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On the first day of each season at true noon, inside the Église Saint-Sulpice, the sun hits a small hole in the window high above the south transept, and on the spring and autumn equinox, it hits a brass marker just inside the altar.  But why, you ask? It goes back almost three hundred years, to 1727, when the parish priest Jean Baptiste Languet de Gergy wanted to ensure the exactitude of the ecclesiastical calendar, particularly Easter and the moment the bells should ring.  Clockmaker Henry Sully was tasked with the project, but passed away before it was finished, and it was picked up years later by Pierre Charles Le Monnier.  If you look up at the south transept window on the right-hand edge, you will notice a vertical rectangular plate. Inside is a small hole with a glass aperture and an 80-foot focus lens through which, at the exact moment when the skies are clear, the sun flows and hits a designated spot within the church. On the winter solstice, the bullseye is on the marble gnomon on the wall of the north transept, and on the summer solstice, on the brass plate below the window.  For years and one spring, summer, and autumn after another, I have tried to see this magic moment. There have been cloudy, rainy days and funerals in front of the altar, but this past spring and again on September 23, on this first day of autumn, the sky was clear, as was the altar, and with fellow nerdy folks I stood on the steps looking down at the brass marker, and at 1:41 pm the sun began to crawl across the marble to its bullseye.  In this week's newest episode, I share all the details on the meridian, history, and the man who brought it all to life.  For more, check out ClaudineHemingway.com  check out a walk through Saint Sulpice https://youtu.be/GWPrXAceTFM Support the show

Anne d’Autriche was born on September 22, 1601, 425 years ago today. The wife of Louis XIII and the mother of Louis XIV has emblazoned her story into the history books, but it’s a set of rooms within the Louvre that really makes her legacy shine.   Today’s episode focuses on the suite of rooms within what was once the Palais du Louvre where the queen mother would spend her summer days and was created for her by her son, the Sun King. The ceilings include scenes from mythology, allegories, and biblical stories that were close to the queen mother and selected specifically for her.  Many of these scenes can be found in art as well as on other ceilings and in decor created under Louis XIV and the Bourbon kings, and once you learn how to spot them, the ceilings come alive for you.  Join me as we dive into the summer apartments of Anne of Austria within the Palais du Louvre, the only rooms that still retain their original decoration.  For more visit, ClaudineHemingway.com  Support the show

Henri Désiré Landru was born on April 12, 1869, in Paris, near the lovely Buttes Charmant. As a child, he seemed destined for a life in the church, but his path took a sharp turn along the way.  In 1912, at was the start of the Great War, and the men were dying on the battlefield, leaving women behind in Paris in need of new companions.  Henri used this to his advantage. In 1914, he posted his first ad. “Serious man, with nice income, wishes to marry widow or misunderstood women, between 35 and 45 years old, well in all respects, related situation” Henri used close to one hundred aliases, placing ads in dozens of papers. With such an enticing ad, the ladies were clamoring to meet this wealthy stranger.  283 women answered his ad, and we know of 10 victims, but many believe, now examining the police documents, that there were far more.  Henri worked fast; he stacked his days with meetings with the madams, hoping to meet the man of their dreams. Carefully noting every single detail in journals that would come back to haunt him.  Henri is better known as the Bleu Beard of Gambais Listen to the full episode and check out ClaudineHemingway.com for more  Support the show

In September 1792, over five nights, thieves broke into the Garde-Meuble and stole thousands of France's Crown Jewels.   Of course, there is the “Heist of the Century” that hit the Musée du Louvre on October 19, 2025, but it pales in comparison to the 1792 theft.    Support the show

In 1939, as Hitler came knocking on the door of France, the keepers of the great art of Paris sprang into action. While Hitler’s art-loving henchmen headed to Paris with a shopping list of must-have pieces of art, the treasures of the Musée du Louvre were at the top. Jacques Jaujard, the director of France’s National Museum, and René Huyghe, curator of paintings, devised a plan to save the art of the Louvre. On August 25, the Louvre was closed for cleaning for three days. However, what really happened behind the historic walls of the Louvre would alter the dictator's plans. On those three days, the staff of the Louvre, students, and employees from the Samaritaine worked around the clock, removing paintings from their frames, rolling and packing. Beginning on the 28th and the days that followed, more than twelve hundred crates left the Louvre headed to the Loire Valley. One special crate would travel on its own. The most famous painting of the Louvre, the Mona Lisa, would be packed separately in a box lined with English paper and wrapped in red silk. Marked with only the initials MN noted on the outside, she was strapped to a stretcher of an ambulance and hermetically sealed.  When she arrived in Chambord, National Museum officer  Pierre Schommer passed out due to a lack of air but was thankfully revived. She moved on to the Château de Louvigny along with curator Andre Chamsen and kept moving every few months. Always trying to outrun the German forces as they came closer and closer. Following the German surrender on May 8, 1945, the artwork began their return to the Louvre. On June 16, 1945, the Mona Lisa was hanging back on the walls of the Musée du Louvre, and on October 6, 1947, the museum was reopened to the public. Without the quick thinking and work of Jacques Jauhard and René Huyghe and the countless people who gave their time, most of the Louvre would have been lost. Listen to the whole story and the other times the art left the Louvre in this week’s Paris in Bleu Blonde Rouge podcast, out now.  Support the show

