A Companion to Angoulême and the Angoumois is an anthology

about a fascinating region of France and its capital city.

History, art and local culture are seen here through the eyes

of their visitors and residents. Angoulême's position between

North and South meant it became a crossroads for many travelers

and pilgrims, also for invaders... Remarkable personages

are connected with her: it begins with the roman poet

Ausone and ends at the comic strip festival; a journey of

seventeen centuries. In between are accounts of Richard the

Lionheart and his brother John Lackland who abducted Isabelle

of Angoulême when she was only 14; the king François I

and his sister Margaret of Navarre who was one of the leading

intellectuals of the French Renaissance; Calvin who fled to

Angoulême to escape persecution in Paris and started his

Institutes in the library of his friend, canon du Tillet; Molière

and Balzac who used Angoulême as a model for satire of provincial

manners; and also Delacroix, Stendhal, Ezra Pound,

Charles Morgan and even Fangio... These and many other

stories, anecdotes, songs and poems are collected and introduced

here, the first book in English about the rich history of

the Angoumois.