Patrick O’Connor
How We Laughed
Alexis: The Memoirs of the Baron de Redé
By Hugo Vickers (ed)
The Dovecote Press 176pp £45 order from our bookshop
One day, lunching at the Elysée, Alexis de Redé found himself sitting next to the wife of the then Mayor of Paris, Mme Tibéri. She asked him what he did in life. Nothing, he replied. Impossible, she said, there isn’t a soul who does nothing. ‘On the contrary, I’m always very busy,’ Alexis assured her. ‘One never has enough time in which to do nothing.’
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