There are many events that truly altered and changed the entire trajectory of hundreds of thousands of people's lives. Every five years, we mark the rounded anniversaries of the Armistice, VE Day, D-Day, and the Liberation of Paris. While the clean numbers on the 5s and 10s look good, we should be reminded of many things every single year. At the end of August 1944, the Parisians had had enough, and after four years of occupation, they were going to take matters into their own hands.  It all began in the most French way possible: strikes. On August 10, 1944, the SNCF metro and train workers went on strike. The trains had been an integral part of the Nazi looting of art, furniture, and the deportation of French citizens. The resistance frequently blew up train tracks and disrupted the lines as often as possible over the four years of occupation.  Support the show

Six days a week, for 115 years since her theft, more than 30,000 people a day push and shove to snap a photo or selfie with the Mona Lisa, and most have no idea why they even need to.  On a hot Sunday, August 20, 1911, at around 4 pm. Vincenzo Peruggia entered the Musée du Louvre just like any other visitor. In the final moments, as the museum closed and guards ushered people out, Peruggia slipped into a storage closet between the Galerie d’Apollon and the Salon Carré. With a chunk of cheese, a small bottle of wine, and a baguette, he waited until the dark of night to emerge to begin the heist of the 20th century.  Visit ClaudineHemingway.com for more info and photos  Subscribe to my Substack for more https://claudinehemingway.substack.com/ Support the show

On August 10, 1793, the Musée Central des Arts de la République was opened. You may know it as the Musée du Louvre.  Art was not a stranger to the Palais du Louvre and going back to the 16th century, François I first held a few of his prized pieces. Under Louis XIV, they added the Salle des Rois, today's Galerie d’Apollon, and in 1725 moved the yearly Salon to the Salon Carré along with the Academy of Paintings.  At its opening, the museum held 538 paintings, 48 sculptures from the Salle des Antiquities, 39 antique and modern busts, and 29  hard stone tables with 36 hard stone vases, 37 porcelain as well as many bronze clocks, objets d’art, and two large Sèvres vases filling the Grande Galerie, and no Mona Lisa in sight.  Listen to the entire saga in this week's newest episode.  For more info, check ClaudineHemingway.com  Support the show

On February 10, 1638,  Louis XIII officially proclaimed the Virgin as the “special protector of the kingdom of France”. After 23 years of marriage, Queen Anne d’Autriche was finally pregnant, and Louis XIII vowed his kingdom to the Virgin Mary and to Notre Dame de Paris.  Louis XIII wanted a “great altar of the Cathedral church of Paris built with an image of the Virgin and her son,” and at her feet, the king offering his crown.  These things take time, and Louis XIII died in 1643 and would never see it started. His son, Louis XIV, took on the project in 1699, 61 years after the “vow,” and the statue's creation finally began.  In this week's episode, we share the story of the Vow and the creation of the beautiful statues held in Notre Dame de Paris.  Visit ClaudineHemingway.com for mpre  Support the show

The most recognized painting by the Romantic master Éugene Delacroix, La Liberté Guidant le Peuple le 28 Juillet 1830, depicts the event of this day, 196 years ago. Painted in 1830 for the Salon of 1831, the painting commemorates the Paris uprising of 1830, known as the Trois Glorieuses (Three Glorious Days) that ousted King Charles X.  Liberty is the focal point of the painting, an allegorical figure rich with Greek imagery.  In this week's newest episode, we go into the events leading up to the July Revolution and the painting it inspired.  For more info and photos ClaudineHemingway.com  Coming to Paris? Book a walking tour with me at ClaudineHemingway.com  Support the show

