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The feast of Saint Joseph (March 19), patron of the University that bears his name, brought back to the memory of its new rector, François Boëdec s.j., the recollection of Alban de Jerphanion, the first Jesuit martyr of the interminable war that broke out in 1975 in Lebanon, and a new episode of which, hopefully the last, opened in early March. Five other martyrs of this war fell after Father de Jerphanion. As a sign of homage, and with the publication of a new biography dedicated to one of their holiest figures, that of the Dutch priest Nicolas Kluiters, whose beatification process has begun, we present here this work, which includes unpublished details on the motivations of those who killed Father Nicolas. We also take this opportunity to highlight the general meaning of the gift he made to Lebanon, so that our homeland remains a model of "liberty and pluralism" for the East and the West, at the very moment when a militarized nation threatens to amputate an essential part of its territory bearing the memory of Christ's passage. Exalted as a land of holiness, Lebanon is also a country where, alas, priests are killed. The new rector of Saint-Joseph University, Father François Boëdec, mentioned this year (2026) in the annual discourse on the state and future of the University the figure of one of the first Jesuit "martyrs" of the civil war: Father Alban de Jerphanion, hatefully shot by a group of armed men on March 14, 1976, at the intersection of Mar Mikhaël church, while he was going to the airport to drop off a traveler. The words of the new rector pave the way for the remembrance of five other Jesuits "who died for Lebanon to live," particularly the Dutch priest Nicolas Kluiters, whose beatification process is underway. A documented biography has been dedicated to this model priest by the essayist, novelist, and journalist Carole Dagher (Passion for a neglected land, Lessius). A supplement to this work, The art of reconciliation in a torn Lebanon, has just been published by Dar el-Machrek. It is written by Francis Berkemeijer s.j., a compatriot and contemporary of the assassinated priest. This new work provides details on the circumstances of the passion and violent death of him who is considered "an artist of reconciliation"; a man who succeeded, through hard work, tact, self-forgetfulness, and perseverance, in developing Barqa, a forgotten Maronite village in the Bekaa, to the point that its inhabitants no longer felt the need to leave it. For Father Nicolas Kluiters' greatest achievement is undeniably having reconciled two families in Barqa who no longer spoke to each other. Revealed for the first time in this book, the details of his violent end attest to the courageous and holy death at 45 of a man of God, after unspeakable suffering; they also reveal the extent of the shortsightedness, cynicism, and cruelty of the Syrian Assad dictatorship, whose intelligence services are not strangers to his death. Christians, the real challenge "The miracle of my vocation in Barqa is that I was able to experience how villagers who fought among themselves became men working together," Nicolas writes in his diary. "In Barqa, there is no home without a photo of Father Nicolas," asserts the author of the new biography, who is in charge of the company's archives. "I believe that the reconciliation of the Barqa families is his greatest miracle," he adds. "For Nicolas, tensions between Christians and Muslims were not the biggest challenge. The real challenge was above all the vendettas between Christian clans, which often led to blood feuds and where members of families living in the same village no longer wanted to have contact with each other," the biographer further explains. These disputes erupted particularly when "abduction marriages" ( khatifé ) occurred, Father Berkmeijer specifies. Probable signs of a shift in mentality towards freedom of choice for spouses, the older generation could oppose these unions with an absolute rigidity of conduct that led to a total breakdown between families, and sometimes to acts of revenge. They say it's easier to bend an iron bar with bare hands than to change hearts. This change was the miracle that occurred in Barqa thanks to Father Nicolas. One of his means was simply personal contact. He worked wonders with a group of Palestinians who were blocking the construction of a chapel dedicated to Saint Charbel, near mountain pastures where Barqa goatherds went in summer. The Palestinians ended up helping to pour the roof. An "abandoned" region Arriving in Lebanon in 1966, Father Nicolas exercised his apostolate in the northern part of the central Bekaa plain, a primarily agricultural region which, despite the richness of its soil, remained poor and neglected. The newcomer had to confront the spiritual, cultural, and material poverty of his rural environment. In Barqa, where his pastoral service was concentrated, two clans of the same Maronite family coexisted without speaking to each other, attending Sunday mass in two distinct churches, located at opposite ends of the village. In this tribal environment, the law of vendetta was still in force, and an offense could only be "washed" in blood. It was to this unsophisticated Christian society that he devoted most of his energy, living for several years without a home, sharing the lives of the inhabitants, eating and sleeping in their homes. As a true Dutchman, this upright man of temperament had to get used to "Lebanese vagueness." Barqa was not his only concern. He traveled extensively in the region, providing catechesis, evangelical evenings, baptisms, first communion training sessions, and masses. Around the archipelago of Maronite villages scattered at the foot of Mount Lebanon (eastern slope), all villages were Shiite or "mixed." Left to themselves, placed in a minority situation, exposed to the tensions of war and the risks of displacement outside their region, all the inhabitants thought only of emigration. Nicolas quickly learned that the choice was clear: either give the inhabitants the means to survive, or resign themselves to their departure. But in his eyes, there was no choice: he threw himself