Finished Pursuit of the Millennium yesterday, which left me in a scratchy bloody-minded mood. A steady succession of narcissistic megolomaniacs, all of whom preached mass slaughter to their followers, or else wound up slaughtering their followers themselves, and who invariably ended up beheaded or burnt alive after the region's population had been decimated in the wars to get rid of the megalomaniacs. Nobody in their right minds would want to live in northern Europe in the sixteenth century, largely because your life was likely to be brutish and short.

Also no one will behead the current narcissistic megalomaniac, or even impeach him.

More calmly today I started on Belles Saisons: a Colette scrapbook, which is photos of Colette and her circle with biographical tidbits. Glorious days, those. Natalie Barney, Liane de Pougy, Mathilde de Morny... those women had style.