Pierce Brendan Brosnan is an Irish actor and film producer. He is best known as the fifth actor to play secret agent James Bond in the Bond film series, starring in four films from 1995 to 2002 and in multiple video games.
Sleeping Beauty, also titled in English as The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods, is a fairy tale about a princess cursed by an evil fairy to sleep for a hundred years before being awakened by a handsome prince. A good fairy, knowing the princess would be frightened if alone when she wakes, uses her wand to put every living person and animal in the palace and forest asleep, to waken when the princess does.
Françoise d'Aubigné, known first as Madame Scarron and subsequently as Madame de Maintenon, was a French noblewoman who secretly married King Louis XIV. Although she was never considered queen of France, she was one of the King's closest advisers and the royal children's governess. In 1686, she founded the Maison royale de Saint-Louis, a school for girls from poorer noble families.
The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later is a novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is the third and last of The d'Artagnan Romances, following The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After. It appeared first in serial form between 1847 and 1850.
Maria Karolina Zofia Felicja Leszczyńska, also known as Marie Leczinska, was Queen of France as the wife of King Louis XV from their marriage on 4 September 1725 until her death in 1768. The daughter of Stanisław Leszczyński, the deposed King of Poland, and Catherine Opalińska, her 42-years and 9 months service was the longest of any queen in French history. A devout Catholic throughout her life, Marie was popular among the French people for her numerous charitable works and introduced many Polish customs to the royal court at Versailles. She is also one of the popularizers of the hurdy gurdy in the court of Louis XV, she played the instrument and made the gurdy famous. She was the grandmother of the French kings Louis XVI, Louis XVIII and Charles X.
Marie Adélaïde of Savoy was the wife of Louis, Dauphin of France, Duke of Burgundy. She was the eldest daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, and of Anne Marie d'Orléans. Her betrothal to the Duke of Burgundy in June 1696 was part of the Treaty of Turin, signed on 29 August 1696. She was the mother of the future King Louis XV of France. Styled as Duchess of Burgundy after her marriage, she became Dauphine of France upon the death of her father-in-law, Le Grand Dauphin, in 1711. She died of measles in 1712, followed by her husband a week later.
Vonda Neel McIntyre was an American science fiction writer and biologist.
The Affair of the Poisons was a major murder scandal in France during the reign of King Louis XIV. Between 1677 and 1682, a number of prominent members of the aristocracy were implicated and sentenced on charges of poisoning and witchcraft. The scandal reached into the inner circle of the king. It led to the execution of 36 people.
Evelyn is a 2002 Irish drama film, loosely based on the true story of Desmond Doyle and his fight in the Irish courts to be reunited with his children. The film stars Sophie Vavasseur in the title role, Pierce Brosnan as her father and Aidan Quinn, Julianna Margulies, Stephen Rea, and Alan Bates as supporters to Doyle's case. The film had a limited release in the United States, starting on December 13, 2002 and was later followed by the United Kingdom release on March 21, 2003.
Anna Maria (Marie) Mancini was the third of the five Mancini sisters; nieces to Cardinal Mazarin who were brought to France to marry advantageously. Along with two of their female Martinozzi cousins, the Mancini sisters were known at the court of King Louis XIV of France as the Mazarinettes. Marie is an ancestor of Queen Paola of Belgium.
Françoise Marie de Bourbon was the youngest illegitimate daughter of King Louis XIV of France and his maîtresse-en-titre, Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan. At the age of 14, she married her first cousin Philippe d'Orléans, the future regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. Through two of her eight children, she became the ancestress of several of Europe's Roman Catholic monarchs of the 19th and 20th centuries—notably those of Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France.
Louise Françoise, Duchess of Bourbon was the eldest surviving legitimised daughter of Louis XIV of France and his maîtresse-en-titre Françoise-Athénaïs, Marquise de Montespan. She was said to have been named after her godmother, Louise de La Vallière, the woman her mother had replaced as the king's mistress. Before her marriage, she was known at court as Mademoiselle de Nantes.
Tous les matins du monde (All the mornings of the world) is a 1991 French film based on the book of the same name by Pascal Quignard. Set during the reign of Louis XIV, the film shows the musician, Marin Marais, looking back on his young life when he was briefly a pupil of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, and features much music of the period, especially that for the viola da gamba. The title of the film is explained towards the end of the film; « Tous les matins du monde sont sans retour » ("all the mornings of the world never return") spoken by Marais in chapter XXVI of Quignard's novel when he learns of the death of Madeleine.
Nec pluribus impar is a Latin motto adopted by Louis XIV of France from 1658. It was often inscribed together with the symbol of the "Sun King": a head within rays of sunlight.
Bag of Bones or Stephen King's Bag of Bones, is an American horror television miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's 1998 novel of the same name. Directed by Mick Garris from Matt Venne's screenplay, it was first aired in 2011 on the A&E Network in two parts. When shown on British Channel 5 on 29 December 2012, it was however shown as a single 2+1⁄2-hour film.
The November Man is a 2014 spy action thriller film based on the novel There Are No Spies by Bill Granger, which is the seventh installment in The November Man novel series, published in 1987. A British-American production, it stars Pierce Brosnan, Luke Bracey and Olga Kurylenko, with Bill Smitrovich and Will Patton also appearing, with the screenplay written by Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek. The film is directed by Roger Donaldson, who previously worked with Brosnan on Dante's Peak. The film was released on August 27, 2014 in the United States.
The King's Daughter is a 2022 action-adventure fantasy film directed by Sean McNamara from a screenplay by Barry Berman and James Schamus. It is based on the 1997 novel The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre. The film stars Pierce Brosnan as King Louis XIV, Kaya Scodelario as Marie-Josèphe, and Benjamin Walker as Yves De La Croix. It was William Hurt's final screen performance to be released before his death in March 2022, though not his final film work, as it had been filmed eight years earlier.
Beau Marie St. Clair was an American film producer. In 1996, St. Clair, together with her friend and producing partner, actor Pierce Brosnan, established Irish DreamTime, a production company whose credits include The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), Evelyn (2002), Laws of Attraction (2004), The Matador (2005), The November Man (2014) and I.T. (2016).
The Corsican Brothers is a 1985 TV movie based on the 1844 novella The Corsican Brothers by Alexandre Dumas. It was directed by Ian Sharp and produced by Norman Rosemont.
"Gwerz Skolan" is a gwerz with a long tradition in Lower Brittany, especially Léon-Trégor and Cornouaille. Its story is found in Old Welsh texts also, and the oldest extant Welsh version is found in the 13th-century Black Book of Carmarthen. The poem is cited as evidence for the preservation in Brittany of cultural memories and traditions predating the entrance of Bretons into Brittany. The gwerz was performed in Brittany until the 19th century, with some late examples from the 20th century. Its content describes a man who had died after living a life of rape and murder, and now comes back from hell to ask for forgiveness.
