Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil, the wife of the infamous French writer Marquis de Sade, is the subject of Margaret Crosland’s illuminating biography Sade’s Wife. De... Read More

“Intelligence” surely deserves a place in this book’s subtitle: it was the quality that enabled Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, universally known as Madame de Pompadour, to... Read More