wholeheartedly into the development of the village. To this end, he even obtained a diploma as a social worker from the Lebanese School of Social Training, now affiliated with Saint-Joseph University. Construction of a road and pipelines In a few years, with the active collaboration of the inhabitants, he succeeded in building a road leading to the agricultural lands above the village; there, he had concrete channels built to irrigate the fruit trees - a substitute for hashish cultivation. He managed to have an auxiliary school built in the center of the village, thus bringing its two conflicting parts closer together, and secured the arrival of nuns from the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts to take care of it. On the same site, thanks to the Order of Malta, a dispensary was opened. He was finally able to set up a sewing workshop in collaboration with a Beirut factory that provided the material, thus creating work for the women of the village. Loving men for the love of God doesn't come naturally. For the world, selflessness does not exist. For a Christian, selflessness is the only virtue that allows one to overcome the ingratitude with which work is sometimes received. The components of Father Nicolas's holiness in social work have not yet been clearly enough elucidated to be offered as an example. Let's say that they first include professionalism in the execution of tasks. Sustainable development held no secrets for Nicolas Kluiters. But he was a methodical man who "hated improvisation," says Father Berkmeijer. It also included the spirit of partnership between the families of Barqa or between the families and the clergy. Finally, it included absolute non-discrimination among the beneficiaries of the completed projects. All the villages surrounding Barqa benefited from his dispensary. Finally, it included the love of poverty, the fraternity of the poor. "It was from the mouths of the poor," his journal says, "that the Lord spoke to him most directly." Next article: The martyrdom, in Lebanon, of Nicolas Kluiters s.j., facing Evil (2/3)

My grandmother Aïcha came into the world in the last decade of the nineteenth century, at the very moment the global Zionist movement was taking shape. Her first two sons were born before the Great War and during it; after the armistice came her daughter and her youngest boy. A year before the defeat of June 1967, she could be found every morning at the saraya of Sidon, happy to have obtained from the International Red Cross authorisation to visit her eldest son Tawfiq, who had become Israeli without ever having left Acre. That authorisation was not enough on its own. For that exceptional event in a life like hers to become possible, she also needed to produce an invitation letter from her daughter Maryam the Jordanian, settled in Nablus in the West Bank under Hashemite sovereignty. But that family visit request was worthless to the Lebanese General Security without a special transit permit she had obtained from her son, a refugee in Damascus, where he had found work and shelter and finally settled. When Aïcha, in her seventh decade, received at last the final piece of the dossier, she said it called for a celebration. She packed her small bag for the journey from Sidon to Damascus, then Amman, then Nablus, to arrive before the appointed hour. On the day of the meeting, she set out from Nablus towards East Jerusalem with Maryam and all the family members who could join them, a short journey, this time without a permit. She prayed first at Al-Aqsa, then made her way with her family to the barbed wire on the western edge of the city, where she met her son and his family from morning until midday, without crossing the separation point. As evening fell, she returned unhurriedly to Nablus. She still had two days to spend in Amman at the home of my aunt’s sons, to hold her grandchildren, then a few days in Damascus where most of her scattered family had gathered, before returning to Sidon where her youngest son lived, working in Beirut at a paper factory on the Nahr corniche, in what had become East Beirut. He died there when a shell fell on the factory, the paper burned, and he was gone. But the old woman did not mourn him, for she had preceded him in her farewell to the journey of hardship, in her own bed, far from any civil war. “The Arabs of the Interior” This name designates the Palestinians who, for various reasons, did not leave their towns and villages when these became Israeli, at the moment of the declaration of independence on 15 May 1948, which we call the Nakba. The line of demarcation my grandmother had reached bears the name of the Green Line, and I have never understood why it was called green. Men like my uncle Tawfiq came to be known as “Arabs of the interior” (Arab al-Dakhil), or “Arabs behind the Green Line”, while David Ben Gurion’s government referred to them as the “Arabs of Israel”, at the very hour that Voice of the Arabs radio and Damascus Radio called them “Arabs of the occupied lands”. Subsequent Israeli governments then renamed these populations according to their religious or ethnic affiliations, speaking of “Druze of Israel”, “Bedouin of Israel”, “Muslims”, “Christians of Israel”, “Circassians of Israel”, or, in a more technocratic register, “the minorities in Israel”. Every one of these denominations, whatever form it took, proceeded from the same logic of erasure and denial of Palestinian identity. For these men and women were the indigenous people, those who had not left their land for a single moment, yet whom Ben Gurion’s government forced into internal displacement once the Palestine war had ended and the State of Israel consolidated itself through armistice agreements with the neighbouring states. It proved an embarrassing discovery for the new authorities, who found themselves administering some 156,000 original inhabitants of the land within their young democracy. When the Israeli army seized major cities, it drove out their inhabitants by force — in Jaffa, some 71,000 people fled or were expelled before approximately 400 residents were gathered into the Al-Ajami neighbourhood; in Haifa, 75,000 people were expelled by land and sea, and some 3,200 remaining residents concentrated in the Wadi Nisnas neighbourhood. The pattern repeated itself across cities, towns and villages. This was what led the Prime Minister to issue directives designating the Palestinians who had remained in place as a fifth column, a security threat to the nascent state and a demographic bomb to be neutralised. The government ordered them placed under military rule, at the army’s discretion, pursuant to the British Emergency Regulations of 1946. On this period, Dr Yaïr Baumel sheds valuable light in a lecture entitled “Motivations and Constraints of the Military Government Policy”. The Israeli authorities, he writes, adopted, in the first decade of military government, a policy of transfer towards Arab citizens, which reached its peak with the Kafr Qasim massacre on 29 October 1956 [...]