He has danced in every palace of every capital, played in every club. He has hunted elephants through the jungles of India, boar through the forest of Austria, pigs over the plains of Massachusetts … He has ridden through Moscow, in strange apparel, to kiss the catafalque of more than one Tzar … Be he gallant, the ladies are at his feet.

Max Beerbohm, of (I think) King Edward VII

What audacious criminal, what mystifier, what maniac collector, what insane lover, has committed this abduction?

L’Illustration upon the theft of the Mona Lisa

The theft of the Mona Lisa

The theft of the Mona Lisa

…One passerby noticed a man on the sidewalk carrying a package wrapped in white cloth. The witness recalled noticing the man throw a shiny metal object into the ditch along the edge of the street. The passerby glanced at it—it was a doorknob.

If anyone else noticed during the rest of the day that there were four bare hooks where the Mona Lisa usually hung, they kept it to themselves. Incredibly, not until Tuesday, when the Louvre again opened its doors to the public, did anyone express concern over the fact that the world’s most famous painting was missing from its usual place.

My great idea is that one must forgive the pope. To begin with, he needs it more than anyone else. Secondly, that’s the only way to set oneself above him.

Camus, The Fall