NOT every house can boast a suite of tapestries given as a gift by the King of France to his future daughter-in-law, Marie-Antoinette.

Even though the catalogue is still in the course of preparation, the Irish Examiner can today offer a sneak preview of treasures from Bantry House to be sold by Edinburgh-based auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull on October 21.

INTERNATIONAL interest in the October auction of contents from Bantry House will centre on tapestries, icons and furniture.

Tallow Horse Fair by Arthur Maderson at Woodwards in Cork next Wednesday is estimated at €5,000-€6,000.

THE detail about the pelvic exercises got to me. Last Saturday’s Irish Examiner carried an article by the UK social scientist Catherine Hakim extolling the virtues of the relatively casual French attitude to married peoples’ affairs and the centrality of sex to French life.

The Library of Unrequited Love, Sophie Divry (translated by Sián Reynolds), Maclehose Press, £6.99; Kindle, £2.57

Recalling the 1745 victory on Fontenoy

I can’t lie. Paris still makes me weak. I’m indifferent as the rest of the muttering livestock through the cheap airline trip. Even taking the train from Charles de Gaulle through graffitied cement canyons and banal suburbs I can maintain my bored Gallic sang-froid. But rising like a pale little Irish salmon from the Metro into the sylvan light of the Left Bank, I’m a goner. Scurrying around the antique shops and markets is part of the integral thrill of any Parisian adventure, and you only need a day or two to immerse yourself in its magic.

THE sale at Mount Congreve made €2.25m at hammer. The clear inference to be drawn from the thousands who crammed three days of viewing which began last Saturday was that this sale by Mealys in association with Christie’s would not be cheap.

A Regency Carlton House desk at €82,000 was the top lot at Mt Congreve yesterday.

Secrétaire a highlight, says Des O’Sullivan