. It was only in the following decade that the policy of the Hebrew state changed course, when it became clear that transfer was no longer realistic or viable [...] and that the encirclement of Arab citizens and their marginalisation began [...] as a threat to the security of the state.¹ He adds that the first Israeli Prime Minister ordered the Hebrew calendar to appear only on the identity cards of Jewish citizens, so as to identify Arab citizens visually²; that Arabs were excluded from the planning of projects affecting their own lives and that the formation of Arab capital was deliberately obstructed³; and that the attempt by the head of the Kafr Yasif local council, Yanni Yanni, to establish an association of heads of Arab local authorities in the early 1960s was blocked.⁴ The Recruitment of the Druze The Druze community in Palestine was living through a disastrous economic situation, marked by deep poverty, in the years following the proclamation of the State of Israel. The Israeli government saw in this an opening and exerted sustained pressure to compel the community to deal with it, using it as a lever in its relations with the Druze of Syria and Lebanon. It was by working through the Israeli archives that Professor Qays Firro exposed these mechanisms, in papers presented at the same study day in Nazareth. He establishes there that Defence Minister Moshe Dayan summoned the Druze leaders in 1954, in the town of Nesher, and proposed military service to them as an economic opportunity capable of lifting them out of their crisis.⁵ The invitation extended equally to the Circassian community. To prevent any real integration within the Israeli army, the “Minorities Unit” was created, its strength never exceeding a few hundred men. Revealingly, this unit fell under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rather than the Ministry of Defence. For Professor Qays, there was no doubt that it was a unit of propagandistic and political purpose, designed to sever the community from its roots, its Arabness and its Palestinian identity, by subjecting it and closing off every path of return. At the same time, the nationalist movement Al-Ard was hunted down until its eradication, and the journalists and activists who had continued working individually after the Nakba found themselves progressively silenced. The policy of containment, fragmentation and forced submission followed its methodical course. The End of Military Rule For two decades, Israeli governments pursued the total exclusion of the Palestinian minority from the apparatuses and institutions of the state. Israeli nationality had certainly been granted, but it remained emptied of its substance, as these populations continued in practice to be subject to the supervision of the police and intelligence services. To prevent them from constituting themselves as an indigenous national group with rights, they were dispersed and divided, secondary communal identities nurtured and antagonisms between religious, confessional, tribal and family components stoked, in order to shatter any collective trust. Restrictions on freedom of movement and property were imposed on them, as well as internal displacements from their lands and homes to places assigned by the police and intelligence services. This state of affairs lasted until the June 1967 war, in which the Israeli army seized the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Sinai and the Golan Heights. This new expansion made government through emergency law redundant, and the exceptional legislation was repealed at the end of 1968, bringing military rule to an end. The condition of the Palestinians of the interior then entered a new phase. Recognised henceforth as citizens, they benefited from a renewed legal status opening to them the right to vote and to stand for election, access to the labour market across its various sectors, and public services in education, health and social security. In economic and social terms, the change was real and significant compared to the preceding decade. The income gap between Palestinians and Jews has not, however, been bridged to this day. Infrastructure in Palestinian cities, towns and villages suffers from persistent underdevelopment, and the restrictions weighing on urban expansion remain severe. From this evolution new challenges arose for the Palestinian minority, tied to land, demography, education and employment, as well as deeper questions about identity and belonging, with Israeli nationality imposed on those who constitute the indigenous people of the country. A portion of them has settled the matter by fully assuming that nationality, but the majority continues to regard itself as an integral part of the Palestinian people, while simultaneously being citizens of a state that occupies another portion of that same people. These contradictions have produced elites capable of rigorous and modern thinking on questions that others prefer to evade. Organised Crime Armed gangs proliferate in the cities of Lod, Ramle, Nazareth and Umm al-Fahm, recruiting unemployed young men and exploiting conditions of marginalisation, despair and hopelessness. In 2024, the number of victims of these criminal organisations reached 235 dead, the majority of them young. In 2025, the toll worsened to 252, and investigations managed to identify those responsible in fewer than 15 per