La Belle Époque - Vive la bagatelle !

There had never been a time like it. At least, that's what they said.  A time in which the well-to-do threw off the mundane constraints of work and social life and gave themselves over to leisure and pleasure and playful activities.


In was a time in which sports flourished. The first modern Olympics took place in Athens in 1896. Technical advances in smaller and lighter engines allowed the development of motor cycles and automobiles and allowed motor sports to develop, which in turn gave rise to the futurist movement. The Tour de France began its first ever race on 19 July 1903. Bicycles, indeed, became a fashion, and with it an attendant new fashion costume. The same was true with golf, horse riding, and, of course, swimwear. And photography, already firmly established, led to moving images and to the first picture houses.

Alphone Mucha poster

Historically, it covers the period from the late 19th century to the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 leading to the Great War for the Civilization of the World, that 'vast universal mockery', as Louis-Ferdinand Céline called it. It was particularly present in the European capitals where posters  on the new advertising pillars known as Morris Columns announced the latest spectacles in the theatres, the cinemas, the ballrooms, the art galleries and studios. Among the artists who produced the posters were Toulouse Lautrec and Czech-born Alphonse Mucha, and among the creatures on those posters was Sarah Bernhardt, named 'the Divine Sarah' by Oscar Wilde, and the most renowned actress of the Beautiful Age.

King Bladud of Bath - Ancient Britain's pioneer aeronaut

From the second edition of Portraits des Roys d'Angleterre
engraved by Leonard Gaultier

Bladud was a descendant of Brute the Trojan and the father of King Lear, and is the traditional founder of the English city of Bath and its hot medicinal springs. He was also the first recorded casualty of an aeronautical accident while flying over Troja Nova (New Troy) or Trinavantum, now known as London.


He was the tenth ruler of Britain and the ninth king, the third ruler being Gwendoline, the widow of Locrine, one of the three sons of Brute. Bladud ascended to the throne in 863 B.C.,(1) succeeding his father Rudhudibras or Rhun Paladr-fras. 

Effigy of King Bladud
overlooking the King's Bath, Bath

The circumstances of Bladud succeeding to the throne are clouded by the years. According to one story, he was sent to Athens by his father to be instructed in philosophy, and, after his father's death, returned home with four philosophers and founded a university at Stamford in the county of Lincolnshire. But another story contends that he spent 11 years in Athens and returned a leper and was placed in confinement. He escaped in disguise and made his way to his father's court and offered his services for any mean employment available. He was employed to take care of the pigs in Swainswick, a small village near the place where Bath was later located. He noticed that some of the pigs would wallow in the mud even in the depths of winter, and he wondered why. So he followed them and discovered that the mud was warm, and noticed too that the pigs that wallowed in the mud did not have eruptions on their skin like the other pigs. So he tried it himself, and cured himself of his leprosy. He then returned to the court, declared who he was, and was crowed king of Britain on the death of his father.


King Bladud, as he now was, was a practitioner of necromancy or magic, and had it taught throughout his kingdom. He founded a temple in Bath dedicated to Minerva, where he placed inextinguishable fires. He performed wondrous and spectacular tricks, and created a flying machine made from the wings of birds. But it was while he was testing his invention, by attempting to fly at New Troy, that his magic powers momentarily failed him, and he fell on the temple of Apollo, which had been founded by his ancestor Brute, and was dashed to pieces, after reigning 20 years. He was buried at New Troy and succeeded by his son, King Lear, who, like his father, had a life prone to misfortune.


(1) In 1749 the architect John Wood fixed the date of Bladud about 500 B.C., a date more recent than various chronicles such as Geoffrey of Monmouth's Chronicle of History (1508); Chronicles of England by John de Wavrin, Lord of Forestel (written 1445-1471 and in print 1864); A Manuscript Chronicle from the Creation to Edward IV (c.1480).

Shakespeare's London: The Liberty of the Clink and Paris Garden

In the time of Shakespeare, pleasure-seeking Londoners headed south across the river to Southwark in the county of Surrey, an entertainment area that offered animal bating, stews (brothels) and plays. Shakespeare's own company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, relocated there in 1599, rebuilding its theatre in the area known as the Liberty of the Clink. By 1600, Shakespeare, too, had taken up residence in the borough.