Napoleon has carried the brunt of most of the blame for the looting of art from Italy and other European countries, but not all of it lies on his shoulders.  The looting of art from country to country isn’t a new idea. It all started with the Romans and the Greeks and continues to this day. There are a few more international rules in place to stop this, but not everyone follows them. In the 12th century, Doge Enrico Dandolo looted treasures and the horses later known as the horses of Saint Mark’s while in Constantinople. Something Napoleon would steal as well.  Between the Revolution and the fall of Napoleon in 1814, the looting of art from the Vatican, Venice, Tuscany, and other corners of Europe was used to enrich the national museum. Authorized by treaties put in place at the same time, making the seizure legal. After the fall of the First Empire, a large majority of art was returned to its owners, but not everything.  What remains, and why is it still here in France? Listen to the episode to get all the details now.  Support the show

On July 13, 1793, Charlotte Corday talked her way into the apartment of writer Jean-Paul Marat and plunged a knife into his chest while he soaked in the bath, killing the Voice of the People within seconds.   It was a pivotal moment in the French Revolution and was made famous by the painting by Jacques-Louis David. A painting that is as much propaganda as it is historical and has become the very definition of the event. If you say “The Death of Marat” to anyone, they don’t think of the event itself; they think of this painting, but few know the actual details of the crime.  In this week's episode, we explore the event, what led to it, the event and the aftermath, and how it's been depicted in art of the last 233 years.  Visit ClaudineHemingway.com for more info and photos  Support the show

Few paintings in the Louvre are as unforgettable as The Raft of the Medusa, but behind Théodore Géricault's masterpiece lies one of the most horrifying true stories in French history. In this episode, we uncover the disastrous 1816 voyage of the Méduse, a shipwreck caused by political favoritism, incompetence, and arrogance during the Bourbon Restoration. Stranded on a makeshift raft, 147 people faced starvation, mutiny, murder, and cannibalism in a desperate thirteen-day fight for survival, while the French government tried to bury the scandal. Discover how the testimony of the survivors inspired the young Géricault to spend months researching every detail, creating a monumental painting that became both a masterpiece of Romantic art and a powerful political statement. From the tragedy at sea to the secrets hidden within the canvas, this is the remarkable story behind one of the Louvre's greatest treasures. Support the show

When the giant silver Olympic balloon rose above the Jardin des Tuileries during the Paris 2024 Games, it instantly became one of the city's most unforgettable sights. But in Paris, almost nothing exists without a connection to the past. In this episode, we uncover the remarkable history behind the Olympic cauldron and why a balloon was the perfect symbol. From the daring experiments of the Montgolfier brothers and the world's first animal and human flights to the hydrogen balloon that lifted from the Tuileries before a crowd of hundreds of thousands, the story stretches back more than two centuries. We'll also explore how the balloon fits into the historic heart of Paris, standing along the city's famous Axe Historique, where every monument tells part of France's story. Discover how the 2024 Olympic organizers blended cutting-edge design with one of the greatest chapters in the history of aviation, proving once again that in Paris, the past is never far from the present. Support the show

Poison, black magic, royal mistresses, and murder at the highest levels of French society—welcome to one of the most shocking scandals in French history. In this episode, we dive into the infamous Affair of the Poisons, the dark conspiracy that gripped Paris and the court of Versailles during the reign of King Louis XIV. What began with the crimes of Marie-Madeleine d'Aubray, the Marquise de Brinvilliers, would unravel a vast network of poisoners, fortune tellers, alchemists, and aristocrats willing to kill for love, money, power, and revenge. From secret experiments on unsuspecting patients at the Hôtel-Dieu to the calculated murders of family members, Brinvilliers became one of the most notorious serial poisoners of the seventeenth century. Her arrest, trial, and execution exposed a hidden world operating beneath the glittering surface of Parisian society. But her story was only the beginning. As investigators followed the trail of poison, they uncovered the activities of the notorious Catherine Monvoisin—better known as La Voisin—a fortune teller whose clientele included some of the most powerful women in France. Accusations of love potions, abortions, occult practices, and the infamous Black Masses soon reached the gates of Versailles itself, threatening to engulf the Sun King's inner circle. How far did the scandal reach? Was Madame de Montespan, Louis XIV's celebrated mistress, truly involved in dark rituals designed to hold the king's affection? And why were thousands of pages of evidence later destroyed? Join us as we explore the crimes, trials, and mysteries of the Affair of the Poisons—a tale of ambition, obsession, superstition, and murder that revealed the dangerous underbelly of the Grand Siècle and nearly brought down the court of Versailles. Support the show