cent of cases. The Israeli security services found themselves accused, according to the version one accepts, either of tolerating the phenomenon or of deliberately sustaining it by disengaging from any serious effort at investigation. Popular anger within Palestinian society reached a critical threshold and spilled over into mass demonstrations in the cities and villages that had lost their sons. This protest movement transformed, the previous year, into pressure on Palestinian political forces to present a unified front at the elections for the twenty-fifth Knesset. That pressure succeeded in forcing an agreement on what came to be called the “Joint List”, which brought together the Arab Movement for Change led by Dr Ahmad al-Tibi, the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality led by Ayman Odeh, the National Democratic Assembly led by Sami Abu Shehadeh, and the United Arab List of Islamists led by Mansour Abbas. The alliance did not hold: the lists stood separately and won only 10 seats against a previous tally of 15, recording their most bruising defeat in the Knesset. Meanwhile, organised crime continued its advance, claiming 66 victims in three months, among them four women and three teenagers. The Palestinians of Israel thus reaped the bitter fruits of their political divisions. The Islamist bloc of Mansour Abbas had chosen to ally itself with the Zionist and religious parties and to participate in governments; the communist left bloc pursued its line of opposition and demands; the National Democratic Assembly had made the struggle against “Israelisation” its banner; and the Arab Movement for Change remained primarily oriented towards supporting its brothers in the West Bank and Gaza. The Islamist bloc’s singular decision to align with the Israeli right does not, however, exempt the three secular blocs from their responsibility for this failure. Their inability to unite amplified losses in seats and deepened the political and social marginalisation of an already fragile minority, powerless before the structural challenges that run through it and unable to stem organised crime that is sustained, invisibly, by a benevolence of state. Notes 1, 2, 3, 4 — Mada website: https://www.madarcenter.org/ 5 — Same source.

The past week, the fourth since the start of the conflict between Israel and the United States on one side, and Iran on the other, has further obscured the path to a potential resolution of the crisis. The true state of the Iranian regime remains an enigma, particularly in light of a mysterious statement by US President Donald Trump at the end of the week, suggesting that “a change of regime may have already effectively taken place,” while the fate of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei remains unknown. The American president, through his multiple statements, has contributed to making the landscape even more opaque, even as he continues to play the confidence card and he and his collaborators repeatedly assure that the end of the conflict is a matter of weeks. Negotiations were a major topic this week: it began with a five-day reprieve granted by Trump to the Iranians after a weekend of threats against their energy infrastructure. The Friday deadline had not yet arrived when an extension of this deadline was announced, until April 6. In the meantime, a list of 15 American demands addressed to the Iranians was revealed in credible media, mainly comprising conditions on the cessation of Iranian nuclear development and ballistic missile programs, and the end of support for Tehran's proxies in the region, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Hashed al-Shaabi, or Yemeni Houthis. The Iranians responded with a list of six points, notably concerning the condition of a prior ceasefire for negotiations and obtaining guarantees for a total cessation of the war. Despite multiple Iranian denials regarding ongoing talks, efforts by the prospective mediator, Pakistan, and other mediators, such as Egypt, are reported in the media, which would explain the new American reprieve. Nevertheless, the pace of the war has not decreased. Israeli-American strikes continued forcefully against the Iranian regime's infrastructure: at the end of the week, Israeli planes bombed nuclear sites. On the other hand, the prospect of a US ground military intervention is also becoming clearer, and plans for taking Iranian islands are also being discussed in the media. Ukrainian experts A new ally in the war against Iran has joined the efforts: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thus dispatched experts specialized in drone interception to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. For its part, the Iranian side shows no visible signs of weakening in its attacks against the Gulf countries as well as against Israel. Furthermore, the Revolutionary Guards, who seem to occupy an increasingly central place in the regime, took measures this week to completely close the Strait of Hormuz to more sustainably impact the global economy through rising oil prices. In short, the war seems to be expanding, not only in the intensity of strikes but also geographically. Iraqi territory is more frequently targeted by strikes, and pro-Iranian militias are increasingly active there. The US embassy in Baghdad is regularly targeted and was hit again this weekend. However, the most dramatic development this week will have been the entry into the war of an Iranian ally, silent until now, the Yemeni Houthis. Late Friday, they announced that if the strikes continued in Iran, they would open their front, even threatening to close another crucial strait, that of Bab el-Mandeb, and to paralyze navigation in the Red Sea, as they already did during the conflict in Gaza and Lebanon in 2024. Indeed, early Saturday, the first Yemeni missiles were heading towards southern Israel. The intervention of the pro-Iranian Yemeni militia at this precise moment would reinforce the efforts of the Revolutionary Guards to maintain economic pressure, parallel to the tightening noose against the Iranian interior. Economic repercussions and G7 This Iranian card of the Houthi rebels is being played at a time when the economic repercussions