THE MAN IN THE RED COAT

n the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days shopping. One was a Prince, one was a Count, and the third w as a commoner with an Italian name, who four years earlier had been the subject of one of John Singer Sargents greatest portraits.T he three men's lives play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. The beautiful age of glamour and pleasure more ofte n showed its ugly side: hysterical, narcissistic, decadent and violent, a time of rampant prejudice and blood-and-soil nativism, wit h more par...[Read more]