19th-century French murderer: Moi Pierre Rivière ayant égorgé ma mère, ma soeur et monfrère ..., a statement precious, in Foucauldian terms, as a rare public instance of the normally suppressed discourse of madness. Now, from the man who coached Foucault in philosophy, we have another bold ...”

“... a twig To deflect the starling, the starling is a little stare Alluded to by Shakespeare: Jacques-Pierre, His name alluding not to spears or beers Or shaking, though the mantis trembles a little, Helpless refugee. Or I imagine she does, Feeding that fantasy to my heart, an organ Alluded to by the expression ‘courage’ Like ‘Shakespeare’ from the ...”

“... in La Révolution surréaliste; the other ten were unknown until a French edition edited by José Pierre appeared three years ago. This translation has an Afterword by Dawn Ades, characteristically learned, limpid and illuminating. Incidentally, Pierre’s use of the word ‘transcripts’ to describe the reports of the ...”

“... For the reality presented in the story is indeed hard to bear. Having accompanied her lover Pierre to France, Jane, a young married woman, is trapped there by the outbreak of the Second World War. She and her son spend the next five years in the remote village of St Laurent-la-Rivière. The dragging privations, dangers and heartbreak suffered by the ...”

“... the case even among non-Jewish cartoonists. A particularly striking case is that of David B. (né Pierre-François Beauchard), whose autobiographical L’Ascension du haut mal (1996-2003) is available in a single-volume English translation called Epileptic. The ‘epileptic’ is Pierre-François’s elder ...”