of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are worsening. The price of oil has exceeded 100 dollars, and populations and economic sectors worldwide are already feeling the effects. This issue was at the center of the G7 Foreign Ministers' meeting in France this week. The official communiqué from this meeting emphasized the need to stop firing on civilians and to work towards reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Behind the scenes, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was making his first trip abroad since the start of the war on February 28, was questioned by his counterparts about the prospects of the conflict. He himself told journalists that he would urge them to participate in efforts to reopen Hormuz. The war against the Iranian regime has caused tension in the Western camp in recent days: Europe's refusal to get involved is a source of dissatisfaction for the American president, who hinted, in a statement at the end of the week, that his country might no longer stand by the countries of the Atlantic Alliance after the end of the conflict… Israeli incursion into South Lebanon from the Golan Meanwhile, the situation in Lebanon is becoming more complicated day by day. Israeli advances in South Lebanon are becoming clearer, with confirmed reports of an Israeli infiltration of several kilometers into Lebanese territory and the beginning of occupation of several strategic points. The major new development on Sunday morning in this regard is the infiltration of Israeli soldiers into the South from the Golan, specifically Mount Hermon, a territory occupied by the Israelis in 2024. This military development is clearly aimed at further encircling Hezbollah militants in South Lebanon, as an extension of operations carried out by the Israeli army in regions such as Khiam, Bint Jbeil, or Naqoura. Meanwhile, this conflict is becoming increasingly bloody in Lebanon, where the civilian death toll exceeded 1100 this week. Hezbollah still does not communicate on its human losses, but the Israeli army speaks of hundreds killed (no fewer than 800), not counting militants captured and taken to Israel. It also reported killed and wounded in its ranks. A mysterious episode occurred this week in the sky of a region previously spared, that of Kesrouan, north of Beirut. On Tuesday, loud explosions were heard over Jounieh, the district capital, with debris falling on homes without causing casualties. The only certainty is that the missile is Iranian, but from where was it launched and what was its final destination? The most plausible option is that it was destroyed over Kesrouan by an interceptor missile, probably fired from the sea. Among the possible destinations mentioned are the US embassy in Awkar, or Hamate airport, in northern Lebanon, where there is an American presence. “Congress for the Salvation of Lebanon” in Meerab The most important political development this week in Lebanon was purely political. The decision taken on Tuesday, March 24, by the Lebanese state to withdraw the accreditation of Iran's ambassador Mohammad Reza Shibani and expel him from the territory, while recalling the head of the Lebanese diplomatic mission in Tehran. Shibani had been appointed in mid-February and had not yet presented his credentials to the President of the Republic. The decision, announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs based on consultations with the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, is due to Iranian interference in Lebanese affairs, which notably led to this new war initiated on March 2 by the pro-Iranian militia, whose military activity was rendered illegal by a government decision taken on March 2. Unsurprisingly, this decision provoked the ire of the Shiite duo, Amal and Hezbollah, whose ministers did not participate in the last cabinet meeting on Thursday. As of this Sunday, March 29, the ambassador is persona non grata in Lebanon and could even be arrested by any security agent. Will the Iranians and their Lebanese allies choose confrontation by advocating for the maintenance of this “diplomat” in Lebanon? This seems to be the case. But the Shiite parties have proven that despite their prominent position in this matter, they did not wish for the implosion of the government. On the Iranian side, no explicit reaction, but certain signs to decipher. On Friday, the day after the Lebanese cabinet meeting, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the Parliament Speaker (and head of Amal) Nabih Berry, to “express solidarity with Lebanon against Israeli aggression.” No further details are known about the content of the phone conversation between the two men. On the same day, the Revolutionary Guards published a strange document on their Telegram account, an obituary for six Iranian “diplomats” assassinated by Israel during a raid, four of whom were killed simultaneously in a hotel room in Beirut… The notice presents them dressed in military uniform indicating their rank within the Guards corps! The other important political development this week was the holding of large political gatherings at the Lebanese Forces headquarters in Meerab, Kesrouan. Many Christian figures from the LF and Kataeb, independents, as well as Sunni and Shiite personalities known for their opposition to Hezbollah, participated. The main points of the communiqué published at the end of these meetings concerned the demand for the creation of a special tribunal that would be responsible for judging those who dragged Lebanon into the war against the will of the state and the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, as well as the demand for compensation from Iran for the losses suffered during this war. On the sidelines of this meeting, the LF president declared to the Lebanese online media “Houna Loubnane” that “no budget drawn from the Lebanese Treasury will be disbursed to finance the consequences of this war, both in terms of displaced persons and reconstruction,” due to the fact that those who provoked this new armed conflict, without consulting anyone, must bear the financial repercussions, and not the state which was presented with a fait accompli on this matter.

