Abstract

Byron has an odd habit of turning up unexpectedly or at unexpected moments in our reading. This is as true of French culture as of any other. The essay which follows begins by setting out a ‘lightweight’ catalogue in which the name of Byron can be invoked on the one hand by a prize-winning chef or on the other to name a prize-winning racehorse, can feature in the world of the spy novel or that of 1960s popular music. The second half of the essay presents a more specific series of ‘unexpected’ references to Byron at crucial moments in French political history: Waterloo, the revolution of 1848 and the presidential election of 1995.

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