Connecting London to Southwark was the one bridge, called, appropriately, London Bridge. It was nearly 350 yards long, with shops and stalls and houses of great splendour, and had a passage about twelve feet wide for the traffic of animals, carts and people to move along. At the London end was a water wheel which pumped river water through lead pipes to houses in the City. Over the gates at either end of the bridge the severed heads of traitors disloyal to the crown were displayed, a grisly warning to any like-minded sympathisers.


About half the bridge's breadth was composed of massive piers, which caused the tide to bank up, and for the water to rush in a torrential flow through the arches. Navigating a small boat through the arches, known as 'shooting the bridge', was a very risky manoeuvre, and therefore a challenging attraction for gallants eager to impress.


A contemporary commentator, Fynes Moryson, rated the bridge 'worthily to be numbered among the miracles of the world'. But for the watermen of the Thames, whose livelihood was to ferry people across the river, it was, in the words of Thomas Overbury, 'the most terrible eyesore'. The watermen made up about one third of the population of the liberty of the Clink, and ferrying Londoners to their chosen entertainment was a major part of their income.


The liberty got its name from the Clink prison, one of five in the borough, the others being the Compter (or Counter, in which debtors were jailed), the King's Bench, the Marshalsea, and the White Lion, an inn which had been converted to use as a prison. High levels of crime kept Southwark's sixteen constables fully occupied, though one hopes they proved more effective than Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing. Having crossed the bridge, the entertainments lay westwards, on the other side of Long Southwark, now called Borough High Street.

Aernout van Buchel's copy of a
drawing of the Swan playhouse
by his friend Johannes de Witt

There were three open-air-amphitheatre playhouses to choose from - the Rose, the Swan and the Globe. The Rose, owned by theatre entrepreneur Philip Henslowe in partnership with one John Cholmley, was the first to be built (1587), and also the smallest. The next built was the Swan (1595), and was clearly intended by its owner Francis Langley as direct competition with the Rose. A contemporary copy of a drawing of the theatre has survived. The Globe was the last to be erected (1599). Later, in 1614, the first combined playhouse and animal bating ring, named the Hope, was opened by Philip Henslowe, by then joint Keeper of the King's Bears with Edward Alleyn, the famous actor.

One further attraction was the notorious Paris Garden, it's name possibly a corruption of Parish Garden. Formerly a manor house and enclosed by a moat, its trees, bushes and fish ponds belied its trade as an exclusive brothel, where good food, drink and whores hand-picked by its lease holder, Dame Britannica Holland, were available at very high prices. Paris Garden had a further attraction as an animal bating arena.


Around c. 1602-1604 Shakespeare moved back across the river to his most documented lodging in Silver Street in Cripplegate Ward, near the parish church of St. Olave.

Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480 - 1538) and the Battle of Alexander at Issus

The Battle of Alexander at Issus (1529) by Albrecht Altdorfer

German born Albrecht Altdorfer lived most (if not all) of his life in Regenberg (Germany), where he served as civic engineer. His election to the town council in 1519 and to the inner council inn 1526 testifies to his high standing in the town. But he is remembered today as one of the most talented painters in the history of German art.

One of Altdorfer's best known works is his epic portrayal of Alexander the Great's victory against the Persian king Darius III at the great battle in Cilicia, near the town of Issus,  on 5 November 333 BC. He depicts the battle from an elevated viewpoint, the battlefield in the foreground with the vast opposing armies, and in the background the eastern Mediterranean with the island of Cyprus in the centre, Egypt and the Nile to the right, and the Gulf of Persia to the left. Alexander is seen on Bucephalus, the wild stallion that only he had been able to master, and which faithfully carried him throughout his Asia campaign, before dying of old age. 

As for the battle, Darius had made a disastrous choice of battlefield, unable to use his cavalry in the narrow plain, and the superior manoeuvrability of Alexander's force proved decisive. 

