The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens: the Albigensian Crusade and its Aftermath.
The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens: The Albigensian Crusade and its Aftermath, trans, with introd., notes, and appendices by W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003). xxxvi + 162 pp. ISBN 0-85115-925-7. 45.00 [pounds sterling]. This well-informed, readable, and high-quality English translation of William of...

Music and Musicians in Renaissance Cities and Towns. (Reviews).
Fiona Kisby, ed., Music and Musicians in Renaissance Cities and Towns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. xiv + 188 pp. n.p. ISBN: 0-521-66171-4. A more accurately descriptive title for this book might have been "Musicians and Music-Making...", for only a few of the thirteen essays...

Le Moniage Guillaume: chanson de geste du [XII.sup.e] siecle.
Le Moniage Guillaume: chanson de geste du [XII.sup.e] siecle, edition de la redaction longue par Nelly Andrieux-Reix, Classiques francais du Moyen Age 145 (Paris: Honore Champion, 2003). 358 pp. ISBN 2-74530753-3. 28.00 [euro]. This closing poem of the Geste de Guillaume d'Orange offers an appealing combination of...

Services et metropoles: Formes urbaines et changement economique.
Jean Philippe, Pierre-Yves Leo et Louis-M. Bouliane (dir.). Paris: L'Harmattan, Collection Villes et Entreprises, 1998. ISBN: 2-7384-8211-2, 300 p. Cet ouvrage de 300 pages, reunissant les contributions de 16 auteurs principalement europeens, se veut resolument comparatiste. Faisant suite a la tenue d'un colloque a Aix-en-Provence rassemblant les...

Tortured Subjects: Pain, Truth, and the Body in Early Modern France. (Reviews).
Lisa Silverman, Tortured Subjects: Pain, Truth, and the Body in Early Modern France Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2001. xv + 264 pp. $42 (cl), $20 (pbk). ISBN: 0-226-75753-6 (cl), 0-226-75754-4 (pbk). After undergoing torture, and refusing to admit to the dubious charge...

Conferences.
Workshop on Sea-Ice Extent and the Global Climate System 15-17 April 2002, Meteo-France, Toulouse, France Contact: Dr. Chad Dick, Director, International ACSYS/CliC Project Office, The Polar Environmental Centre, N-9296 Tromso, Norway. Phone: +47 7775-0145 Fax: +47 7775-0501 E-mail: acsys@npolar.no...

Risk management French style. (Report from Europe).
The issue of terrorism cover was resolved before January 1 and the launch of euro coinage a success. But risk and insurance managers at the 10th annual conference of the Association Pour Le Management Des Bisques Et Des Assurances De L'Enterprise (AMRAE) conference had a hefty list of other...

The Trimouns quarry: Luzenac, Ariege, France.
In recent decades, the Trimouns quarry has become well known as a source of outstanding crystals of several rare earth element-bearing minerals, including familiar species such as allanite, parisite and bastnasite, as well as very rare ones such as hingganite, iimoriite and dissakisite. Beautiful micromount-size specimens are the rule,...

Mars express: in a huge gambit of tactical ingenuity and outright public relations, the Europeans have put together their first planetary probe. If it gets off the launching pad, makes the journey unscathed, and lands successfully, it may give NASA something to think about.
ONE MORNING LAST SEPTEMBER IN TOULOUSE, FRANCE, ANTONIO RODOTA, director general of the European Space Agency, stood in front of a crowd of reporters who had flown in from all over Europe to gather in a cavernous hangar. The floor of the hangar was covered with a red carpet,...

A slinky that lights the sky.
NASA'S POLAR SATELLITE HAS revealed one of the power sources behind the gossamer glow of the aurora: Alfven waves, oscillations in Earth's magnetic field that resemble the quivering of a Slinky toy. John Wygant of the University of Minnesota and Andreas Keiling of the Center for Space Research on...