From 18 February to 5 July 2026, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs presents "A Day in the Eighteenth Century, Chronicle of a Hôtel Particulier" — an immersive journey through an aristocratic Parisian residence of the 1780s, on the eve of the French Revolution. From rising to retiring, everything here follows the rhythm of the clock. This exhibition lets itself be breathed in like a long-vanished perfume, a small miracle of that Enlightenment art de vivre in which each of the 550 objects scattered along the route tells one and the same story: that of a vanished time whose refined aesthetics elevated Paris to the rank of European capital of fashion and the arts… a title seldom contested to this day. The Lever: an intimacy offered Behind the façades of the hôtel particulier, the city stirs. A muffled rumble of carriages, the calls of street vendors, the scrape of footsteps on damp cobblestones. Inside, another world takes shape — slower, denser, almost suspended. The day begins in the bedchamber, around seven o'clock, centered on a lit à la duchesse set perpendicular to the wall. Comfort makes its appearance, yet intimacy remains relative. The lever is a moment of sociability. Suppliers, secretaries, directors of conscience are received. Conversation mingles with gesture. In the milky morning light, materials come alive. Waxed floorboards, fabrics creased from the night's deep sleep, reflections of pewter and porcelain. The toilette unfolds slowly, according to codified rituals. Wigs of natural hair are powdered, beauty patches placed with precision on faces, powdery and floral perfumes fill the masters' bedchamber. All around, objects compose an intimate landscape: ewers, basins, soap boxes, finely decorated patch boxes, bidets, bourdalous. Almanacs, consulted within arm's reach, recall that time is structured, divided, mastered. A varnished sedan chair from the 1740s–50s, in wood, brass and painted canvas, waits quietly in the shadows, ready to extend this staging of the body within the city. Water is scarce. The bath requires a copper water-heater and remains a luxury. The toilette is, above all, dry, tactile, precise. Toilette and Appearance: elegance as language To dress in the eighteenth century is to tell the world one's story. A robe à l'anglaise in white silk pékin, traversed by pink stripes and green zigzag lines, brocaded with bouquets, embodies this exigence. The colours are subtle, never garish, the harmonies tonal. White, grey or blue, lifted by touches of something livelier. Silks, velvets and ribbons capture the light and return it gently. The rituals of beauty are strict: every patch, every powder, every perfume plays its part in a social language. It is in this era that Paris asserts itself as capital of fashion. European eyes converge here, drawn by this precision of taste. Morning and Movement: air, body, city After the toilette, the body steps out and breathes. Under the influence of the physician Théodore Tronchin, whose ideas circulate widely at the time, the habit of walking at several hours of the day takes hold — one tronchines . In the gardens of the hôtels particuliers, gravel crunches underfoot. The air carries mingled scents. Flowers, damp earth, and further off the smells of the city: leather, smoke, life. When one ventures out to be seen, silhouettes cross, greet, observe one another. Movement, too, becomes a language. Library and Boudoir: to organise and to withdraw Before or after the dîner — for so the midday meal was called in the eighteenth century — the library offers a space for reflection. Monsieur reads, thinks, consults almanacs and calendars. The day is ordered here with precision. He takes an interest in the wider world. China, Japan and other fantasised elsewheres nourish his curiosity. In counterpoint, Madame's boudoir is more intimate. She settles into a carved walnut ottoman, painted in grey and gold. She writes, reads, draws. She works with materials too, embroidering pearls, silk threads and cords. Her gestures are fine and repetitive, almost meditative. The Dîner: light and mise en scène Taken between two and four in the afternoon, the dîner structures the day. The dining room gradually organises itself: console desserte, ice coolers, a wall fountain, caned chairs. The table, often still mounted on trestles, becomes a stage. The service à la française presents all dishes at once. The colours of food, porcelain and glass enter into dialogue. At the centre, a centrepiece of spun glass captures and fragments the light. All is spectacle, and measure. Collations and Pleasures: sweetness and distinction After the dîner, the collation takes its place. In a salon or boudoir, one takes chocolate, coffee, tea. The perfumes are warmer, more enveloping. Chocolate, reputed to be a stimulant, is sometimes drunk from the saucer. The gestures are precise, almost silent. Objects extend the experience: porcelain, silverware, precious snuff boxes. Taking snuff becomes a social ritual. To offer one's snuffbox is a mark of attention and distinction. Games, Conversation and Music: the art of shining In the evening, sociability reaches its height. Games of tric-trac, quadrille and bouillotte punctuate the space. Tables, chairs, postures are all conceived for seeing and being seen. But above all, one speaks. Wit circulates, swift, precise. Conversation becomes an art. One thinks here of Patrice Leconte's film Ridicule : the same era, the same verbal virtuosity, the same peril of the ill-placed word. Music accompanies these moments — a seven-pedal maple harp by Sébastien Renault and François Chatelain, harpsichord and transverse flute, together composing an intimate chamber music, its sounds light, almost suspended. The Souper: towards intimacy Later, between half past eight and eleven at night, the souper grows more discreet. Servants withdraw, voices lower, gestures simplify. Mobile furniture allows one to serve oneself. A form of freedom appears, gentle, almost imperceptible. Sleep: the last surrender Night closes the day. White nightshirts, sleeping caps, slowing gestures. A night-light casts a fragile glow. In the final room of the exhibition, Le Sommeil , attributed to Hugues Taraval (c. 1779), condenses this tipping point: the body surrenders, weighted with all the sensations of the day. A collation may remain set beside the bed. Outside, the city still murmurs. A Sensuality of Time At the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, each object participates in a system in which time is regulated, the body composed, life staged. Muted colours, muffled sounds, diffuse perfumes: everything converges toward an experience at once sensory and codified. This world does not merely exist; it orchestrates itself. And perhaps that is what still unsettles us: that intensity of detail, in which every instant had a texture, a smell, a light.

