Sublime

She was allowed to deprive small men of their lives, she was not allowed to deprive great men of their property–or rather of other people’s property.

Gala, who was Eugène’s superior in both education and worldliness, was a warm and generous teacher. She shared her expansive knowledge of contemporary literature and her passion for the Russian Symbolists. She was particularly enamored with the critic and novelist Andrey Bely and his friend the poet Aleksandr Blok, two men who loved the same woman

Because being immensely wealthy would make her happy, wouldn’t it? It would make anyone happy, that’s the promise of America,

Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.

With the mind of a European philosopher and the looks of a musketeer, she combined qualities that had been combined in men. What was new was that they were combined in a woman—and

She had a proprietary way of admiring other people’s possessions, as if all good taste were in some measure a tribute to herself.

La salle était pleine de gens connus : les hommes pour leur nom, leurs talents ou leur fortune, les femmes pour leur beauté, leurs bijoux ou leurs amants.

Empress Eugénie

Started this research project after reading about Georgina Weldon. She’s notorious for having a litigation addiction but I’m obsessed with the time Gounod asked for his sheet music back after their divorce and she sent it with her name written across every page. When he attempted to have her committed, she escaped and