Alexander continued his conquest to the banks of the Hyphasis in India. There, after covering more than 12,500 miles, several of his generals expressed their weariness of the years of campaigning, and their desire to return to their wives and children in Greece. The next day, and with a heavy heart, Alexander reluctantly yielded to their wishes, and is said to have wept that there were no more worlds for him conquer.

Gustav-Adolf Mossa (1883-1971)

Les Mortes (The Dead Women) -1906

Gustav-Adolf Mossa was born in Nice, the son of Alexis Mossa (1844-1926), himself an artist of numerous posters for the Nice Carnaval at the end of the 19th century.


Influenced by his father, Gustav-Adolf began painting in 1903, drawing his inspiration from the Quattrocento of the early Renaissance in Italy, the Pre-Raphaelites in England and Art Nouveau movement in France. Then, after 15 years of intense creativity, he suddenly abandoned painting completely, with most of his paintings only coming to light after his death.


A collection of 38 of his humorous and often decadent works are on display at Nice's Musée des Beaux-Arts.

Dalila s'amuse (Delilah amuses herself) - 1905

Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894)

Rue de Paris temps de pluie -  Rainy Day in Paris (1877)

Gustave Caillebotte was a man of substance, in addition to being a great artist. 


Born into an upper class Parisian family, he had both wealth and high standing, inheriting the family textile business, as well as practising law and even serving as a judge. He was a qualified engineer, and as a soldier campaigned in the ill-fated Franco-Prussian war which led to the collapse of the Second Empire and the creation of the Third Republic in 1870.


He began painting after the war, and in 1876 became an active member in the ranks of the impressionists, contributing as an artist, but also as a patron, due to his personal wealth.


In 1877 Caillebotte painted his Jour de pluie à Paris, a charming street scene on the Place de Dublin, not far from the Place de Clichy and the Gare St. Lazare train station. The painting became one of the main attractions at the Third Impressionist Exhibition in Paris.


His other works include a quasi-photographic picture of a young man standing at a window. The location this time is the family residence from 1868 to 1879 on the corner of the Rue de Lisbonne, and the young man is the artist's brother. But the painting was too realistic for Emile Zola, who regarded it as anti-artistic and bourgeois, believing that reality 'which is not enhanced with the original imprint of artistic talent, is a pitiable thing'. Despite being a great writer and a friend of many artists, Zola also has the uncanny knack of annoying one or two - Paul Cézanne in particular!


C'est la vie, quoi !

Jeune homme à la fenêtre (1875)

Aberrant Apostrophe (aka Greengrocer's Apostrophe aka Little Flying Commas)

Those naughty greengrocer's.... erm, sorry, greengrocers

Thou whoreson apostrophe! Thou unnecessary punctuation! [With apologies to Shakespeare]

Until his death in 2009, English novelist and newspaper columnist Keith Waterhouse fought a never-ending battle against the use of the aberrant apostrophe, spreading through common English usage like an outbreak of flu.


The usage consists of placing an apostrophe in a substantive noun or number with the aim of making it into a plural. Thus we see 1960's used to mean Nineteen Sixties, rather than the correct 1960s.


The use of this rough punctuation began among immigrant workers in Liverpool for whom English was an acquired language, and is also known as the greengrocer's apostrophe as it is often seen on fruit and vegetables e.g. Apple's, Pear's, Banana's.


As self appointed Life President of the Association for the Annihilation of the Aberrant Apostrophe (AAAA) Keith Waterhouse hated the usage and claimed to have had an apostrophe incinerator in his back garden. While another advocate of its abolition, Lynne Truss, wrote in her bestseller Eats Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Book to Punctuation - 'If you still persist in writing "Good food at it's best", you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave'. 


Other annoying grammatical gaffs and howlers are the use of the replacement of the possessive pronoun your with the peripatetic apostrophe you're; and the confusion of its and it's, the first the possessive of it, the second the abbreviation of it is. 


And should it Charles' birthday or Charles's birthday?


Comments (or comment's if you're a greengrocer) welcome.