In which direction is the war between the United States and Israel, on the one hand, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, on the other, heading? This is a question that arises daily since the start of military operations, and to which many analysts and politicians, playing the soothsayers, have already hastily responded with certainty. However, it would be necessary to acquire a set of concrete data, difficult to obtain, in order to have precise answers to this question. It must be noted in this context that one often takes one's desires for realities, and analysts sometimes describe their own thoughts rather than analyzing tangible facts. Military intelligence, whether American, Israeli, Iranian, or even Russian and Chinese, are the only ones capable of defining the situation of each party on the ground, knowing that in the past they have sometimes made serious errors of judgment. The set of data that must be acquired to evaluate the state of each belligerent as precisely as possible is innumerable, including: its exact losses; its ammunition stock for each piece of equipment; its battle plan and its flexibility; the course of its military action; the performance of each of its units engaged on the ground; the availability of its reserve combat units; the state of mind of its decision-makers at the senior military and political level; its economic and financial situation sector by sector; its dependence in terms of supply lines, or conversely its independence in terms of resources (human, agricultural, energy, industrial, financial, military…); its resilience; its sociopolitical situation and internal pressures; its will to continue the fight; its state of fatigue and its ability to carry out military and political maneuvers. Dynamic data The collection of all this information will always remain incomplete and will require the skillful use of artificial intelligence to draw credible conclusions. The fact remains that prudence is essential in terms of judgment and recommendations presented to decision-makers, whether they are called Trump, Netanyahu, or Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf. Each of them is surrounded by experts, but each also exercises their leadership within limits that cannot always be foreseen. It should also be noted that these data are dynamic and subject to hour-by-hour changes. It is therefore difficult to draw a complete picture of the situation and to make precise forecasts. Gaps could be filled by the analyst's imagination, which itself depends on their experience, level of expertise, ideological tendency, and political affiliation. The analyst therefore risks having flaws in their estimations. Only those with enough experience and culture could issue a credible opinion, often characterized by prudence and modesty, neither overestimating nor underestimating the capabilities of one or the other belligerent. Furthermore, recourse to the lessons of history could be useful. The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (March 1954) is an example, knowing full well that it took place in a totally different context. The Communist Vietnamese had taken the French military base of Dien Bien Phu, which was a humiliating defeat for France. It was well known that Dien Bien Phu would have been saved, and Ho Chi Minh's Vietnamese defeated, had the United States intervened with its air force for one or two days, but Eisenhower believed that such an action would have pushed China to intervene as it did in Korea four years earlier. Moreover, he knew that the communists ideologically controlled the Vietnamese populations and also controlled the countryside. As a result, the war would have dragged on despite his intervention. Fundamental questions Based on this example, the following facts could be noted concerning the present case: the American-Israeli military superiority is undeniable; neither the Russians nor the Chinese will intervene alongside Iran; the Americans are setting up an international coalition to ensure the security of the Strait of Hormuz to reduce pressure on the global economy, despite European discontent; moreover, the Tehran regime does not control all its populations, much less the northern and southern rural areas of the country. In return, the unpopularity of the war in the United States risks compromising the second part of Trump's mandate. The Iranian regime appears resilient, though unpopular, and press reports indicate that a sense of national belonging among Iranians maintains a minimum of cohesion under bombings. All this available data necessitates caution in evaluations. Furthermore, many questions remain without precise answers, except perhaps among military intelligence services, notably: what remains of the Iranians' asymmetric military capabilities? To what extent can these means still be harmful, however minimal they may be? Are the Russians and Chinese helping the Iranians or not? If so, what is the volume and quality of this aid, and its effectiveness in prolonging the conflict? Is time working against the Iranians, the Americans, or both? What is the true state of mind of the Pasdaran and the mullahs, and of the American command? Where does the will to fight stand in both camps? What about the weight of internal pressures on decision-makers in each of the two camps? … Uncertainties are numerous. However, the following can be stated: the minimum expectation is that the Iranian regime will certainly be deprived of the resources it had for its regional expansion, which would considerably diminish its capacity for harm, and for a long time. At best, Tehran would change its attitude, hand over radioactive uranium to the International Atomic Energy Agency, cease its support for its regional instruments, and agree to limit its drones, ballistic, and cruise missiles. The fall of the regime is not predictable at the current stage. Between these extreme expectations lie many eventualities, including the fragmentation of Iran into ethnic entities against a backdrop of instability and/or civil war, with spillover into neighboring countries. One could therefore write whole pages on this in the absence of complete and precise data, however, the Arab world and ourselves will certainly have better days.

It would be stating the obvious to point out that the post-war Middle East and Iran will not be the same as before February 28, the date of the launch of the American-Israeli offensive against the Iranian mullah regime. This war is entering its second month this Saturday, March 28, without us being able to perceive, at the current stage, the light at the end of the tunnel. One thing, for now, is certain: contacts and message exchanges have been initiated between the United States and the Islamic Republic thanks to the mediation of Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt. A meeting between the two parties could be held next week, but it remains uncertain due to the Iranians' request that it be preceded by a global ceasefire, which President Donald Trump reportedly refused. The Iranian regime also reportedly demanded a seven-day deadline to elaborate its official response to the 15-point plan presented by Washington. This seven-day period would be necessary to consult the different centers of Iranian power, which reflects the complete vagueness that continues to surround the real situation of the current power in Tehran. In any case, the current negotiations are taking place 'in the heat of the moment,' in the sense that American and Israeli air forces are intensifying their raids against military infrastructures and strategic centers throughout Iran, while at the same time the United States is dispatching reinforcements, including the aircraft carrier George Bush as well as no less than 8,000 Marines and paratroopers, to the combat zone. As military operations thus continue apace, President Donald Trump had an informal discussion with journalists late Friday evening (Beirut time) during which he practically outlined the new political landscape that could emerge after the end of the war. The White House chief paid a vibrant tribute to the Gulf countries, with a special mention for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, and the monarchs of the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar. "They showed greater courage than NATO leaders," President Trump declared, not hiding his bitterness about the position of certain European countries. The US President indicated in this context that Washington has always provided sustained support to NATO, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, and when the USA engaged in the war against the Islamic Republic, the member countries of the Atlantic Alliance remained passive. Addressing these countries, Mr. Trump declared: "Given your attitude, we are no longer obliged to stand by your side." This short sentence, added to the strong tribute paid to the Gulf States, seems to indicate that a dual US positioning could emerge during the post-war period: a cooling in relations with European countries and a crisis within NATO, on the one hand, and a significant strengthening of relations with the Gulf, with large concomitant investments in a context of peace revival in the Middle East, on the other hand. Military operations It remains that at the current stage, weapons speak, and on this front, Americans and Israelis seem to be working overtime to maximally destroy the military, nuclear, and ballistic infrastructure of the Islamic Republic. On Friday night, President Trump revealed that the American army had just dealt a "great blow" to Iran and that, as a result, "we have never been so close to a situation allowing the liberation of the Middle East from Iranian threats (...) and Iranian nuclear blackmail." He specified in this regard that the "military database" of the Israeli-US offensive still contains 3,550 targets. And he added: "Our armed forces annihilated Iranian nuclear positions during a shock operation tonight, at midnight (Friday). We are therefore on the verge of liberating the Middle East from Iranian terrorism and blackmail." The White House chief noted in this context that this war waged by the United States against the Iranian regime aims not only to "defend Israel but also the countries of the region." In practice, American and Israeli air forces launched about fifteen raids on Friday night and Saturday morning targeting the Bushehr nuclear power plant, "whose situation is strongly deteriorating," a qualified Russian source affirmed on Saturday. As a reminder, the Russian experts and technicians stationed at this plant were evacuated three days ago. Meanwhile, no less than 50 Israeli planes carried out raids targeting Iranian nuclear facilities "in three regions," the IDF announced on Saturday. Concurrently, the Israeli air force violently bombed numerous military and civilian industrial infrastructures in the Tehran region and other Iranian areas. Other developments on Saturday: the Houthis, a pro-Iranian Yemeni militia, intervened on Saturday by launching two missiles towards Israel. Meanwhile, Iranian missile fire on Saturday damaged radar installations at Kuwait Airport, as well as the port in Oman and an American military base in Saudi Arabia, where two American servicemen were injured. Political sessions at the Lebanese Forces headquarters In Lebanon, Israeli air forces continued on Friday night and Saturday to bomb the southern suburbs and several villages in the southern region. One of these raids killed six high-ranking Iranian officials who were presented by Tehran as "diplomats," whereas their obituaries show photos of them in military attire of senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards. On the political front, a major development marked Saturday: the holding of expanded political sessions at the Lebanese Forces headquarters, chaired by LF leader Samir Geagea, dedicated to the repercussions of the current armed conflict. The communiqué issued at the end of these sessions calls for the formation of a special tribunal to judge those responsible for dragging Lebanon into the war against the will of the state and the overwhelming majority of Lebanese. The communiqué also stresses that the state should demand compensation from Iran for the losses suffered during this war.